Document Management Guide

Most organizations understand the benefits of scanning and storing their documents for easy access for all their employees. However, many view this as a huge undertaking to implement such a system. Being prepared with answers to 5 important questions can help you make an informed decision about which online document management system makes sense for your organization.

What departments within your organization keep files with documents?

In order to go paperless, you need to accurately capture the documents and have easy access for your staff to retrieve those documents in order to make business decisions. Some of the departments where this is extremely critical are accounting and human resources which rely on various types of documents in making business decisions. You need to evaluate every department and what documents they are filing. You also need to have an idea of how many documents will need to be stored on a daily basis?

Who within your organization will need access to the scanned documents?

You need to look at who is accessing these documents and how frequently. You may be a small business where everyone is located in one location or you may be a larger organization with remote offices. Do these remote offices need access to these documents? Are you spending money on shipping documents back and forth between the home office and the remote office? Are they already scanning the documents and sending them via e-mail? If so, you are already one step ahead than some organizations. You also need to determine if your clients or vendors need access to these documents.

By storing this information in one central repository with access from any location is going to save time and money. When evaluating a document management system, you need to understand who will need access. If you have a lot of remote locations that need access, you may want to consider an on-line document management system so you don’t need to install software on all the remote locations.

Do you have a large amount of daily files and back-files that need to be scanned and indexed?

You need to determine if you have the resources to go back and scan the back-files as well as doing daily scanning. Most document management companies offer outsourcing where they will do all the scanning and indexing for you. This will allow your staff to focus on their main jobs. Another option to consider is to hire a temp to do all the scanning and indexing for you. You can also make the decision to do the daily files in-house and only outsource the back-files. Be prepared to know what resources you have in order to ask the proper questions of the document management vendor.

You are also going to need to know how long each of the various documents is going to be stored. For some organizations it is only 7 years and for others it may be 14. Knowing how many files and for how long they need to be stored will help determine the costs needed to support the volume.

Can you afford an in-house system?

If looking at an in-house document management system, you will be required to purchase the software upfront and the supporting hardware to store all the documents. With an on-line document management system, there is generally a one-time setup fee and then you pay for the monthly service. The payment structure may depend on the number of users or documents stored. You can always start out small then expand as you grow.

Do you have the IT resources to implement and support a document management system?

This is probably the most critical question when determining what document management system is right for you. If deciding to go with an in-house system, the implementation process is going to be very time-consuming on your IT department. They will need to be involved in any support upgrades or support problems that may occur. They will also be responsible for any hardware that is needed to store all the documents. The benefit to going with an online document management system is that there is minimal involvement from the IT department.

Now that you have gathered all the information, you need to decide if you want to go with an in-house system or an on-line system. You can always look at both before deciding but hopefully after evaluating your needs, you have a pretty good idea of what system will work for your organization. After you decide which system, it is now time to evaluate the different document management systems. You want a document management system that will meet your specific needs and can grow with your organization.

The next step is to meet with the vendors and make sure they can support your organization. Call some of their customers and speak with different users within the organization to get a feel for the product as well as the vendor. This isn’t a decision you want to take lightly. It will be difficult to switch vendors once you’ve already implemented a system, although that might be a good question to ask. How do they store the documents and can it easily be exported and moved to another system, if the need arises? When looking at an on-line document management system, make sure their servers are secure, there is 24 access and they have a back-up system in place.

By: Martin Greif

About the Author: