Imaging: What Are You Waiting For?

Our office has taken the leap and hasnt looked back since February 2003. We purchased an imaging tool called Apres Systems, along with a Canon DR3060 scanner and a Windows 2000 server with a total of 80GB (gigabytes) of storage on a Raid 5 disk array. (Raid 5 essentially provides disk drive redundancy by utilizing three swappable hard drives, so if one drive fails, your server continues to run until you "swap" in a new drive.)

We chose Apres Systems because it directly integrated with Applied Systems. As you evaluate imaging solutions, its worth spending some time comparing the integration solutions available. We chose to image all of 2002 by transaction date and then forward from February. So far, almost two years of files have used 10GB of storage.

So what do we do with all the scanned paper? Its backed up on tape daily and twice at the end of each month on CD-R. One copy of the CD-R is taken to a safe deposit box and the other is stored in a fire-proof cabinet. Were also investigating off-site backup solutions. Once the monthly backup is complete, we use a cross-cut shredding machine to dispose of the paper. Initially, this was the hardest part. But once you gain a comfort level in your backups, its the part of the process that truly makes you paperless.

The heart of the system is a fast, reliable scanner thats attached to the server. Our machine scans 35 pages per minute, duplex. Reliability has been excellent and jams only occur when we forget to remove a staple. The benefits gained from ease of imaging and immediate access to the digitized document are huge.

The beauty of the process is that if youre already t-filing, the procedure for e-filing changes very little. We still process every piece of paper received and place it in a t-filing "bucket." The only extra step is the printing of a bar code, which Apres Systems makes very simple: Its placed on top of the document just processed. When the document is scanned, the bar code is read, which determines which customer its attached to.

Our receptionist picks up each e-filing stack from all employees at the end of the day. But instead of dropping the paper in a t-file, she goes to the scanner and images the pile. The paper temporarily is stored for the balance of the month until backups are complete and verified. Then they are shredded.

The immediate savings of imaging are:

No need for additional filing cabinet purchases;

Old non-imaged paper can be shredded, freeing up additional floor space;

Files are no longer "lost" since you can search for them using a variety of criteria;

If your agency management system happens to be down, you still can access all imaged documents via an OCR search; and,

Enhanced productivity and customer service.

CSRs can access a customers data from their workstations, view all imaged files associated with that customer, select an image, and immediately print, fax (utilizing a fax server), e-mail, or just view it. If the customer is on the phone with the CSR, this data is retrieved in seconds with no time-consuming callbacks necessary.

So, in the world of imaging, not only do you reduce the paper and floor space needed to store it, you also make your staff more efficient, which results in longer-term relationships with your customers.

Stu Durland (sdurland@seely-durland.com) is vice president and co-owner of Warwick, N.Y.-based Seely & Durland Inc. and president of Altamonte Springs, Fla.-based Applied Systems Client Network (ASCnet), the international user group of Applied Systems technology.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, February 6, 2004. Copyright 2004 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.