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.

Paper. It’s pretty simple, as technology goes. Sure, you can get it in different sizes and colours and textures, with lines or without, sturdy or flimsy enough to see through. But essentially, it’s bits of flat stuff that you can write or draw on. Not especially complex.

And yet it’s so important. Even in these digital days, as we try and reduce the number of trees we need to cut down, we still use 12.5 million tonnes of paper and cardboard every year. Without it, we wouldn’t have magazines and till receipts and books and toilet paper (perish the thought!).

So how much do you actually know about this stuff that you probably use every day? We’re willing to put good money on the fact that you’ll learn at least one thing from this blog post. Which, at the very least, will stand you in good stead next time you’re at a pub quiz.

Historical paper facts

1) Paper is thought to have been invented around 100AD by the Chinese, although it was supposedly kept secret for a number of years. The Chinese are also credited with the first paper currency and the first toilet paper.

2) The English word paper is derived from papyrus, a material which predates paper and was originally used in Egypt thousands of years BC.

3) The first newspaper was printed in Venice in 1556. The monthly publication was available to buy for one Venetian coin called a gazetta, hence the word gazette can now be used to refer to a newspaper.

Record breaking paper facts*

*As authenticated by Guinness World Records!

4) The furthest a paper aeroplane has flown is 69.14m. The plane was made using just one sheet of A4 paper, and was designed by John M Collins and launched by Jo Ayoob in North Highland, California in 2012.

5) The largest building made entirely from paper was 6.4m tall, with a base that measured 15.2m by 17.9m. It was constructed in the form of a traditional Thai house and manufactured using nothing but corrugated paper by Kwag Hua Industries, who unveiled it in Bangkok in October 2003.

6) The biggest roll of toilet paper ever made was 2.97m in diameter and stood 2.59m high. It was made in August 2011 by Charmin in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, and was later sent to a Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum.

Current paper facts

7) It is possible to do a degree in Paper Science. If you’re interested in analysing the factors that influence pore size distribution or modelling shrinkage during manufacture, this is definitely the course for you. Probably don’t try and explain your choice down the pub though.

8) The average person in the UK gets through 38kg of newspapers a year. Most of which is probably due to excessive consumption of fish and chips (we may have made this last bit up).

9) The amount of paper used in the UK each year takes the equivalent of a woodland the size of Wales to make. Which is a great reason for working towards a paperless office.

Office paper facts

10) The average office worker uses around 10,000 sheets of photocopy paper every year, according to Xerox. That’s the equivalent of four boxes, which works out to about £50. Multiply that across your entire company and you can see where the cost saving potential lies!

11) A standard three drawer filing cabinet, which takes up around 4 square foot of office space, can hold around 9,000 sheets of paper. According to a report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the costs associated with buying the cabinet and maintaining the space add up to about £1,500 a year.

12) There is way more to measuring quantities of paper than you’d imagine. For example, 25 sheets of paper = one quire. 20 quires = one ream. Two reams = one bundle. And five bundles = one bale. Try asking your stationery supplier how much a quire of A4 costs next time they ring – that should stump them!

So, there we go. Consider yourself well and truly informed about paper.

If you’d like any help tackling your own paper related issues, whether you could use some extra storage, want to explore the idea of going digital, or need to securely destroy sensitive documents, do get in touch.

Well, this is a very good day. After months of work logging our firewall defences and detailing how we manage passwords, we’ve finally been awarded certification under the Cyber Essentials Scheme. Which, in case you were wondering, is really rather an honour and not something that every Tom, Dick and Harry can claim to have done.

The Cyber Essentials Scheme is, in their own words, a programme that “aims to help organisations implement basic levels of protection against cyber attack, demonstrating to their customers that they take cyber security seriously.” Which we do, of course.

To achieve certification, we had to complete a thorough (really, really thorough) self-assessment, evaluating ourself against five security controls, and then submit all that information to be verified by a qualified external assessor.

Granted, it was not the most thrilling of jobs. There was a lot of paperwork to organise, and systems to catalogue, and other things that you probably aren’t all that interested in hearing about. But it was an incredibly useful process, and even helped us make improvements to our already very good security processes.

Now we can officially say that we’ve taken absolutely every precaution possible to make our company as digitally impenetrable as a conspiracy theorist’s basement tech hub.

How our Cyber Essentials Scheme certification affects you

So what does all of this actually have to do with you? Well, nothing if you aren’t a client. What do you care about whether we get hacked?

If you are a client, however, or you might be one in the future, then knowing that we’re certified under the Cyber Essentials Schemes should be rather a weight off your shoulders. Because what it means is that if we process or store any of your data digitally – which we would if, for example, we were scanning all of your paper records to create a digital archive – it won’t be hacked, leaked or otherwise allowed to get into the wrong hands.

