Document scanning deserves special mention among the various technologies that have found widespread implementation across businesses and organizations. As document scanners evolve to have increasingly powerful hardware and software, their adoption has sharply increased in various industries.
It’s logical to consider the financial prospects of a new technology before implementing it. This blog should give you a detailed understanding of how your business would benefit financially from adopting document scanners.
5 Ways Document Scanning Can Reduce Costs and Increase Profitability
Embracing document scanning technology can help your business reap significant financial benefits. Here’s how:
1. Reduced Printing and Storage Expenses
Law firms, hospitals, universities, and other organizations that require extensive paperwork incur extensive printing expenses. Studies reveal that on average, companies spend $725 on printing costs per employee. Furthermore, there are other equipment costs, such as printers and their maintenance. Hence, it is much more cost-effective to digitize documents.
By scanning documents and storing them digitally, your organization can potentially reduce its printing expenses by half. This means a company with 500 employees could potentially save over $180,000 per year by simply reducing its dependence on printing physical documents. Switching from physical copies to digitalized documents can also bring down storage costs dramatically.
2. Increased Accuracy and Productivity
One of the biggest perks of document scanning lies in the fact that it automates the data extraction process. Modern document scanners come equipped with advanced Optical Character Recognition (OCR) capabilities, allowing them to seamlessly extract data from documents with a high level of accuracy.
This not only speeds up the process and reduces the chances of human errors but also allows your team to be more productive. An automated document scanning and data extraction process minimizes the need for manual entries. This way, you can allocate your workforce more efficiently and dedicate your human resources to tasks that are directly linked to revenue generation.
3. Enhanced Collaboration
With document scanning, employees in an organization can collaborate much more efficiently. Gone are the days when the staff would have to hand over printed documents physically – it’s as simple as scanning a document and sharing access with all relevant stakeholders. Not only does it enable instant sharing and access, but it also means multiple people can remotely access a document at once. This makes it easier for businesses to go remote, cutting costs drastically.
You no longer need space to store physical documents or print out multiple copies. Employees can collaborate remotely without the need for physical meetings, which allows them to be more productive. In other words, remote operations with seamless document sharing and shared access are more efficient and cost-effective.
4. Minimized Data Loss
Physical documents are vulnerable to damage or degradation due to disasters, human errors, or natural aging effects, like paper starting to rot or the fading of ink. Losing confidential or otherwise crucial data can incur significant business losses - both financial and reputational. With document scanning, you can ensure better business continuity and disaster recovery in case of a disaster or unwanted damage.
While digital files aren’t immune to human errors, malicious attacks, and natural disasters, they are far easier to recover. Creating backups of digital documents and storing them online is much more cost-effective than printing and storing physical duplicates. In case the original files are lost or destroyed, they can be quickly restored with minimal downtime and financial losses. With document scanning, you’re far less likely to incur major data losses in case of a disaster.
5. Better Customer Experience
Adopting document scanning also enables you to serve your customers much better. For starters, your customers can access necessary documents seamlessly from the comfort of their homes. Reduced manual errors and loss of data also minimize customer grievances, lowering your customer support expenses.
At a time when customers expect swift responses, support agents can serve them much better with instant access to relevant information. A great customer experience can earn you their loyalty, and in turn, better profits and business growth.
Conclusion
Evidently, the financial perks of document scanning are immense. Investing in document scanners and a reliable document scanner API can certainly pay off – and in more ways than one. The cost savings and the improved productivity result in increased profits, ultimately delivering great ROI on the adoption of document scanning. The ability to serve customers better is the cherry on top, making for increased customer retention and loyalty.
To sum it up, document scanning comes with a holistic range of financial benefits that you wouldn’t want to miss out on. Come up with a customized document scanning solution for your business to make the most of it.