E-Z Document Scanning

Let’s get down to business! For us that doesn’t mean brass tacks, it means staples. Looking at a document scanning project can be overwhelming, and you may find locating a service company to help you scan is just the same. This is a guide on how to begin estimating how much it might cost to scan your file room, cabinet, or drawer.

Estimates in the document scanning business are just like every other industry; a mere tool to help budget upcoming projects. The surprising fact is that most customers don’t even know where to start when estimating the cost of scanning records to electronic file formats. Prices vary so drastically in the market, it makes finding a base point almost impossible.

Plan the End First

The first step to estimating your project is to plan the end of the project first. Long after you’ve scanned hundreds of files and paid hundreds of dollars, you’ll be left with a filing system that will need to adapt into your current environment. Some areas to discuss include:

Where will my scanned documents be stored?
How often do I need to access these files?
Are the files supplementary to already existing digital files, or are the legacy, old, or backscan types of files?
Do I need to lock the files from future editing (such as PDF-A), or can I produce the document in quality standard PDF file format?
How important is file naming?

Make a List of What You Have

Next step to getting a good estimate result is going into the area where documents are stored with a clipboard and a tape measure. A good place to start is by going through the files and marking the different types of files on hand. You may have a list such as:

Human Resource Files
Vendor Files
Accounts Payable
Old Corporate Ledgers

This list is important because it helps you not only know what you have, but it will help you account for how each of these documents may need to be scanned. For example, say you need HR files to be imported into a current file system, but Old Corporate Ledgers are just kept for retention purposes. You may want to have HR files detailed scanned, while Old Corporate Ledgers can just be grouped together into files and folders by fiscal year. These are the details that will help you identify cost saving areas during any project.

Measure Twice Cut Once

Once you have a list of the documents and have identified the scanning details, it’s time to measure. We aim to measure a drawer by loosely pushing the files together. Take the tape measure and stretch it over the files, simple marking down how many inches of each document type there are.

Add up the final linear inches for each file type. This will give you the total amount of inches per document type so we can do some math.

A standard file box, also known as a “Banker’s Box”, is 15 inches long and 12 inches wide (more on if your files are legal folders later). So to get an estimated total “box count”, or a number of how many boxes might need to be scanned and extracted, we do the following calculations:

Take the total INCHES of each file type.
Divide the number of INCHES by 15 (inches in a banker’s box)
Then multiply the result by .85, or a 15% reduction of the documents stored. (Removing folders from hanging folders in file drawers can allot to what we call “storage reductions”, resulting on average a 20% decrease in linear measurement outcome for each drawer.

It’s surely not a science, but it will get you closer to knowing how many “boxes” you have. Boxes is a well used phrase in the scanning industry because it accounts for a standard size of volume that people can understand. In estimating any project, a document scanning expert is going to be looking at the total volume of documents to scan.

Add It ALL Up

Now that we’ve taken measurements and have done our calculations for each file type, it’s time to add them all together. Add all the box amounts together to give you a total project box count. It will allow you to talk specifics in pricing structures so you can begin doing a cost analysis and comparison.

Back to the Computer

Industry standards tend to spec projects out using the following:

How hard will the documents be to remove staples, paper clips, and other bindings? In other words, preparation for scanning.
What is the Output quality of scanning? Such as, are they scanned in color PDF, TIFF, JPEG file formats.
What is the naming convention for the files? In other words, how much typing labor is involved.

First let’s start with a ballpark price structure we’ve identified in the market as an average total breakdown cost that includes each stage of a project:

On average, a standard 15 inch file box costs between $115 to $300 per box to scan. The range listed is depending on the, you guessed it, specs of the project listed above.

The good news is that you can better understand what you have and can help spec each document type identified earlier. Some may need less labor, some may need more. This can help you accumulate thoughts on return on investment, total project costs, etc. Go through each of the 3 project specification questions above and identify answers for each of the document types.

An example may look like this:

Human Resource Files- Total 5 boxes: Have lots of bindings and staples and need to be scanned into 3 sub documents (hire, job competency, and i-9). No need to scan in color and would like a searchable PDF document for each of the documents. Files and folders need to be named the employee ID, last name, and first name, but we have a database of that information, so you will only need to type the employee ID if we give you a spreadsheet to add in last and first names
Vendor Files- Total 6 Boxes: Have staples and bindings, but we just need to scan each vendor folder into one file, all vendor files going forward will be scanned into vendor folders. Need to type the vendor name for file naming, no database.
Accounts Payable- Total 10 Boxes: All years prior to 2018 can be scanned by year, the remaining needs to be scanned by ledger by month to one file. Named by month and year.
Old Corporate Ledgers- Total 5 Boxes: These are old fiscal reports and can be scanned one document per fiscal year.

The list above gives estimates and calculations that will help you get you the best vendor estimate, but also map out the project specifications.

Go Hybrid Approach

Using the example numbers above, we may equate the project to an estimated amount of $6,500 (26- 15 in file boxes, with an estimated cost of $250 per box).

One person may look at that number and think that they could pay an employee or temporary laborer $40/Hr for 4 weeks and equate the same cost (minus the equipment costs and opportunity cost of that labor working on other tasks). That would be a valid reason why a company may in-house staff the scanning project.

Another approach to lowering the costs may be outsourcing the hard task, and in-house staffing the easier less complicated tasks. This hybrid approach assures you get expert attention on highly detailed document types, while allowing you to save money using internal staff.

Summary

There is no doubt that using this article to approach your document scanning project will help you get a better understanding of the project at hand. Providing this information to a vendor should help you get a fair market price on a scanning project.