So basically, we’re mega safe to do business with. Which is what you want, really.

Anyway, we won’t bang on about it too much (unless you bump into one of us and mention it, in which case we reserve the right to bore you just a bit more). But suffice to say that if you have any document storage, scanning or destruction needs, and your data is particularly sensitive, you should definitely give us a call.

Remember that old James Bond film, The Spy Who Loves Me? In it, Roger Moore’s Bond is tasked with recovering stolen plans for a highly advanced submarine tracking system – plans that are contained within a roll of microfilm.

Incredibly, it’s been 40 years since that film came out (yes, we feel old too). But despite the technological advances of the last four decades, microfilm is as relevant today is ever. Likewise microfiche – which brings to mind images of Jessica Fletcher hunting through the Cabot Cove records in search of a clue – is still being used in organisations up and down the country.

(In case you’re wondering, the main difference between the two is that microfiche is formatted as a flat card of negatives rather than a roll. In both cases, a backlit reader is used to view the images – although these days you can also view microfiche and microfilm digitally using special software.)

Why microfilm and microfiche still matters

The main benefit of microfiche and microfilm is that they can turn very large documents into very small images. Which makes them particularly useful for companies with lots of large format documents such as architects, engineers and hospitals. They’re also a great way of accessing rare or fragile documents that shouldn’t be handled without proper care.

And that’s just the start. Converting your documents to microfiche or microfilm has loads of business benefits, allowing you to:

• Create secure backups of important documents (guaranteed for 500 years!)
• Free up storage space and move towards a paperless office
• Share documents easily, quickly and cost effectively
• Access critical data without having to hunt through endless archive boxes
• Reduce retrieval costs if your physical documents are stored off site

All of which can save you lots of hassle and potentially money too. Which, let’s face it, is what we’re all aiming for, right?

Specialists in microfilm and microfiche conversion

At Scan Film or Store, we’ve been working with microfilm and microfiche for longer than we care to admit.

That’s why we can offer such a wide range of services around microfiche, microfilm and related media, including:

• Digitising microfilm and microfiche (oh, and aperture cards too, if you’ve got some of those)
• Converting photographic images into a range of popular electronic formats such as .pdf, .pdf/a, .jpg and .tif
• Producing printed hard copies of microfilm, microfiche and aperture cards (we can even supply Diazo microfiche copies of microfilm, if you can get your head around that one)
• Integrating digitised film with your existing or new document management systems
• Destroying, cataloguing, indexing, archiving and/or storing the originals, depending on your needs

Not only do we have the technical skills required to do all this, we’re also fully secure – our staff are all DBS checked with full security clearance to BS7858 standards. So you don’t need to worry about your data falling into the hands of a reclusive megalomaniac like Karl Stromberg.

If you have any microfiche or microfilm jobs you need taken care of, give us a ring and one of the team will be happy to help.

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It’s surprising how long making a decision can take. Even something simple like what to order at the local Chinese or whether you ought to wear the red or the blue tie for that client meeting tomorrow.

So it’s not surprising really that business owners can get themselves all knotted up over something like which document storage company to go with. After all, if we do say so ourselves, it’s a pretty important role. There’s valuable data at stake; you don’t want to be handing it over to any bloke with a warehouse.

That’s why we’ve given you a few things to think about when choosing a document storage company, to help you avoid the cowboys and make a decision you’ll be happy with.

Your document storage company should be able to help you create a brief

Beyond knowing that you want someone to please, please make all the paperwork go away, do you actually know exactly what it is that you need? If the answer is no, you’re not alone. Why should you understand the ins and outs of document storage? You’re an expert at what you do. That’s why a good document storage company should be able to ask you the right questions to help you work out a thorough brief. Like how often you’ll need to access your document, whether they’ll need storing long or short term, or whether you actually need paper records at all. It could be that you’d be better off with a scanning and secure data destruction package, to create easily-accessible, mega space saving digital records instead.

They should have top notch security

This may sound a bit obvious, but the document storage company you choose should be able to guarantee the safety of your valuable documents. And not just by storing them in a facility that’s alarmed, protected and monitored. They also need to be thinking about the environmental conditions (we’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again – paper doesn’t like the damp, mould does), not to mention rodents (who have a surprising penchant for paper archives). Oh, and they need a good barcoding system, like we have, so your files don’t simply disappear amongst the many thousands of others they’re storing.

