document management education

Resources

What is the Return on Investment (ROI)?

What does a system cost?

How does my multifunction device work with the systems?

Is it legal?

What is the Return on Investment (ROI)?

It is easy to cite the various studies and statistics about the cost of managing paper and manual tasks that every organization performs. If you are willing to answer a few brief questions the ROI can be demonstrated for your unique situation. If there is not a 24 month ROI Imagetek does not recommend making a change in your current situation.

The questions:

  1. Documents per year
  2. Average pages per document
  3. Retrievals per day
  4. Daily filing labor
  5. Staffing and wages
  6. Annual filing supplies
  7. Square footage onsite
  8. Square footage offsite
  9. Copies made per year
  10. Value of all paper if destroyed

There have been numerous office studies completed by various groups and their findings confirm what most already believe but seldom take the time to validate.

  1. The average document gets copied 19 times
  2. 7.5% of documents get lost, 3% of the remainder get misfiled
    1. Recovery costs an alarming $120 per document.
  3. Professionals spend 5-15% of their time reading information, but up to 50% looking for it
  4. Of all the documents that get handled each day in the average office, 90% are merely shuffled

(Source: Coopers & Lybrand)

  1. 92% of information is in manila folders
  2. 80% of technical information is on paper and microfilm
  3. Paper files are doubling every 3.5 years
  4. The average document is copied 19 times
  5. Each day one billion photocopies are made
  6. The average worker has a 34 hour paper backlog
  7. Half an office workers time is spent handling paper or data entry
  8. 50% of all projects are behind schedule
  9. Paper costs:
    1. Services 5%
    2. Supplies 6%
    3. Space 7%
    4. Equipment 12%
    5. Labor 70%

(Sources: AIIM, Forrester, Star Securities, US Department of Labor)

  1. Almost 80% of today's information is still paper-based. U.S. and Canadian businesses generate over 1 trillion new pieces of paper each year.
  2. The average time to retrieve and re-file a paper document is 10 minutes.
  3. The average office worker makes 61 trips per week to the fax machine, copier and printer.
  4. It costs about $25,000 to fill a four-drawer filing cabinet and over $2,100 per year to maintain it.

(Source: Gartner Group, Coopers & Lybrand, Ernst & Young)

What does a system cost?

Imagetek has been privileged to work with many major corporations and public agencies that were funded for large acquisitions and the costs could be as much as $200,000–$1,000,000.

This is not a reality for most organizations, thus the introduction of the RADIX service that allows an organization to get started for as low as $100 per month for an unlimited user system.

Since many organizations already own hardware devices that scan, they are looking for a better way to organize their records in a single standardized repository that can be securely managed. Thus the RADIX service is chosen by more than 70% of Imagetek’s new clients versus purchasing the software and hardware required to deploy a system internally.

How does my multifunction device work with the systems?

The MFP is a copier that scans and it may also serve as your fax machine. It creates electronic files and stores them on the network or sends them as email. This is convenient but not as organized as many organizations prefer.

Thus the MFP is used to scan the files after which they are indexed manually or automatically using utilities that Imagetek implements for the customer. Perhaps the most popular tool that Imagetek deploys is batch scanning software (PaperFlow or Teleform) that will dramatically improve productivity of indexing versus the methods of an MFP.

The batch scanning tool uses pulldown fields to standardize the indices and lookups to databases to insure accuracy and integration with other systems. Faxes that are received by the MFP can likewise be stored into the content repository.

Another tool that Imagetek uses automatically indexes and imports files stored in a directory (infusion), using the directory names, file names and attributes as the index fields.

Is it legal?

Most states, federal agencies and industries have passed the legislation that either encourages or approves the use of imaging technology. For instance the IRS and the SEC both approve of the technology.

It is not the technology that is the concern as much as the practice of how you use the technology. Using paper does not guarantee the legality of a record or that you will be able to find it when you need it. To date the records that are forged or tampered with the most are paper documents.

The Uniform Photographic Copies Act (1949) was the original legislation that paved the way for the approval of other facsimile technology. More recent Legislation has been passed to encourage not only the use of technology to convert the paper to an image but to create the document electronically, gaining further efficiencies. These documents are referred to as being “born digital”.

Paperwork Reduction Act (1995)

  1. Minimize the paperwork burden for individuals, small businesses, educational and nonprofit institutions, Federal contractors, State, local and tribal governments, and other persons resulting from the collection of information by or for the Federal Government

Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (1999)

  1. The purpose of the UETA is to remove barriers to electronic commerce by validating and effectuating electronic records and signatures.

Electronic Signature Law (2000)

  1. A signature, contract, or other record relating to such transaction may not be denied legal effect, validity, or enforceability solely because it is in electronic form

Ultimately the burden lies with the owner of the document to produce the “Best Evidence” of a transaction or document in question. If the system that you are using to store the “original” is used in the normal course of conducting business and the paper that was scanned was destroyed as part of your normal course of business the facsimile copy in your system is the “Best Evidence."

Other Legislation including Sarbanes-Oxley, Graham-Leach Bliley, FERPA and HIPAA further hasten the need to make the change to an electronic repository because it is impossible to track and audit paper with the required accuracy and efficiency.