Why should I scan my documents?

If you’re doing business in Ireland or the UK, you may be wondering why you should scan your documents. After all, isn’t it just a hassle?

However, there are multiple benefits to scanning your documents. In this blog post, we will explore some of the reasons why document scanning is a top priority for businesses.

5 reasons to prioritise document scanning

From saving time to boosting productivity, ensuring compliance to being eco-friendly, here are the top reasons why your business needs to focus on document scanning.

Save time and improve productivity: Apart from unproductive meetings (and social media), one of the biggest time sinks in workplaces relates to finding relevant documents. According to a study, workers in the UK spend one million hours looking for misplaced documents each week. The ensuing loss of productivity costs businesses £20 million annually.

Document scanning will help you store important records in digital format, making it easier and quicker to retrieve information.

Remove clutter: Going paperless not only saves time but reduces the amount of office space wasted on paper storage. Given the spiralling real estate cost, making optimal use of your office space is a smart business strategy.

Instead of wasting precious office space on filing cabinets and paper documentation, implement simple solutions such as document scanning to maintain records in digital format.

Collaborate seamlessly: Remote and hybrid work arrangements are clearly here to stay. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, about 80 per cent of workers in Ireland have worked remotely.

However, a recent survey showed that employees found remote working stressful and difficult because they did not have the technology solutions they needed to carry out their tasks. Apart from communication glitches, these workers said the quality of work and timeliness suffered frequently because collaborating with their colleagues is too difficult.

Document scanning makes the process of collaborating on projects and documents seamless, by giving access to the relevant documents to teams working on the same project. No matter where your teams are located, they can access the digital records in real-time from any device.

Ensure compliance with GDPR: The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) sets out a number of principles that businesses must follow in order to proactively manage data collection, storage, and processing. Companies need to be able to produce records without delay on their data collection and processing practices on request to agencies.

They should also provide individuals with electronic copies of their personal information on request, take steps to erase the data after the scheduled date, and take steps to prevent a data breach.

Digitisation of documents will help your business stay compliant with GDPR and avoid hefty penalties by:

• Mitigating the risk of records getting misplaced or stolen
• Destroying paper documents after the scheduled time period and keeping only digital records
• Responding quickly to data access requests from individuals and agencies
• Protecting digital records with encryption and passwords to avoid data breach

Adopt environment-friendly practices: Scanning your documents is an effective way to contribute to the net-zero target. How so?

Here are some shocking statistics that show the negative impact of paper use.

A survey of office workers revealed that paper usage averages 10,000 sheets each year per employee, out of which about 6800 sheets are wasted.

A significant amount of paper ends up at the landfill where it emits greenhouse gases such as methane. In addition, it takes about 10 litres of water to make one A4 size sheet and about 24 trees to make one tonne of office paper. Converting physical documents into digital format and recycling the paper documents that are no longer needed is an effective way to reduce your company’s carbon footprint.

Every tonne of paper you recycle will help save 17 trees!

Work with document scanning experts

As you can see, the benefits of document scanning are multiple. Scanning documents can save space, prevent document loss, help you stay compliant with data protection laws, and allow for easy document sharing. Additionally, scanning documents can help preserve vital documents for future generations.

Kefron provides the latest technology and best practice techniques related to document scanning, storage, and processing.

Our on-demand document scanning solution allows you to get access to your data at short notice to any archived files you’ve stored. We not only efficiently handle scanning and storage of documents of all sizes but ensure the digitised files are transferred to you securely.

Get in touch with us if you’re looking for full-scale document scanning and management solutions.