Important Questions to Ask Your Service Provider

Here are a few questions for you to consider as you start the process.

• How many pages do you have?
  • Using industry standards, a 4 drawer file cabinet holds 10,000 pages.  A standard size banker box holds 2,500 and a large banker box holds 5,000 pages.
• What size are these pages, are they mostly 8  1/2 by 11 or do you have some larger documents like large drawings?
• Do the pages have information on both the front and the back? Remember that each side will be considered as a page.
• Are these pages damaged, old, delicate or in good condition?
• Do you have staples, paperclips, or rubber bands on the documents?
  • During scanning these will have to be removed, will you need them put back the same as received?
• Are these documents black and white, or are there any color photos or color documents?
• How often do you think that you will need to get to these files, or would just need them archived?
  • If you will be accessing these documents, what information is important for you? Folder tab names, identifier numbers, names, or other fields can be indexed to help sort, categorize, and name these documents.
• Would you need to search for what is typed on these documents?
  • If so OCR (Optical Character Recognition) can be used to make your documents text searchable for quick access to the information you are looking for.
• What are you going to do with the images once scanned?
• Will you import them into your existing system or are you looking for a document management system or cloud solution?
• What image format would work best for you? PDF, TIFF, JPG, PNG, etc….
• How would you like to have the images of your documents sent back to you? CD, DVD, Hard Drive, FTP, Email, or imported into your system?
• How quickly do you need your documents scanned?
• After scanning how do you want to handle the physical documents? Should they be sent back to you, shredded, or stored off site?

We have a few questions to get you started on the right path.

• How many documents or records do you think you have?
• What fields need to be keyed from the documents?
• Do you have a “Record Layout” or an example of how you would like for the data to be keyed?
• Any special rules we should follow, such as mandatory fields or what to do if fields are missing?
• Would these document require just data entry, or a second “verify” step to guarantee 99.5% accuracy?
• Are your documents entirely handwritten, typed, or a mixture of both?
• Be ready to have a samples of your documents for us to look at, seeing them will allow us to give you the most accurate quote possible.
• How quickly do you need your documents keyed?
• Is this a one time or ongoing project?
• Will you ship the documents to us or have us setup a PO Box or have us pick them up?
• What output format do you need, Excel, csv, tab delimited or txt?
• After data entry is complete, do you want the documents returned, stored or shredded?
• All our employees sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) before employment begins and we would be happy to sign a NDA with you, if you need one to get started.