Document Management & Scanning Service

[bobster316]

Does anyone have any experience on setting up a Document Management & Scanning Business. There is one company offering a franchise but i have yet to get the details from them.

Thanks

 

[sanjiv]

What is the name of the franchise?

What do you mean? You go into an office and make them paperless and train their staff?

 

[bobster316]

I was thinking more in the line of a bureau type setup. Target Solicitors, Accountants, Medical, etc.. any company which deals with lots of paperwork, scan and transfer their existing documents to either indexed dvd format or online.

 

[sanjiv]

I don't think there would be much demand for that.

There would be more for setting up software for them for document management.

Getting all their existing paperwork and loading it up for them.

Also offering a storage service for archived documents would be good as some people would prefer to still keep a hard copy.

You could keep the files stored on the cloud or on their servers. That would be dependant on who it is you are dealing with. Some people are not comfortable with storing on the cloud.

 

[oldeagleeye]

Recently spent a couple of weeks in hospital and really impressed with how the NHS now did with paperwork as they have always been one the biggest paper shufflers in the UK.

Not any more X ray. Mi scans - blood tests etc go straignt on to computer. A junior doctor was on duty from 8 am to 8 pm mainly entering info from ward rounds like medication - progress etc straight onto computer.

In short they do everything in house and efficiently. No need for outsourcing.

BTW. there is also a problem with targeting solicitors and accountants. Well two actually. One is called the data protection act. They can't just outsource to anyone. 2) If a solicitor of accountant spends time on paperwork they can charge extra fees for it and at up to £300-£400 an hr here is no incentive to outsource to a doc scanning service.

 

[sanjiv]

Recently spent a couple of weeks in hospital and really impressed with how the NHS now did with paperwork as they have always been one the biggest paper shufflers in the UK.

Not any more X ray. Mi scans - blood tests etc go straignt on to computer. A junior doctor was on duty from 8 am to 8 pm mainly entering info from ward rounds like medication - progress etc straight onto computer.

In short they do everything in house and efficiently. No need for outsourcing.

BTW. there is also a problem with targeting solicitors and accountants. Well two actually. One is called the data protection act. They can't just outsource to anyone. 2) If a solicitor of accountant spends time on paperwork they can charge extra fees for it and at up to £300-£400 an hr here is no incentive to outsource to a doc scanning service.

I think what he should do it just the setting up part. They can then manage it themselves and you can provide support to them.

I think you will be wanting to target small businesses who are doing quite well and have been running for a few years so they will have quite a bit of paperwork.

 

[bobster316]

I am still in the early stages of research, and i'm not 100% sure about the legalities of scanning/storing documents on behalf of law firms and accountants.

If controls/processes were put into place to ensure this was addressed, BSI BIP0008 and ISO would that be okay.

Furthermore once documents are online and in a secure environment, the next stage could be to offshore some admin, backoffice, paralegal work on these documents to India.

For Solicitors and Law firms i believe this is referred to as Legal Process Outsourcing.

I could establish my own team in India to carry out this work by recruiting a Uk qualified legal team.

What do you think.

 

[sanjiv]

Not all companies would be happy with you storing the data online and may want it stored on servers within their organisation.

 

[andav]

I met a guy recently who sells doc management/scanning solutions. The markets big but he said selling to solictors/accountants etc is a hard slog. Many are very traditional and don't embrace such drastic change

 

[oldeagleeye]

OP I gave you several reasons why this was a no brainer. Let me give you another. TIMING is an important element in any busines venture and you are 20 years too late.

Way back then there were few computers and even fewer scanners around at that time and the latter were hand held jobs which scanned about 4inch. So a serivice like you contemplate may have been viable.

Todayhowever computers are dirt cheap. Multifunction printers are under £40 quid and we don't even need to use them in everyday business. Most of us save a copy to file then print. Why an earth would be need to outsouce scanning.

Don't just take my word for it however. We have a lot of solicistors and accountants in this forum. Why not ask them if there would be a demand for such a service.

R

 

[sanjiv]

OP I gave you several reasons why this was a no brainer. Let me give you another. TIMING is an important element in any busines venture and you are 20 years too late.

Way back then there were few computers and even fewer scanners around at that time and the latter were hand held jobs which scanned about 4inch. So a serivice like you contemplate may have been viable.

Todayhowever computers are dirt cheap. Multifunction printers are under £40 quid and we don't even need to use them in everyday business. Most of us save a copy to file then print. Why an earth would be need to outsouce scanning.

Don't just take my word for it however. We have a lot of solicistors and accountants in this forum. Why not ask them if there would be a demand for such a service.

R

Companies would only use you to switch over to paperless if they haven't done so already.

 

[Tony_Round]

OP I gave you several reasons why this was a no brainer. Let me give you another. TIMING is an important element in any busines venture and you are 20 years too late.

Way back then there were few computers and even fewer scanners around at that time and the latter were hand held jobs which scanned about 4inch. So a serivice like you contemplate may have been viable.

Todayhowever computers are dirt cheap. Multifunction printers are under £40 quid and we don't even need to use them in everyday business. Most of us save a copy to file then print. Why an earth would be need to outsouce scanning.

Don't just take my word for it however. We have a lot of solicistors and accountants in this forum. Why not ask them if there would be a demand for such a service.

R

I think you maybe suprised at how far behind the times some companies are when it comes to 'paperless' environments. Especially the larger firms who you would expect to be at the forefront.

