Advantages of Scanning and Going Paperless:
Some of the advantages include a savings in money, time and convenience which
have been outlined below:
1. No File Clerk(s): This could easily be the largest monetary savings of all. If an office eliminates the need for a full time file clerk or even two full time file clerks then they may use them for other chores such as scanning and other functions in their office. If an attorney, paralegal or secretary can quickly and easily pull up any document or piece of mail, then there is no longer a need to ever find a file or possibly even have a physical file at all. Along with the monetary savings, there is also a time savings since one may quickly and easily pull up any document for review without waiting for the clerk to find the file.
2. No rental fees for closed or archived files at an offsite location. Far less space is needed for files at the onsite location. One could easily be paying rent for several rooms full of archived documents which could easily cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars per month. Call it "dead space" if you like or just money being thrown away in rent or potential office space.
Scanning could keep one from having to move to a larger office and eliminate that growing "dead space" as well as the space in the active working environment. Let's look at it from a simple and practical point. One may easily scan most if not almost all their documents in "black and white" at 300 dots per inch (not color and not grayscale). In this mode, an Adobe Acrobat pdf file should average around 75K per page. That's 7.5 megs per 100 pages or 37.5 megs per 500 pages. If we assume all of the important correspondences and documents per file average around 500 pages (clearly some files may contain far less than 500 pages and possibly some may contain more) then we average 37.5 megs per file or 37.5 gigs per thousand files. In other words, one could archive 10,000 files at 500 pages per file on a 375 gigabyte hard drive. I recently purchased a 750 SATA gigabyte hard drive for $320 (20,000 file capacity). A1-Law also has the ability to search the "client" folder over multiple paths and drives so the client folder can easily be moved to a separate hard drive.
3. Instant access to all scanned documents for both open and closed files. Also, several staff members could review the same document at the same time without leaving their office and discuss it with each other if necessary. This cannot be done at all under the "old system" unless there is a photocopy or the staff is in the same office reviewing the same physical document.
4. Far fewer documents will be misfiled. This is the feedback we have received when offices use the A1-Law Scan Tracker.
5. No need to carry many files to court or "on the road." One may quickly and easily transfer all open files to their laptop computer in a matter of minutes.
6. Be Mobile - Take Work With You. While some may not take work with them or want to, those that do would probably prefer to carry their entire case load on a laptop computer rather than lug 20 files around on a dolly. For one thing, one may do other things with a laptop such as check Email, play games, listen to music, watch movies, etc. Along with all that, they will in addition be able to view any and all of their files no matter where they are. The A1-Law Transfer Utility makes all this possible. One may transfer their entire open case load to their laptop usually in anywhere from 2-4 minutes. Imagine trying to work on even 5 files on a long airplane flight? The A1-Law Transfer Utility currently is a one way sync but updates will soon allow it to utilize "two way syncing" which means being able to work on the files no matter where you are without any internet remote access to your office. Your changes may then later be "synced" to the main database when you return to work.
7. Safer and more secure. All it takes is one good fire and your files are destroyed. All it takes is a backup in under two hours and your small 6 inch x 6 inch x 1.5 inch 750 gigabyte hard drive may be easily placed in a safety deposit box or stored offsite in a remote location.
8. Email / Mail / Fax Documents: Quickly and easily Email, fax or print any scanned document to a client or anyone else, anywhere in the world.
There are probably many other reasons one may think of to go paperless but in the end it all adds up to efficiency and convenience as well as a savings in time and money.