Internal Vs External Document Conversion

Once you understand the many benefits of scanning your company's documents, the next issue to address is whether to perform the conversion in-house or to outsource this service to a dedicated provider.

Factors which could influence your decision may include:

1.The volume of documents to be scanned

2. Availability and skill of personnel to perform the work

3. The complexity of your information needs

4. Having the resources to fund in-house start-up costs

5. The need for on-going scanning

6. The condition of your document, including those that are delicate/fragile

For low-volume environments where documents will still need to be scanned regularly, an in-house solution may be the right option. In this type of situation, you may be able to easily incorporate document scanning into your workflow by equipping users with desktop scanners or using multi function devices already in your offices.

For high-volume environments where scanning will be an ongoing requirement, to the costs associated with setting up an in-house scanning operation include:

1. Allocating office space for the operation

2. Adding or re-purposing staff

3. Training of end-users

4. Investing in high volume scanners and scanning software

5. Assign a Manager to run the operation

In many cases, businesses with high-volume scanning needs benefit greatly from outsourcing document scanning. Not only does this remove the up-front costs of hardware and software, outsourcing can also allow businesses to implement a document management solution in a matter of days, instead of weeks, or even months.

Additionally, if scanning will be irregular, or is needed for a one-time job, working with a 3rd party provider may be your best option. This will save you the expense of purchasing equipment and hiring and training temporary workers. Datamation provides the most cost-effective and highest quality document scanning services in the entire Midwest.

If you decide to perform scanning in-house, Datamation can set you up with all the software, hardware and integration with your current system.

Document Conversion Costs

Scanning paper documents can be a labor-intensive process, unless performed by those with the experience and economies of scale like what Datamation can offer. The main factors determining the cost of scanning include:

The volume being scanned

The dimensions of the documents

How much preparation work is required before documents can be scanned

How much preparation work is required after documents are scanned

The number of pages per document, as well as the number of index/search fields per document

Whether or not you want your documents to be free-text searchable - which will require OCR Optical Character Recognition (the automatic recognition and capture of document text during the scanning process)

Whether the documents are to be scanned in black & white or color

Your required scanning resolution

How soon you need your project done

Regardless of how much or how little you may need, Datamation offers the most cost-effective document scanning in the Midwest. For a quote and a free trial, call us at (630) 321-0601.

Ji Collins is the author of this article on Document Conversion. Find more information, about Document Scanning here.

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