Whether in business or personal settings, we all sometimes feel like we are in the middle of a paper avalanche. Most large companies have adopted a document management system that uses OCR scanning to capture, index and store documents. But for small to medium sized businesses, and even for paper laden individuals, the question of scanning often comes down to cost and effort.

Price

Generally, document scanning services charge a fee based on a combination of how much paper you have, what resolution you need, whether you want black and white or color, and how/where you are going to store the files. You might pay 15 cents a page or more for a service to scan and index if your volume is low. If you do your own scanning you need to calculate the price of a good OCR scanner and the time factors of prepping and scanning.

Though pricey, scanning may be the way to go if you HATE paper, or if you need to have several people be able to access the data, especially from remote locations. It also pays if it is costing you a lot for physical storage space. If indexed properly you will be able to find things quickly and the documents will always be available to be printed or attached to e-mail.

Calculating the amount of paper

You will be amazed at how much paper your typical file box or cabinet will hold. The website documentscanningservice.com has a handy Estimation Guide. For example, a standard paper file box can hold 2000-2500 pages. A lateral file cabinet could hold 5,500-6,000 pages. Who knew?

What to keep on paper

If you decide to scan, business experts like Barbara Weltman advise you to keep the originals of some documents such as tax returns, current bank records, and “historic” company documents like your first contract or lease.

The website for Digiscribe.info, a document management company, has a good glossary of terms relating to document management and also a good overview of the benefits of going paperless.

As for me, I can totally see the benefits to scanning but I LOVE paper – the feel, the look, the fact that I can dog ear it, carry it with me, put sticky notes on it – I even make art with it. And besides, how can you look busy if you don’t have copious amounts of it on your desk!