Scanning Documents to Save Time and Money

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If you work in a paper-centric office, there’s no doubt you’re familiar with the struggle associated with accessing the information you need to do your job. Files stored in paper form residing in old fashioned file folders within disorganized filing cabinets present big problems when it comes time to access data on demand. Finding a piece of paper in this less-than-ideal storage system can prove to be vexing, if not completely fruitless.

Thankfully, there is a better, more efficient way to store your documents. It all starts with scanning your paper documents via document imaging and converting them to digital files. This revolutionary method of storage will eliminate paper clutter in your office, benefitting your business immensely. How so? Let’s start with saving your company both time and money.

Save time through instant archiving and retrieval of files and documents
Time equals money in business, and storing files in paper form is costing you a bundle. How much time is spent in your office manually filing documents or searching for them after the fact? However much time it adds up to, scanning your documents and storing them electronically makes it possible to accomplish these tasks in a fraction of the time. This surplus in available time can instead be used for more important, value-adding tasks. Additionally, being able to retrieve documents in an instant will positively impact productivity, collaboration, and customer service within your company.

Save money by reducing overhead expenses
Printing documents to paper costs money, from the paper being printed on to the consumables used to print with. Storing documents in paper form takes up more space than doing so electronically, which also adds to your overhead. By scanning your documents and converting them to digital form, you’ll eliminate these printing costs from your budget. You’ll also eliminate filing expenses, as well as the need for additional space to store paper documents, which can be costly. You can downsize to a smaller, less expensive office, or use that newly available space for something that generates revenue.

The benefits provided by scanning documents and storing them digitally make it easy to understand why so many organizations have moved away from storing them in paper form. Contact Infomax Office Systems to get started.

Why Your Business Needs a Disaster Recovery Strategy

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Is your business ready if the unthinkable happens?  The statistics suggest that the likelihood that your business could survive a disaster is slim. In fact, 58% of small businesses don’t have a disaster recovery plan in place to protect their data if a disaster strikes or if their information is breached. This lack of planning can be catastrophic to businesses of all sizes, affecting credibility and even the longevity of the company.

Here are five reasons your business needs a disaster recovery strategy.

  1. Stuff happens
    Tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters can damage your physical office location and wipe out your data. Computers crash. Hackers can infiltrate your system. Software gets corrupted.The biggest threat to your data, however, is the carefully cultivated team of professionals you hired to make your business great. Your team edits, deletes, and overwrites files every time they are on their computers, and IBM reports that more than half of all data loss comes from human error. Even if you emphasize being diligent about data protection to your team, people make mistakes and your business needs to be prepared for the worst.
  2. Compliance regulations
    Having credit card information, certain customer data, HIPAA-protected medical information, or other personally identifiable information in your system makes you liable to protect such confidential data. You are responsible to protect that data to the point that you may have a legal obligation to do so. Forrester’s Disaster Recovery Preparedness Benchmark Survey reports that 65% of all businesses have compliance requirements, and a disaster recovery plan can help you abide by such regulations.
  3. Downtime costs you money
    Losing important data equals lost productivity. No business wants to pay their team to recreate documents that already exist – it’s like paying them twice for the same outcome. But that’s if they are capable of reproducing them. For some industries, lost documents simply can’t be replaced without starting over completely. Not only will your employees not be able to access the information they need to do their jobs, your customers may not be able to either. If your clients can’t wait for you to get things back up to speed, you may lose their business.
  4. You may not be able to recover everything
    Sometimes, you can get your systems up and working again in a way that makes things appear that you’re back to normal. However, even if you can get your systems back up and running, you may not get all your data back. Can you afford to lose all the information you’ve spent years collecting?
  5. It can cost you everything
    If the first four reasons haven’t convinced you, here are two scary statistics that should concern every business:

    • 60% of small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that suffer a disaster shut down within half a year
    • 93% of business that lose their data storage for two weeks file for bankruptcy within the next year

If your business does not have a disaster recovery plan, you are putting yourself at risk.  Contact us today to learn more about disaster recovery options for your business. We will conduct a risk assessment and give you specific recommendations to help you protect your data and your business.

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The Benefits of In-House Production Printing – Infomax

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If your business isn’t directly correlated with printing, you may currently choose to send big print jobs to an outside printing company. Some firms make this choice assuming that professional-quality printing is too expensive to bring in-house or that it’s too difficult to do it well on-site. But in reality, many companies find that investing in the equipment for in-house production printing machine benefits them in numerous ways. If your organization regularly needs professional-quality printed materials in large quantities, such as programs, booklets, handouts and more, consider these ways that in-house production printing may serve you well.

  • Maintain your schedule: When you outsource production printing, you’re at the vendor’s mercy. There’s little you can do to rush an order, and there’s little chance you’ll get a quick job through after hours or on Saturday. The vendor’s largest clients will always take priority, so if that’s not you, you’re out of luck. Moving your production printing in-house gives you complete schedule control.
  • Control your costs: Of course there are upfront costs associated with bringing production printing in-house. However, there is significant cost every time you send an order to the nearby print shop, too. And those costs add up. You may find significant savings over the long run by doing your own production printing on-site, especially if you print in high volumes. Your purchasing options, such as leasing vs. buying, may prove to be surprising as you dig into the numbers to determine if you spend enough on outsourced printing projects annually versus the total cost of ownership (TCO) of a production printer.
  • Avoid leaks: In-house production printing reduces the number of hands and eyes processing your material. If you are printing material that is in any way sensitive or proprietary, you know that controlling access to that information is critical. Sending files to a vendor opens up many avenues for a data breach. The digital files can be stored or transmitted insecurely, and any number of personnel at the print shop could surreptitiously steal or copy your information.
  • Be free: Most commercial printing firms come with strings attached. They may require weeks of lead time or have a high minimum threshold for print runs. They may be finicky about file types or lack the will to call and ask about an obvious error in your content. With in-house production printing, you can set your own rules and perform more thorough quality assurance checks.

Contact us today to learn more about how our production printing offerings can help you meet your production print needs in-house.