Alright, this is it. We may have signed the Official Secrets Act but we judged that releasing this information is in the public interest and is therefore worth the risk. If after reading this you discover we have been incarcerated, I hope you will value our sacrifice. Here are our not-so-secret tips for getting great value from our document scanning service.

Trust the professionals

Some things you can excel at doing by yourself. Learning an instrument for instance. Or being introverted. It was even possible to do synchronised swimming by yourself in the Olympics for a while before the judges realised that it wasn’t really meant to be a solo sport (honestly, it was a thing – look it up).

When it comes to data scanning though, you’re likely to waste more time, energy and even money if you try it without a professional scanning company. For a start, our scanners are almost certainly way cooler than yours. If you’re unsure about anything, feel free to fire us a question first, or ask us for a free sample scan of a document.

Keep the staples in

You might think it wise to remove staples from your documents before sending them to be scanned. After all, this will surely shave precious seconds – and therefore pennies – off the time the professionals are working on your project. Thing is, without staples it’s harder for us to tell where a multi-page document starts and ends. And while we love document scanning with all our hearts, we prefer it to be an efficient process. Staples are the age-less organisation tool that speeds our work and makes everything that bit cheaper for you.

It’s cooler in monochrome

Black has always gone with everything (LBD anyone?) and who doesn’t appreciate white space these days? Colour can be beautiful too, but when it comes to document scanning it will increase the size of your files – which is a shortcut to spending a lot of money on cloud storage. Sticking to black and white (where possible) will save the pennies, speed up your servers and give you a document collection that will never go out of style.

Skip the duplicates

Doppelgängers make for exciting films and convincing tribute acts, but it’s better to leave them out of your files. Providing you have the time, check that you’re not sending a document scanning company identical pages in the same file. Before you give us three copies of your sales brochure, kill off two of the time-draining imposters and send us the real Spartacus.

Throw out the memorabilia

It’s easy to get nostalgic. Even the most useless documents might be tempting to scan into a digital attic. How else will you climb up in years to come and examine the files covered in digital dust and say, ‘Hey, do you remember when we put that slogan on this sales brochure 15 years ago? It was a shocker.’ It’s fun to reminisce. But it’s also expensive. If you’re not likely to benefit from a document in future, think twice before you choose to scan the past.

Keep indexing in check

Indexing is the compass that helps you find your way through the dark and dangerous lands of the digital file. It helps you find your documents once they have been scanned by assigning them searchable terms. Choose those that will be most helpful to searchers but, if you can keep the number to a minimum, it will speed up the scanning process, keeping costs down. It will also help narrow down your search results when you need something specific. Don’t fear, you’ll be able to find your documents again in the digital world. It’s not a bottomless pit – take it from the people who live there.

Document scanning might not be as costly as you think. If you’d like us to scan a free sample for you and provide you with an estimate for your project, give the team a call today.