I would concur with the others who have questioned the wisdom of scanning records in storage.

My experience is that you can store paper records at a commercial records center for decades before approaching the cost of properly imaging the same records. Now if you're simply going to dump a box of paper into a hopper, scan, then shred, sure, scanning is cheap. But you'll have a heck of a time finding anything an no user is going to want to page through dozens of images looking for what they need. Proper imaging means that the records are well-indexed and a single imaged "document" is not 200 pages long. That doesn't happen by magic.


Imaging makes sense for inactive records when:

1) You have a periodic, but immediate, need for the documents to meet a customer service requirement (i.e. you need to review a document while on a customer service call with a customer -- this avoids customer services issues and the cost of calling back the customer). Or,

2) The records are vital records and you cannot afford to lose any of them. Or,

3) The records are related to pending or ongoing litigation and are on legal hold or have a high likelihood of being required for litigation and need to be protected. (and even at that, imaging may not be the best solution)


For inactive records with short horizon retention (i.e. under ten years), you're throwing money away to image them.

 
Patrick Cunningham, CRM, FAI
[log in to unmask]


"Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier." 
-- Colin Powell


List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message.
mailto:[log in to unmask]