You’ll hopefully know by now that document scanning is basically the reason we get up in the morning. But we’re happy to admit that you don’t always need a local team of experts on hand to service your every document scanning need.

Sometimes, for example, you might simply want to scan something with your phone. Like a receipt. Or a signature. Or a secret blueprint of an underground lair. In which case, you probably need an app. Actually scratch that – you do need an app. One of these, in fact.

Scanning app #1: CamScanner

We love a PDF. The portable document format, as we’ve said before, is the most accessible file format around. If you have a document you want to share or store electronically, just stick it in a scanner, convert it to a PDF and you’re good to go. But what if you don’t have a handy full size scanner to… well, to hand? No problem. CamScanner is a nifty mobile scanner that uses your built in smart phone camera to scan everything from receipts to white board discussions, with built in OCR (that’s optimised character recognition, for those who aren’t regular readers) in the paid for version. Mark up your scanned document, email it, fax it, print it out or collaborate by inviting colleagues and friends to view and comment. No wonder CamScanner was voted the best app of 2014 and gets a reported 50,000 sign ups a day.

Use it for: scanning receipts so you don’t end up with a wallet bulging with scrappy bits of faded paper that even your book keeper can’t read.

Scanning app #2: Adobe Fill & Sign

Signing a form isn’t all that challenging. Assuming you can hold a pen and give it a good squiggle in a relatively consistent manner, you probably won’t have any trouble. But what if you’ve been sent a form electronically and need to sign and return it quick smart, without relying on finding a printer and a super fast carrier pigeon? That’s when you need the Adobe Fill & Sign tool, which works with any form, from a paper permission slip to a digital health intake. You can even use it on a photo of a form taken with your smart phone. The app gives you options to save, share and send completed forms too, and stores them securely in the Adobe Document Cloud so they’re always at your fingertips. What’s more, the autofill function means you can save data securely for next time, allowing you to just drag and drop information on future forms.

Use it for: Getting the permission slip for your daughter’s school trip sorted before the 3pm cut off, thereby avoiding a half term full of bitter teenage tears.

Scanning app #3: Scannable by Evernote

This is one for the iPhone and iPad users (sorry, Android folk), and especially those of you who couldn’t live without Evernote to organise your extremely busy lives. Scannable by Evernote has all the functionality you’d want in a scanner, and a whole lot more. Not only can it instantly scan business cards, sketches, and even multipage documents, the app will automatically store the resulting electronic documents in your Evernote account. It will crop any images to remove the background, and enhance the text to make it more readable too. And best of all, it’s totally free, with no paid for upgrade version.

Use it for: Scanning business cards so the contact information is automatically lifted and added to your contact card.

If you have small batches of documents to scan for a particular purpose, these apps really will make life just that little bit easier. And, of course, when it comes to the big jobs, you’ve always got us.

To discuss your document scanning requirements, just get in touch and one of the team will be happy to talk you through your options.

One thing we’re particularly proud of here at Scan Film or Store is the relationships we build with our clients. Many of them stay with us for years, and we get to know them pretty well. Which is nice.

David Wilson Homes is one such client. They first came to us in 2012, to help them reassess the way they stored their archives. They’d been housing them in an off-site unit that was some distance from their offices, which means accessibility was an issue.

After asking lots of not-especially-interesting questions about their specific requirements, we were able to recommend our scanning service, giving them digital records they could not only access whenever they wanted, but saving them money on physical storage.

From sample scanning to staff training

The first thing we did was take a sample away and cost up their options. Then we had a meeting to discuss things like indexing, and the pros and cons of more vs less detailed indexing. We always to replicate our client’s existing filing system, you see, so they can find their electronic copies very easily indeed. Admittedly, it probably wasn’t the most exhilarating meeting they’d ever sat through, but they were very happy to have the choices laid out clearly and simply so they could make a sensible decision.

Once the decisions had been made, we got started with the scanning. There were around 90,000 documents in that first batch, but thankfully our trusty machines don’t tire or get paper cuts, so it all worked out very nicely indeed.

And then all that was left to do was to train up the David Wilson Homes staff so they’d feel really confident using their new online filing system – which was designed to match their physical archives to save too much confusion. And we’re pleased to report that the team were so pleased with the new system that they’ve been sending us batches of invoices and other files ever since.

Lovely words about our scanning skills

Of course, it’s easy enough to say why we think our clients are happy with our service – but far better to ask them to say it for us. Here’s what Maria Tyley, Divisional Accountant at David Wilson Homes, thought about the whole experience (and yes, we’re still blushing):

“It’s so much easier since we got our new system set up. Whereas before we’d go, ‘Oh I need that invoice!’ and then we’d have to go and get it from the storage, now within minutes I can load the hard drive up and we’ve got the information.

“The Scan Film or Store team are experts on what they do and the quality of what I get back is very good. If we need to print copies off for audit, they’re clear enough for that. Their speed and their return of information is excellent too. We’ve just sent them another 25,000 invoices to do within the last week and I know that within a few weeks it will all be done. And they’re very competitive in the market.

“I have to say they are amazing people. Mark keeps in contact with me but not in a pushy way – he genuinely cares. And if I need anything, I can email him and within hours he’s back to me with the information I need. The whole team is very good at keeping their clients happy. They’re just nice people to have working alongside you, and they really know their business.”

Well, you can imagine how happy it made us to hear that. After all, it’s our clients that make our business. Without them we’d just be sitting around staring longingly at our high tech scanning equipment and drinking far too much tea.

We’d love to help you like we’ve helped Maria and the rest of the team at David Wilson Homes. So if you have any storage or scanning needs – or data destruction, microfiche conversion or CD duplication, for that matter – drop us a line to see how we can help.