Are you taking the right steps to make sure that you’ll get the best results from your document management system? Scanning is crucial in a document management system. Regular documents show age, smudging, yellowing and other physical damage that can cause documents to become illegible. If you’re lucky and your paper documents are able to retain their legibility, you run the risk of losing the document and your sanity while trying to find it! When you scan an original document, you’re decreasing your risks in losing and destroying your documents. Are you taking the right steps to make sure that you’ll get the best results?
- Is the document readable? If not, increase the dots per inch. For most scanned documents, it’s recommended that your document be 200-300 dpi.
- Be sure to choose the correct format. Many use PDF for most documents that are scanned. JPEG is typically used for digital photographs and TIFF is the usual for text.
- Black ink has the best clarity when scanning, avoid colors.
Now, are you saving the right documents?
Another important part of your document management system is document storage and how you maintain your records. Now, we are definitely advocates for making a digital copy of your documents, however don’t dismiss the importance of keeping a hard copy of some documents. Knowing what you should keep and what you should discard is important, so making a list of what is permanent, what to keep for a short time and what to remove is a good idea for a strong document management system.
Permanent:
- Any personal documents, birth and death certificates, health records, wills or power of attorney documents.
- Tax returns. Most audits will occur within seven years, it’s important to keep them just to be safe
- Deeds and titles
- Property records
- Contractual agreements, vendor relationships,
Temporary:
- Invoices, register tape, credit card charges, 1099s and W2s
- Proof of deductible purchases and expenses mileage logs, voided checks, etc.
Shred:
- ATM receipts and deposit slips after they’ve been reconciled with your bank statement
- Warranties that are expired
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