As a business, you want to be very careful with the information, data, and contracts coming in and out of your company. When it comes to privacy and security, and outsourcing your document scanning, the possibilities of something going wrong can seem daunting.
However, with the right research, you will be well on your way to selecting a safe company you can be sure will take good care of your documents and treat them the way someone working internally for your company would.
Here are some things you should consider when you outsource your document scanning:
1. Digitizing Old Documents
Are the documents that you want scanned and converted to digital worth the time and investment of an outsourced document scanning service? Carefully sort and consider the value of the documents you want scanned to save on time and resources. You don’t want to send a pile through to an outsourced document scanner of data you don’t actually need. When it comes to document scanning, before you send documents over to your servicer, clean them up first. That’s a must!
Also, do not send over documents in extremely poor condition (stains, ink marks, decades old, etc.) and expect your document scanning servicer to “magically” save and salvage them. If there’s no way you can do it in-house, your document scanning servicer won’t have a way either. That’s just the reality.
With some old documents, they are lost. You will discover this as you’re cleaning, but don’t be discouraged. Value this as an opportunity to start over and fresh with your document scanning servicer.
2. Comply with Regulations
If you are a healthcare organization, for example, and are sending sensitive information to a document scanning organization, be sure, before you send, that you are in compliance with your territory’s laws. You don’t want to send information about a cancer patient, for example, to a document scanning service who ends up reading all of the patient’s medical history and gossiping about the information later on. This could wind up in a lawsuit and is so avoidable. Being careful with the information you send over is just as important as carefully choosing your document scanning servicer.
3. Consider the Project’s Timeline and Methodology
Once you do select the right document scanning servicer, you’ll want to carefully map out the project’s timeline and methodology to be sure the company you’re outsourcing to meet’s all of your internal deadlines and demands. Include them as a member of your team in this way.
Provide them a timeline and list of due dates to help ensure the project’s success. Carefully map out what documents will be scanned, when, how they will benefit the business, and plans for ongoing communication. Communication is essential when it comes to your outsourced document scanning servicer.
4. Consider your plan for access
Once the documents are scanned, know how you will be able to approve and access them. Are you going to set up an FTP connection as the documents are being scanned to connect you with your document scanning servicer? Are you going to step into 2018 with extreme confidence and create a shared Google Drive or SharePoint account?
Whatever method your company is already using, you can integrate it into your processes in that way to increase your internal team’s adoption and liking of this new outsourced service. Ask your team how they would like to receive documents. Involve the people you need to with the big decisions, and everyone in the small day-to-day things that will affect them.
When you want to evaluate the benefits of outsourced document scanning, give CASNET a call to explore the possibilities of a safe, clean, valuable, and systematic approach that works for you!
