Happy Spring

Spring is here! Does that mean Spring Cleaning to you?

Here’s an idea to consider: Many folks begin to clean their offices in the Spring; there’s a lilt in the air and a desire/need to rebirth one’s environment.

At this time of year, perhaps you’ll look at your storage room. Would you like to get rid of some of the old files? Would you like to reduce your storage expenses? Would you like to feel just a bit “lighter” knowing that you have less paper to store?

There are some other advantages: Converting hard copy to another format, perhaps digital, which will allow faster access in the event of need; this reduces your space needs, and therefore the expense of storage. Enabling faster search for key documents from the past. Have you ever needed a document from a previous matter and couldn’t find it? If your old matters are stored electronically, you can use a good search engine and find what you want in minutes, not hours!

How do we do this? Simple. Many photocopiers today are leased; many of these machines first scan a document and then photocopy it. The lease charges are based on the paper printed, not on the paper scanned.

Thus, you can scan your old files, but not print them. Once scanned, you’d be able to electronically search for what you need, photocopy only that document, and do so within minutes from your desk rather than hours in a storage room.

The scanning is simple; the use of labor is expensive, but the labor cost can be reduced by using special workers who are challenged (disabled) in some fashion but still capable of performing this task. The real challenge is to provide sufficient instructions to the new, part-time work force such that they know what documents can be copied and then destroyed and what documents are original and need to be saved, intact.

In this case, a little time spent once will save many dollars repeatedly.

Categorized in: Management