Frequently Asked Document Management Questions

There are many use cases for our medical scanning service, including the following:

• Patient Records
• Medical Billing
• Pharmacy Routing
• Electronic fax archiving and processing for inbound and outbound documents
• Medical Claims Processing

There are a few important considerations to make before converting your medical records.

• Which historical patient information should be available during and after the transition?
• What are the best methods of converting this information for use with your current EHR system? (if applicable)
• What is the best way to ensure that the converted documents are of sufficient quality?
• How long should the paper record be available after the scanning process is complete?

Law firms and attorney’s offices often lag behind many other industries when it comes to technology. With the increase in digital legal service providers and the average client’s expectation for online accessibility, digitizing your legal processes can be one of the most cost-effective ways to add value to your services. A few examples of core processes that can benefit from a document scanning pipeline:

• Contracts
• Legal Billing
• Expense and Time Tracking
• Client Accounting
• Compliance

The process of digitizing and indexing legal documents can be tedious and time-consuming. It requires a substantial investment in scanning equipment and software, as well as ongoing costs for employee time and training. Not to mention, properly categorizing and organizing large volumes of documents in a way that improves efficiency and productivity is not as straightforward as it may seem.

A professional document scanning service takes the guesswork and effort out of converting your files. Plus, it’s cost-effective, far less stressful, and helps you get the most out of your documents.

Converting your legal documents to digital formats offers many immediate benefits to your firm.

• Retrieve and view documents from any location instantly
• Share securely with internal team members
• Improve security with password protection and encryption
• Improve organization and reduce clutter
• Reclaim valuable office space by reducing the need for physical documents storage
• Simple integration with any current case management system

Our scanning service was designed to help accountants convert a wide variety of important business documents into digital formats with ease. Centralize your data by converting and uploading the following document types:

• Tax Records: Personal and business tax returns, W-2 and 1099 forms, and supporting documents such as receipts and invoices.
• Financial Statements: Balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements that offer a comprehensive view of an individual’s or business’s financial health.
• Payroll Data: Employee salaries, hourly wages, bonuses, and other compensation details, often linked to Social Security numbers and bank account information for direct deposit.
• Banking and Investment Records: Account statements, investment portfolios, and transaction histories that are crucial for financial planning and reporting.
• Audit Trails: Documentation related to any audits performed, which can include sensitive data flagged during the auditing process.
• Client Data: Personal identification information such as names, addresses, and sometimes even biographical data needed for risk assessment or financial planning.
• Legal Documents: Contracts, agreements, or court documents that might be pertinent to a business or individual’s tax status or financial obligations.
• Business Records: Operational data, sales figures, revenue reports, and proprietary financial models or algorithms.
• Receipts and Invoices: Both digital and physical copies of transactions related to personal or business expenses.
• Correspondence: Emails, letters, and memos that may contain sensitive or confidential information discussed between accountants and clients or third parties.
• Business Filings: These are official documents that have been filed with a governmental body and may include articles of incorporation, business licenses, and annual reports. These records often contain proprietary business information.
• Accounts Payable: These are records of all the money that a business owes to vendors or service providers. They often include sensitive details like bank routing numbers and the terms of business agreements.
• Audit Worksheets: These are essential documents that auditors use to record data during the auditing process. They often include sensitive financial data and observations about the effectiveness of internal controls.
• Proxy Statements: Used mainly in the context of public companies, these statements are sent to shareholders to disclose information they need before voting on corporate matters. They often contain executive compensation details and strategic plans.
• Evidential Documents: These could be anything from court orders to emails that prove or disprove a financial claim or status, and they often contain highly sensitive information.
• Loan Documents: These include promissory notes, mortgage agreements, and loan approval documents. Such files contain crucial financial figures as well as personally identifiable information.
• Advisory Letters: Often generated by consulting or advisory departments, these letters give specialized advice on various financial matters. They can contain both company-specific and sensitive client-specific information.
• Personnel Files: These files contain everything from employee Social Security numbers to performance reviews. The information is highly sensitive and is often protected by both company policy and law.
• Purchase Orders: These documents authorize the purchase of products or services and may contain sensitive price information, terms and conditions, and vendor details.

Each of these record types often contains sensitive data that requires meticulous handling and storage, with stringent security protocols in place to ensure data protection.

Any document larger than the two standard paper sizes (8.5″ x 11 legal size,  8.5″ x 11  letter size) is considered to be a large format document.

A few typical examples of large format documents includes:

• Architectural blueprints
• Engineering diagrams/drawings
• Large non-standard book pages
• Newspaper sheets
• Maps
• Schematics

The main reason for the “large format document” distinction is the need for special scanning and printing equipment when working with oversized documents.

It is important to remember though that large-format documents typically need to be removed from tubes or racks and loaded into the scanner one at a time, so the  process of scanning large format documents can take a bit longer.  These large sheets also need special care and proper handling to avoid rips and tears in your documents.

When you’re ready to start your document scanning project, it can be difficult to visualize the number of documents that need to be converted, especially when stored in various containers and filing cabinets around your office.

In order to simplify this estimation, we created this tool to help you determine how many documents you need to scan based on your current storage method.

Each available container type is mapped to an estimated document count ( as you will see when you add a single item in the calculator ) which is multiplied by the industry-standard rate of $.09 per sheet scanned. This makes it easy to take inventory of each storage container you have to get an estimated total cost for your scanning project.

For example, assume you have a 18″ W4 Drawer File Cabinet. Simply input 4 into the matching filing cabinet ( 4 drawers at 18″ each ) to get a rough estimate of (12,800 documents * $.09) = $1,152.00 cost.

Depending on how full your filing cabinets are, you may find that the estimate in our calculator is higher than what you’ll actually pay, assuming that some boxes or drawers are naturally only partially full. You may also receive discounts for bulk scanning which are not accounted for in this tool.

The national average cost to scan a paper document ranges from $0.07 to $.0.12 per page.  There are a number of other factors that can affect the price, including the condition of the documents and discounted rates applied for bulk scanning (large volumes = reduced price per page).

The chart below shows the average document scanning prices per page based on the type of material scanned.