Stop paper chaos now: Paperless office & digital document management — how it really works
As founder of a start-up I’m interested in economical and considerate exploitation of (personal) resources. I’m always looking for optimizations of our administrational processes. Furthermore I would describe myself as a Geek with interests in technical stuff. Regarding to a BarCamp-Session a few months ago I was about the topic “paperless office” what means that I manage my documents more digital. Meanwhile I use a well-hung setup of hardware and software that I like to present.
Requirements
To get a vision of my setup I like to introduce my requirements:
- I want to find relevant documents faster by make them digital searchable.
- I want to safe documents in a legal way. That means every relevant documents have to be stored in paper as well.
- Data security is high prioritized. That means that the damage of a hard disk won’t mean losing data. Furthermore I don’t want to store data in the cloud.
- The solution must be compatible to Mac OS X.
How it works
First we have to split up two types of documents.
- Documents who are scanned, made digital searchable (OCR scan) and stored in paper. This is useful for contracts, certificates and other important documents.
- Documents who are scanned, made digital searchable (OCR scan) and destroyed after that. Useful e.g. for correspondence.
For Type 1 documents I use a Automatic Numbering Machine.
This tool stamps an ongoing number on a document. It counts one digit per use. This is useful for every Type-1-document as I stamp before it is scanned. After that it will be digital OCR-scanned and analog filed. In this workflow every Type-1-document will be stored in order of their stamped number. When I search for a specific document I just have to select the document digital, read the number and select the compatible document in file.
Important: powerful scan app
First we need a reliable scanning software. It should come with scan profiles, an integrated OCR recognition and it should be flexible by file naming. I use the app ExactScan Pro (about 100$). My setup intends to name all documents by following scheme:
Date(YY)Seq#(0001), ex. 170001.pdf
Every document will up count by one digit within the next scan. This scheme is able to map to the Automatic Numbering Machine 1:1. This strategy make sure of finding the corresponding documents on file system.
Another advantage of ExactScan Pro is the possibility to create profiles. This is useful for type 2 documents: OCR-Scan and erasing the paper after scanning (ex. correspondences). Therefor it is more important to get a high-quality scan because of the irreversible erasion of the original document. On the other hand a scheme for file naming (like 170001.pdf) is not necessary because of no connection between online and offline documents. Furthermore it is important to mind that type 2 documents must not increase the counter of type 1 documents. Otherwise we get a mismatch between scanned documents and the analog archive. This documents will be scanned simple, processed and stored in a document managing software.
Document management software: iDocument Plus
There is one question left: How do I organize my scanned documents? I searched for an app that provides full-text search over all documents, it should provide reliable storage handling and — of course — rund on a Mac. Because ExactScan Pro already did the OCR-scan procedure the document management tool doesn’t need to provide this. I decided against Evernote because I don’t want to use cloud storage.
I decided for iDocument Plus (about $50 on Mac AppStore) because of a set of advantages:
- Importing files without moving them from their original storage. All documents are copied to the tool-owned library. This is important to accelerate the full-text search und it is a document dump as well.
- Tagging
- Collections: Organizing documents by hierarchical topics. It improves the speed to find documents without tags or full-text search
- Full-text search for all documents
- Indexation for many different file types
- And last but not least: a graceful user interface.
Data security
The data library of iDocument Plus is stored on another storage (NAS-Storage with RAID 1) then the scan folder of ExactScan Pro (USB-disc drive). This is more safely to keep all documents in case of disc damages. All documents are restorable.
The Hardware
The scanner is one of the most important tools in this chain. It should be fast and reliable. I decided for the well-known document scanner Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500. This tool scans documents two-sided, speaks USB 3.0 and has a robustly case. There are two versions of this scanner. I use the version with our Adobe Acrobat license for about $320 on Amazon.
To proceed documents mostly fast it is useful to use a universal plier for removing staples. And, yes, the additional $5 for a robust tool worth. There are a couple of different tools on Amazon.
We have the Automatic Numbering Machine to stamp continuous number for about $35 on Amazon.
Last but not least: A robustly file shredder. I use Swingline Auto Feed Paper Shredder (about $120 on Amazon).
Shopping List
- Software ExactScan Pro, Scan-Tool with OCR: $100
- Software iDocument Plus, document management, Mac AppStore: $50
- Fujistu ScanSnap iX500, Amazon: $320
- Staples remover, Amazon: $15
- Automatic Numbering Machine, Amazon: $35
- File shredder, Amazon: $120
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