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Digital mailroom
As businesses aim to reduce costs,
speed up processes and shrink their
carbon footprint, many are replacing
paper-based processes with digital
workflows. Organisations that do so will
still receive much incoming material in
paper form and, for them, the question
is when and where does scanning take
place. Do you centralise scanning or do
you enable it at a departmental level,
or, for multi-site organisations, from
remote offices (see case study on page
41)? And do you do it for all mail or just
for certain processes, such as invoicing?
The answer for many organisations
– regardless of size – is to undertake
scanning as soon as documents enter a
business. This gives greater control, helps
ensure compliance with a scanning/
digitisation policy, minimises the risk
of documents going astray and speeds
up the distribution of incoming mail,
enabling employees to act on sales
orders, information requests, customer
complaints and so on more quickly.
So called digital mailroom solutions
can be implemented by businesses of any
size. There are a wide variety of solutions
available, from desktop all-in-one
systems like the Neopost IMW-20 (see
page 14) to outsourced scanning bureaux
that will manage the whole process for
you. Many existing scanning/document
management specialists are remarketing
their solutions to address this growing
segment of the market.
ABBYY, a leading provider of document
recognition, data capture and linguistic
technologies, recently launched its own
Digital Mailroom Solution. Based on
ABBYY FlexiCapture, this enables incoming
mail to be digitised and documents to be
automatically classified and distributed
throughout the whole organisation
electronically – as well as in original hard
copy if preferred.
Instant notification
One organisation already successfully
using ABBYY’s Digital Mailroom is law
firm Moore Blatch. It provides services
in the areas of corporate, commercial,
property, dispute resolution and private
client consultation and wanted a way of
managing the ever increasing amount
of documents flowing in and out of the
organisation.
Scan and deliver
How digital mailrooms can help organisations of all sizes
improve document workflow
...eliminating
manual post
distribution
was essential
as we were
spending a
lot of time
distributing
and filing
documents...
Miracle cure
As the NHS faces a £2 billion budget shortfall, Colin Miller
fromABBYY argues that digital mailrooms could help alleviate
the cash-flow crisis at NHS Trusts
“A digital mailroom would be a miracle pill for the NHS.With hospitals
being inundated with bills and the accounts payable departments spending
most of their working day on the phone to angry suppliers chasing
payments, it’s crucial that something is done to help the NHS weather its
cash-flow storm.
“What is needed here is not just pleas to the Government for ‘quick fix’
bail-out loans to fix already inadequate systems; what is needed is a sustained solution to reduce the
amount of paperwork departments deal with, so they can process the likes of invoices efficiently and
increase productivity as a result.
“By automating the accounts payable process and including powerful technology for data extraction,
this will eliminate the need to manually enter data, which in turns means fast turnaround times on
payments and significant reductions in operational costs.
“What’s more, digitising the whole process provides clear visibility and tracking of all invoices at
any one time so staff know when they need to be paid, and if any queries do arise they can quickly be
managed ensuring compliance and alleviating the need to sift through piles of paper.
“Ultimately with funds being squeezed, it’s vital that the NHS are able to focus their efforts on
becoming as efficient as possible.”
Continued...
OPEX Corporation has added the
Falcon mixed document capture
workstation to its family of prep-
reducing scanners.
Combining OPEX’s one-step drop-
feed scanning with the performance
of a high-capacity production scanner,
Falcom is suitable for a variety
of applications, from document
conversion services and mobile
scanning operations, to wholesale
lockboxes and digital mail centres.
Scott Maurer, President of OPEX
International, said: “The introduction
of Falcon solidifies OPEX as the
front runner in efficient document
scanning. From our patented drop feed
technology to meeting the needs of
traditional high-capacity stack feed
scanning, Falcon provides, on one
device, a universal scanning platform.
In terms of its overall versatility, Falcon
will be, for many operations, the only
scanner they will ever need.”
Supplied with OPEX CertainScan
3.0 software, which provides an
intuitive way to visually classify
documents as they are scanned,
Falcon allows operators to prep and
scan documents at a faster rate than
most current prep-only processes.
This significantly reduces costs
associated with preparing documents
for scanning. In addition, Falcon offers
four versatile feeder options: drop-
feeder, packet feeder, high-capacity
feeder and a unique Rescan Feeder.
When fitted to the OPEX Model
72 Rapid Extraction Desk, FalconRED
is the fastest, most efficient way to
process payments, mail orders and
scan virtually any document directly
from the envelope. Other notable
features include a customisable work
surface and optional motorised height
adjustment for maximum operator
comfort.