They should be certified to industry standards

It’s not enough for your document storage company to say they’re good at what they do. They really ought to be able to prove it. Here are some of the reassurances we can offer:

• ISO 9001:2008 certification, which we’ve held since 2011 and which we’ll shortly be upgrading to the new ISO 9001:2015 standard – we’re one of the first in the industry to achieve it!
• DPA registration, which means we are compliant with the Data Protection Act 1998 (our registration number is Z6020186, if you want to check).
• BS7858 compliance, which means we’re all security vetted and have had our DBS checks too.
• BS10008 compliance, which means we can ensure the integrity of any files from point of collection to point of return, much like CSIs transporting evidence.
• A fully documented business continuity plan, which means we can keep working and protecting your documents in the case of a catastrophic event.
• A comprehensive Health & Safety policy, including regularly updated risk assessments, COSHH assessments, PAT tests and electrical testing across all our premises.

There’s also the Official Secrets Act <link to You’ll never make us talk post>, which we may or may not have signed (we can’t tell you, or we’d have to kill you).

They should offer you a bespoke service

No two companies are the same. Well ok, there are similarities. But still – whether you’re a school or a hospital or a firm of architects or an Aerospace Engineering business, your document storage needs are going to be just that little bit different to the next school or hospital or firm of architects or Aerospace Engineering business. A standard ‘one size fits all’ approach isn’t going to be as efficient as a bespoke solution, neither is it going to help you make the most of your budget. That’s why we meet with all our clients and even do a sample job when there’s scanning involved, so you can work out exactly what you need and pay only for that.

So for goodness sake, don’t stick a pin in the Yellow Pages or go for the cheapest option on the market. There’s nothing financially prudent about sticking vital business data in the care of anyone you don’t utterly trust.

Want to give us the once over and see whether we meet your standards? Give us a ring and one of the team will be happy to help.

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Data security is something every organisation of any size needs to think about. Whether you’ve got a few client files locked in a store cupboard or a multi-premises operation linked via sophisticated technology, everyone is at risk.

And the scariest thing is that because the majority of us aren’t data security experts, we very often don’t even understand the problem, let alone the solution. These five rather startling facts are a great indicator of how big the problem is.

1) Your photocopier is spying on you

Your photocopier keeps records of everything you’ve ever printed or copied (yes, even those unfortunate anatomical pictures from the office Christmas party). If the hard drive isn’t properly wiped or destroyed once you’ve finished with it, you could find your sensitive data falling into the wrong hands.

2) There are way more viruses than you think

During just one three month period last year, 18 million new malware samples were captured by cyber security experts Panda Labs. Which works out at around 80,000 every working day. And that’s just the ones they found.

3) Your staff may not be a as tech savvy as they think (and fibbers!)

One recent study by a German university sent mock phishing emails to a group of people who had previously professed to be aware of these kinds of scams. 45% of them clicked on the link in the fake email. And only 20% admitted that they’d done it. Let’s face it, the others were probably a bit embarrassed.

4) Data breaches are crazy expensive

Ponemon and IBM do a study each year, looking at the cost of data breaches across several countries including the UK. Last year’s report showed that the costs associated with a data breach have gone up by 29%, from an average of £2.37 to £2.53 million. Which is probably not the kind of money you have lying around in case of emergency.

5) Data loss can kill you

Ok, we may be slightly exaggerating that one, but it could kill your business (and if you’ve got a dodgy ticker then actually, there is a bit of a risk there too). In fact, more than 60% of companies never recover from a major loss of data. Not only is there the actual monetary cost to consider, but major data loss can also severely damage your reputation, so that future work is threatened.

Anyway, before we have you reaching for the gin bottle, there is some good news. Because forewarned is forearmed, and if you anticipate the possible data issues you might face then you can at least take steps to try and prevent them.

For example, make sure your paper records are stored securely, that your digital records are suitably protected, that your staff are well trained and trustworthy, and that any waste is securely destroyed.

Scan Film or Store can help with quite a few of these issues, so if you’re worried about your data security then give us a ring today.

Remember the days when teachers set their pupils’ teeth on edge writing with actual chalk on dusty old blackboards? When the kids wrote out their lines in simple manila covered exercise books, correcting their mistakes with Tipp-Ex?

Ah, those were the days, eh? Or maybe not. There’s something to be said for modern school tech like interactive whiteboards and digital marking software.

One of the things that doesn’t seem to have changed is the amount of paperwork hanging around though. In fact, it may well be getting worse.

Some pupil records need to be kept for years, even once they’ve graduated. And that’s before you start on curricula, teaching notes, reports, employee records and the rest.

So what’s the answer? Well, you could stop letting new pupils in and just wait it out until your current records are old enough that you can get rid of them. But that’s probably not all that practical.

