Friday, 29 August 2014

Paperless Office-Document Scanning: The New Office Environment

By Loris F. Andres


It is hard to operate any administrative system without making use of extensive documentation. Companies, state authorities and other institutions use documents and papers in their processes and record systems. This gigantic amount of paperwork typically attracts criticism or barbed remarks. But these days, paperless office-document scanning presents people with an electronic option.

A paper-based office entails the costs of the paper, ink and printing equipment, and file storage venues. Staff have to spend time sorting or packing away files. Moving paper records from one place to another is also an exercise in logistics: the boxes of files are heavy and fax machines do not always produce copies of acceptable quality. Physical files sometimes get lost or damaged.

In terms of social awareness, modern environmentalists argue against paper as a medium of communication or data storage. Paper is made using trees, and the impact on the environment of paper's manufacturing process has been raised. Recycled paper is not yet a standard item in the stationery industry. The disposal of waste paper adds considerably to the burden of pollution in the economy.

Using electronic methods to manage paperwork is therefore a sensible option. Masses of documents can be loaded onto a single device, such as a computer hard-drive or a USB drive. Backing up the documents is fast, even if they constitute the entire archive of an institution. Electronic equipment takes up a small amount of space on the premises, and is easy to move around. In any event, transporting the equipment is not necessary if e-mail or document cloud services are in use.

A document cloud website is a site on the internet that provides extensive storage space to its users. They can upload and keep substantial archives of records there. This is helpful, since users can potentially visit the site and download their stored records from anywhere that they may find themselves. They do not need to transport the material with them. Some cloud sites operate on a paid basis, so interested parties should research the available options in terms of the sites' security integrity and storage allowances and decide what will best meet their requirements.

A paperless office has advantages over the traditional one. Electronic documents, if scanned properly, are always legible. E-mail is an instant form of communication and allows large amounts of material to be attached and sent. Some file formats can condense hundreds of pages into a relatively small file of only a few hundred kilobytes. Faxing that same item would take hours and would not be attempted, not to mention the paper that would be used.

The costs of operating an office can be diminished by the use of scanning and computer or online document archiving. The electronic equipment's expense should be contrasted with the saving in stationery and staff time. Paperless administration is a part of the economy that has seen the replacement of physical paperwork by modern technology and innovation.




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