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What are Some of the Ways Documents can be Managed?

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Papers can overtake our business space in a very short amount of time. Because of the possibility of needing the information from a piece of paper, we’ve become reluctant to toss any paper in the trash, no matter how remote the chance is that the data on it will ever be needed again. So we create elaborate filing systems into which we file papers until there is not room for one more sheet. Of course we know this isn’t the best plan, but because we fear needing the pieces of paper, we continue to fill additional filing cabinets until we need an entire room, just for filing cabinets.

That is one solution to document management, but it isn’t the best solution. With the technologies available to us in the 21st century, it isn’t even a good solution, much less the best solution to document management. However, there are many solutions that can free up the space in the old file cabinet room and make the documents inside them more accessible.

One simple solution is to incorporate scanner technology into our document management plan. A scanner makes it possible to maintain a copy of an invoice, client letter, or memo on file without having to have the original piece of paper. By scanning documents and saving them on a disk, zip drive, flash drive, or even on a desktop hard drive, the original can be shredded, which is a better security risk than keeping the original around in a file cabinet.

When it’s necessary to be able to search for a keyword contained in a document, the use of OCR technology makes it possible for scanned images to be “read” and entered into the computer in a searchable format. This is especially helpful to medical and legal offices that work with separate, but similar cases.

Next Page: What Can Document Management do to Streamline a Business?

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