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Advantages of Scanning
Advantages of Scanning and Going Paperless:
Some of the advantages include a savings in money, time and
convenience which have been outlined below:
1. No File Clerk(s): This could easily be
the largest monetary savings of all. If an office eliminates
the need for a full time file clerk or even two full time
file clerks then they may use them for other chores such as
scanning and other functions in their office. If an attorney,
paralegal or secretary can quickly and easily pull up any
document or piece of mail, then there is no longer a need
to ever find a file or possibly even have a physical file
at all. Along with the monetary savings, there is also a time
savings since one may quickly and easily pull up any document
for review without waiting for the clerk to find the file.
2. No rental fees for closed or archived files at
an offsite location. Far less space is needed for
files at the onsite location. One could easily be paying rent
for several rooms full of archived documents which could easily
cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars per month. Call
it "dead space" if you like or just money being
thrown away in rent or potential office space.
Scanning could keep one from having to move to a larger office
and eliminate that growing "dead space" as well
as the space in the active working environment. Let's look
at it from a simple and practical point. One may easily scan
most if not almost all their documents in "black and
white" at 300 dots per inch (not color and not grayscale).
In this mode, an Adobe Acrobat pdf file should average around
75K per page. That's 7.5 megs per 100 pages or 37.5 megs per
500 pages. If we assume all of the important correspondences
and documents per file average around 500 pages (clearly some
files may contain far less than 500 pages and possibly some
may contain more) then we average 37.5 megs per file or 37.5
gigs per thousand files. In other words, one could archive
10,000 files at 500 pages per file on a 375 gigabyte hard
drive. I recently purchased a 750 SATA gigabyte hard drive
for $320 (20,000 file capacity). A1-Law also has the ability
to search the "client" folder over multiple paths
and drives so the client folder can easily be moved to a separate
hard drive.
3. Instant access to all scanned documents for both open and
closed files. Also, several staff members could review
the same document at the same time without leaving their office
and discuss it with each other if necessary. This cannot be
done at all under the "old system" unless there
is a photocopy or the staff is in the same office reviewing
the same physical document.
4. Far fewer documents will be misfiled.
This is the feedback we have received when offices use the
A1-Law Scan Tracker.
5. No need to carry many files to court or "on
the road." One may quickly and easily transfer
all open files to their laptop computer in a matter of minutes.
6. Be Mobile - Take Work With You. While
some may not take work with them or want to, those that do
would probably prefer to carry their entire case load on a
laptop computer rather than lug 20 files around on a dolly.
For one thing, one may do other things with a laptop such
as check Email, play games, listen to music, watch movies,
etc. Along with all that, they will in addition be able to
view any and all of their files no matter where they are.
The A1-Law Transfer Utility makes all this possible. One may
transfer their entire open case load to their laptop usually
in anywhere from 2-4 minutes. Imagine trying to work on even
5 files on a long airplane flight? The A1-Law Transfer Utility
currently is a one way sync but updates will soon allow it
to utilize "two way syncing" which means being able
to work on the files no matter where you are without any internet
remote access to your office. Your changes may then later
be "synced" to the main database when you return
to work.
7. Safer and more secure. All it takes is
one good fire and your files are destroyed. All it takes is
a backup in under two hours and your small 6 inch x 6 inch
x 1.5 inch 750 gigabyte hard drive may be easily placed in
a safety deposit box or stored offsite in a remote location.
8. Email / Mail / Fax Documents: Quickly and easily
Email, fax or print any scanned document to a client or anyone
else, anywhere in the world.
There are probably many other reasons one may think of to
go paperless but in the end it all adds up to efficiency and
convenience as well as a savings in time and money.
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