One of the questions that we get a lot is, "What do we do with all of our old files?"

It’s a valid question, the last thing that you want are two separate file systems, one electronic, one paper based. What I usually end up telling people is that if you have certain files that you access regularly, consider digitizing them. If you have a bunch of records you don’t ever look at, why go through the time and expense of a conversion?

Let me give you an example of how we are putting this into practice at Fisher’s. The first process that we tackled was our Accounts Payable department. As invoices are received, they are scanned, routed to the appropriate person for approval, back to our AP person who enters this into our Account System, a check is cut, and we don’t keep the paper invoice. There is a time period that we may need to reference the old invoice, but really after 6 months it is rare that we ever need to look at any particular invoice again.

We made the decision that since we so rarely needed to look at these old invoices, it really didn’t make good business sense to scan the past 7 years. So we didn’t. We will continue scan and build an electronic archive and purge paper records as we are allowed by law, gradually going completely paperless.

Our customer records are another matter. This is where we keep contracts, service agreements, and everything else that we deem important. We are in these records all the time. We keep a pretty good grip on these files, because we use them all the time. 

Here is an example of when it makes sense to digitize the whole thing. So here’s what we are doing. Moving forward, all new orders are being scanned, routed for approval, and remain on the server. We are never going to have wonder whose desk a file might be sitting on. The benefit for our sales and administrative staff is huge.

We are actually scanning all of our old customer files too. We set up a scanning station in our service bureau, brought in a couple of people to scan and index, and we are about half way through our customer files.

The net result is we can now access all of our customer records instantly, increasing productivity. We can control who can get to these files, thereby increasing document security. Most importantly, we can answer contract questions much more quickly, which leads to improved customer service.

It’s taken a bit of time and planning, but the benefits are well worth the effort.