Document imaging and scanning is not your problem

SNAP! Document imaging and scanning is not your problem There are some things that are nice to have in-house. A good coffee machine for instance, or a marketing team, or that superb administrator, Derek, the one with the great hair. Other things it might be better to outsource, such as your logistics, your accounts or a second administrator called Evan with even better hair. One task you should almost certainly not be worrying about is document imaging and scanning. Honestly, we’ve cracked this one and we’re pretty excited about it. Here’s why:

You don’t need to fix anything

Nothing cries time-sink quite like preparing all your documents before you scan them. Sure, you’ll save a bit of cash if you don’t give us any duplicates, but otherwise we’ll repair any damage, remove staples and fixings. We can de-skew and de-speckle (a wonderful word that should be used more often), standardise orientation, remove coloured backgrounds and optimise brightness and contrast. Why would you want to do any of that yourself?

You don’t need to restrict yourself

We dare you to find a document we can’t scan. Colour, greyscale, black and white, single, double-sided, paper, Mylar blueprint or transparent. We’re seasoned in everything from invoices to technical drawings, from till receipts to A0 architectural plans. There’s also no limit on length either. We’ve scanned documents up to 25 feet long! If you’ve ever wanted to see a Canon Oce TC4XT in action, you can watch our large format scanner take on the big stuff

You also don’t need to be concerned about the digital formatting. Once the documents are scanned, we can create digital images in pdf, pdf/a, .tif or .jpg format. We’ll provide a full indexing service and optical character recognition so you can locate your documents in digital filing cabinets and search their contents quickly. The time and cost of retrieving documents will be significantly reduced, which means you have more resources to invest elsewhere.

Worry-free scanning of your documents

Even the best laid plans can sometimes go astray, unless of course you’re ISO 9001 and BS10008 accredited (we are). You can be certain of accurate, high-quality results by from us. We only use top-quality Kodak and Canon Oce equipment that could be called an extravagance, but we’ve made it our standard procedure.  

Once scanned, you’ll get your data on a portable hard drive (or CD/DVD, should you choose) with up to 30 days’ free storage for your originals while you check over the database. We can embed bespoke software into the drive so you can retrieve any document at the click of your fingers (note: the hard drive does not literally respond to finger-snapping).

You don’t need to let it leave your site

If security restrictions prevent you removing papers from your premises, or if you feel particularly sentimental about a set of invoices and want to watch them grow up to be digital files, we can provide a complete scanning service at your site. We can even give you a CD, DVD or portable hard drive of the digital documents immediately, so nothing leaves your side.

So while it would be really exciting for you to try this at home, we suggest you’re better off letting the professionals get to work on it, even if we have to come to your home to do it. If you need more convincing check out our case studies of how we have scanned for companies like Rolls Royce, or get in touch with us today. 

How document shredding would make Hollywood films shorter (and possibly better)

Document shredding and data destruction done correctly can make all the difference for company security. It can also completely change the plot of many Hollywood films. Here’s a rundown of how some of them might have played out, had the characters known we existed.

Star Wars: A New Hope

The Emperor could have fulfilled his ambition to rule the universe forever, if it hadn’t been for leaked documents. The Death Star, formidable as it was, had its critical weakness exposed because someone didn’t destroy the blueprints. If they had embraced document shredding, Luke would not have destroyed the original and might never have had the chance to confront Darth Vader. Palpatine, you should have gone to SFS.

Saving Private Ryan

An order to retrieve a soldier from the front lines because his mum wants him home? You could risk the lives of your men to fetch him, or you could hand the order to SFS and let us vanish it from existence. Ryan doesn’t even want to be retrieved. So why go all that way, Tom Hanks? Why go?

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Because no good Star Wars trilogy can start without a leaked document, The Force Awakens’ entire plot is built around a ‘Map to Skywalker’ that presumably was drawn by the man himself, even though he did not want to be found. Perhaps he needed to archive the information somewhere in case he couldn’t remember where he was. Of course, a different level of security is needed when Kylo Ren can extract the map from your memory using the Force. So far at SFS, we’ve not had to deal with such a situation. 

WALL-E

All the memories of earth were stored aboard the spaceship that kept humans suspended in space. If the (spoiler alert!) rogue autopilot had destroyed the data, no doubt humanity would have never returned. This would have been quite a sad ending, so it’s just as well they archived everything in digital format, ready to be uncovered by the most adorable robot ever seen.

The Hobbit

What do you do with a secret map leading to a secret entrance on a mountain housing a dragon who’s waiting for an excuse to destroy a city? You could go and wake up the dragon, get momentarily rich and then perish in fire. Or you could shred the map to make sure nobody ever does such a foolhardy thing. Still, we learn from our mistakes.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

Let’s see Dumbledore, you’ve got a stone that would give Voldemort a chance to rise to power again? You could hide it behind a matrix of trolls, three-headed dogs, living chess pieces and a magic mirror. Or you could just put the stone in our state-of-the-art shredder. Our shredder would probably complain a little – it’s meant for document shredding after all – but it’s all in the name of stopping He Who Must Not Be Named.

So if you’re trying to stop a dark wizard or you’ve recently finished work on a Death Star, give us a bell. Or if there’s other less dramatic documents you need securely shredded, or data you need destroyed, don’t hesitate to get in touch.