 

[bobster316]

the franchise i was referring to at the beginning of this thread is http://www.thecabinetoffice.co.uk/

 

[oldeagleeye]

There you go again Sanji with your uneducated uniformed appreciation of a situation.

We are mot taliking about a papered for a paerless office. That will never happen unless laws are changed. What we are talking about is a need to outsource to a 'scanning service' .I can't see any.

As for big companies as indicated by Tony. Come on ow. He obviously is too young to remember fiche machines. Those paperless records go back to pre World War 11 and most of our banks and larger businesses have them.

Please don't post opinions when you are only guessiing then. As i suggested all the OP has to do is canvas and few members who are solicitors or accontants.

 

[Tony_Round]

There you go again Sanji with your uneducated uniformed appreciation of a situation.

We are mot taliking about a papered for a paerless office. That will never happen unless laws are changed. What we are talking about is a need to outsource to a 'scanning service' .I can't see any.

As for big companies as indicated by Tony. Come on ow. He obviously is too young to remember fiche machines. Those paperless records go back to pre World War 11 and most of our banks and larger businesses have them.

Please don't post opinions when you are only guessiing then. As i suggested all the OP has to do is canvas and few members who are solicitors or accontants.

Cushman & Wakefiled LLP and Walsall MBC, 2 massive organisations that I know for a fact have outsourced their document scanning in only the past 12 months.

There is no guessing involved in my opinions so please get off your high horse with all your sarcastic comments.

 

[sanjiv]

There you go again Sanji with your uneducated uniformed appreciation of a situation.

We are mot taliking about a papered for a paerless office. That will never happen unless laws are changed. What we are talking about is a need to outsource to a 'scanning service' .I can't see any.

As for big companies as indicated by Tony. Come on ow. He obviously is too young to remember fiche machines. Those paperless records go back to pre World War 11 and most of our banks and larger businesses have them.

Please don't post opinions when you are only guessiing then. As i suggested all the OP has to do is canvas and few members who are solicitors or accontants.

It is not uneducated. My dad is going paperless. He has pretty much got his staff finishing scanning everything in and is putting everything into storage as he has to keep paper work for a certain length of time. This sort of service would have been useful for him, however it did provide me with something to do over the summer. I never said anything about throwing away the hard paper. You can see in my first post that I said he should also provide storage. Maybe you should learn to read the thread first.

There is a need for outsoucing scanning as when companies have a lot of paperwork when they decide to go paperless / archive.

From what I have said, it is not an opinion but what you are saying is an opinion and is completely uneducated. I have researched paperless scanning solutions and software to help doing so. The best solution we found was storing it on the office server and keeping everything organised by folder and giving appropriate file names.

The server is backed up every night locally, remotely and has RAID so it the data is pretty secure.

 

[accountancyextra]

Ok, Here's an opinion from an accountant who already uses a less paper (rather than paperless office) set up.

There seem to be three big barriers to accountants adopting paperless technology:

1) Heavy investment in IT, both document management software and hardware such as scanners and dual screens
2) What to do with the already bulging filing cabinets
3) The retraining of staff to do things differently and the knowledge that you've got the new system right

As with all businesses, we are generally busy doing the day to day running and have little time to start thinking about new working practices, however much of a time saving they may be in the long run, the current systems may just not be broken enough to change them and Mrs Higgins still needs her tax return completing before Friday!

My view would be that if you can crack numbers 2&3 for people you'd perhaps be on a winner, but there'd be little repeat revenue.

What I would NOT do, is outsource the scanning of my daily documents going forward, because I'll have already dealt with that through my internal processes. I also think you'd be on a loser if scanning in India, simply because of data protection laws.

 

[sanjiv]

Ok, Here's an opinion from an accountant who already uses a less paper (rather than paperless office) set up.

There seem to be three big barriers to accountants adopting paperless technology:

1) Heavy investment in IT, both document management software and hardware such as scanners and dual screens
2) What to do with the already bulging filing cabinets
3) The retraining of staff to do things differently and the knowledge that you've got the new system right

As with all businesses, we are generally busy doing the day to day running and have little time to start thinking about new working practices, however much of a time saving they may be in the long run, the current systems may just not be broken enough to change them and Mrs Higgins still needs her tax return completing before Friday!

My view would be that if you can crack numbers 2&3 for people you'd perhaps be on a winner, but there'd be little repeat revenue.

What I would NOT do, is outsource the scanning of my daily documents going forward, because I'll have already dealt with that through my internal processes. I also think you'd be on a loser if scanning in India, simply because of data protection laws.

I think usually with new IT systems, both methods are used side by side so the files would be on the computer and in the filing cabinet if needed until it can be fully relied upon and all staff are used to it. Thats the way my dad is doing it.

 

[document management pro]

Setting up a professional document management company takes serious investment and even more serious knowledge. Answers to some of your questions are at the foot of this post.


Regarding the legal profession and Wills and EPA's. Whereas these can also be scanned you are NOT allowed to destroy the originals. Pretty obvious but thought I would state that as we have been asked that question on numerous occasions.

Regards
Geoff Shilton
Marketing Manager
Click2scan

 

[pearlscan]

It is usefult o have a document scanning and document management system in place to electronically archive documents. I would say have an idex of these scanned files available to refer to in future. It is always better to have files on your computer than taking up office space pearl-scan.co.uk
Craig
Pearl Scan Solutions