Or your could build a new wing to house the endless box files that are currently threatening to breach health and safety regulations. Though that might be stretching the budget somewhat.

Digital archives for schools

The best answer, as you may already have heard on the grapevine, is to go digital.

No, don’t run off! It’s really not as scary as it sounds. At Scan Film or Store we’ve got a few little tricks we use to make the whole process incredibly easy:

• First, we’ll come and visit you so that we really get to know what it is that you need. We don’t do off-the-shelf solutions; they just don’t work properly.
• Next, we’ll take a sample of your paperwork and provide you with an example of what we can do for you. At no charge.
• If you’re happy, we’ll collect your paperwork so you don’t have to lift a finger, and get it all scanned on our really rather snazzy machines.
• The data will then be indexed as closely as possible to your original system, so it’s really easy to access.
• We can even provide staff training on how to use the new digital archive, in case there are a few technophobes you need to convince.
• Oh, and then we can either store the originals in our climate controlled, 24-7 monitored storage units (with fast retrieval services available if you need them), or if they’re surplus we can destroy them securely and in compliance with data protection legislation.

So there you have it. Not quite so alarming, is it?

If you’re thinking of going digital, this is a great time to do it. With the children off gallivanting on the beach / cruising the shopping malls / sleeping in until mid-afternoon, the school should be nice and quiet. Perfect for a little light paperwork.

Just imagine going back in September and being able to get hold of little Johnny’s report from year 2 Geography at the touch of a button. Now wouldn’t that be nice?

For help getting your school’s paperwork under control, contact the genuinely friendly Scan Film or Store team today for a chat.

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A good filing system is a thing of beauty. It works, smoothly and efficiently, allowing you to access the data you need, whenever you need it. A bad filing system, however, is likely to end up with you running around like a headless chicken because your line manager wants to see that sales report you wrote six months ago and you can’t remember whether you filed it under Sales, Reports, or some other heading that seemed sensible at the time.

But what exactly marks out a good filing system from a bad one? These characteristics are a useful starting point…

1) It should be so simple a well trained monkey can use it

Which, ironically, isn’t simple to achieve. And yet this should be your ultimate goal. Because complicated filing systems end up with people stuffing files in bottom drawers and eventually losing them. Even the most complex collection of data can be streamlined into a slick system if you put enough thinking and planning time in at the beginning. Don’t skip this stage!

2) It should be as flexible as a double-jointed yoga teacher

There’s only one constant, they say, and that’s change. Rigid things struggle with change. Flexible things find it easier. That goes for everything from people to filing systems. But as this blog post is about filing systems, just focus on that and make sure that your system will be able to adapt to whatever the future brings. This probably means you’ll need to monitor, review and possibly tweak your filing system as you go along.

3) It should be accessible to everyone who needs it, when they need it

This doesn’t just mean not leaning a flipchart board against the filing cabinet. Think about who is going to use this system. Are they all based in the same office? If not, how are you going to get files to them? And it’s not just a case of physical access. People need to understand the filing system so they can get hold of what they need quickly and easily – and, just as important, put it back in the right place – and not have to wait for Sandra the admin girl to get back off her holidays.

4) It should be as physically compact as possible

Unless you’ve got access to endless amounts of free storage space, a large physical filing system is going to end up costing you an awful lot in rent. Minimising the amount of printed paper data you need to store by aiming for a paperless office system is by far the best option. Then get clever with how your files are stored and stacked, remembering the accessibility issue we talked about a minute ago.

5) It should be safe from every imaginable threat, including alien invasion

So your documents are perfectly organised, indexed and stored – but what happens if there’s a fire? Or a flood? Or, indeed, an alien invasion? Paper files are particularly vulnerable to being destroyed because they’re pretty flimsy, when you think about it. Also the very fact that they exist in the physical world means they can get lost or put in the wrong place and then it becomes a major mission to find them.

One solution to all of the issues above is to go digital. Digital filing systems still need planning and thought at the set-up stage, and you do have to think about security issues, but you could save yourself a heck of a lot of space, share files quickly and create back ups in case things go wrong.

If you genuinely need your paper records though, professional off-site storage offers a climate controlled, alarmed and monitored space that will vastly improve the safety of your documents. At Scan Film or Store we can also get copies of documents to you on a same day basis, thanks to our  really-rather-clever barcoding system, and we’ll always put them back in the right place. Or you can use our scan-on-demand service and potential have your file within two hours. Impressive, right?

So if your filing system is less than efficient and you’d like some help getting on top it, give us a ring and we’ll be happy to talk you through the solutions that will work best for you within your budget.