Document Management and Scanning Blog

Paper Scanning: Up Productivity, Cut Costs, and Conquer Stress

March 19th, 2010 by mfellows

Everyone wants to be productive, but working with paper can slow you down, and rob you of hours you could be using to get something done. We believe that working with paper documents is inefficient, and that online storage is the perfect solution. In a recent article on Boston.com, the inefficiencies of working with paper were outlined with some concerning numbers regarding how paper slows us down, and stresses us out.

Taken from a Boston consultancy, the article featured statistics noting that 15 percent of paper used in business is lost, and that 30 percent of employee time is spent trying to locate paper documents! With numbers like those, paper is eating up a scary amount of time and money - $120 per lost document according to the article.

On top of fiscal losses, piles of disorganized paper create stress for employees. In the article, business psychologist Ross DeSimmone describes a cycle by which employees get down on themselves, do less because of lowered energy, feel inefficient, and it starts again. As you might imagine, panicked rummaging through stacks of documents with the pressure of an important deadline weighing down isn’t the best practice for one’s mental and emotional health. Habits like these wear us out, slow us down, and stress us out.

Conversely, there are few better feelings than completing a task quickly and efficiently, impressing superiors and inspiring co-workers. Wouldn’t you rather be congratulated on a job well done rather than constantly hounded for missing documents?

Since scanning and hosting documents online eliminates the stress and inefficiency of working with paper, OfficeDrop can help you ditch depression, and get back on that productivity high. Not to mention how much better your office is going to look without all that paper lying around.

Let us scan your documents and break the paper cycle. Find documents anytime, anywhere, without the piles of paper or piles of stress.

Posted in Benefits, Home Office, Organization, Paperless | No Comments »

Find OfficeDrop in the FreshBooks Addons Page

March 18th, 2010 by Healy Jones

You can now find OfficeDrop in FreshBook’s addons page under the category “document sharing!” Check our our FreshBook’s document sharing profile and let us know what you think of the integration. As Web Worker Daily says, “Now tying specific files to your invoices can be a cinch with OfficeDrop.”

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Getting a Custom URL (Username) for your Company Facebook Page

March 16th, 2010 by mfellows

Yeah, we’re on Facebook. It’s a great, free way to interact with customers and promote our business. You can fan our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/officedrop. You may be wondering “hey, how do I get a cool custom URL like that?” We wondered the same thing, and after four months of hacking into the Facebook database we finally got it done. We also took the liberty of deleting those pictures from the office Christmas party. That’s a joke, you don’t have to hack into Facebook to get a custom username, but it wasn’t exactly easy. Here are the steps you need to take to get your business a company Facebook page and a custom username aka that clean, professional looking URL.

1. Create a Company Facebook Page (if you already have a page see steps 2-3)

This is the easy part. Go to www.facebook.com/pages and from there you should find a button to “+Create Page.” Hit that guy and then fill out some information to classify and create your page.

*Note: Be careful about who creates this page! Once the page is created it is permanently linked to the profile of the person who created it. If a lower-level employee creates the page and the CEO wants ownership there is no way to make that transfer- believe us, we tried.

2. Get 25 Fans

This is where it gets a little tricky but don’t worry, you can do it. Facebook lets you get that custom page username, but they require that you have at least 25 fans under your belt first. This is kind of a pain but it’s understandably implemented to prevent squatters from eating up URLs. For some, getting 25 fans might be a cinch, for others it might be a little more difficult. Leverage your friends and family to get fans by asking for favors, or making promises of cookies. We recommend asking anyone you know in college - they can probably help you get to 25 really quickly.

3. Get that Custom Facebook URL!

Got your fans? Good. Now to get that vanity URL: head to www.facebook.com/username and make sure that an administrator of the page is signed in at this point (that is usually the person who created the page). From the facebook.com/username page it is primarily asking about personal profile usernames, but what you want is the link underneath all that noise that says “Set a username for your Pages.” Click the link contained there and you will be given a list of the pages you administer. Almost there - just pick the page you want to edit and cross your fingers that the username you want isn’t already taken. If it isn’t, then congratulations, you’ve got your custom username. Just make sure there aren’t any typos because once you enter the name, there’s no turning back. Now you’re looking dapper with your new custom username and you can promote via Facebook with a fresh, clean looking custom URL.

Why do you want a Custom Facebook URL?

Besides the fact that all the cool companies have their own custom FaceBook page (check out Coke’s page or Lacoste’s), Facebook is a fun way to show a little of your company’s personality and communicate with your customers. Just as importantly, for a small business, Facebook pages - properly named, that is - show up highly in search engine results. Finally, you don’t want some competitor putting up a page in your name! Happy social networking.

Posted in Marketing | 1 Comment »

OfficeDrop: One of “20 Ideas to a Better Life”

March 15th, 2010 by mfellows

Our goal here at OfficeDrop is to make lives easier by providing a simple solution for document scanning and document management. We’re always happy to hear that we’re meeting that goal, so you can imagine how excited we were when we stumbled across an article by nationally recognized financial advisor, Alan Haft, who listed us #1 on his list of “20 ideas to a better life.”

His article, featured on cpa2biz.com, and alanhaft.com, emphasized the benefits of using technology to increase productivity and general business efficiency. In particular, Alan noted the benefits of the “paperless office,” which is the very business environment we promote.

Alan Haft is a frequently published financial advisor, has been featured on Fox Business News, and is the author of You Can Never Be Too Rich and The 10 Most Common Mistakes People Make With Their Money.

We would like to thank Alan for his support and positive feedback about our secure, effective document management service at a “reasonable price.” We couldn’t have asked for a better recommendation than his concluding line, “Go paperless and I can assure you that you’ll never go back again.”

Posted in Benefits, Customer Satisfaction, Document Management, Organization, Paperless, Small Business | No Comments »

Publicly Sharing Documents and Folders with OfficeDrop

March 15th, 2010 by Healy Jones

Sharing folders and individual documents is easy with OfficeDrop. To see an example of what a publicly shared folder looks like, click on the following link:

Public Link Example

You will notice that the person viewing this folder can only see the documents stored in the folder. They get to see the same snippet view that you do as the owner of the OfficeDrop account. Importantly, labels, sub-folders (at the moment this example does not have a sub folder) and search all work. Try searching for for the word “change” - you’ll find the it in one of the documents stored in that folder.

This sort of a public link would be very useful if you wanted to make documents available off of your website or blog.

You can also create share links of single documents. Try clicking on the following:

Public Document Share Example

Using the embed function, you can get an automatic HTML widget that can be displayed on your blog:

Posted in Document Management, Product Features | No Comments »

Bulk Scanning Discount: Simplify Spring Cleaning With OfficeDrop

March 11th, 2010 by mfellows

Spring is just around the corner - a time of rebirth, renewal, rabbits, eggs (?), and of course, spring cleaning. We’re not sure why everyone decided spring was the time for cleaning - maybe to curb the excitement that stems from the culmination of winter - who knows?

If you find your office “celebrates” spring with an annual ritual of sifting through stacks of paper and ordering files in cabinets, we have a better, more permanent, way to handle your spring cleaning.

Bulk Scan your Paper with OfficeDrop (Discounted for Spring Cleaning)

Bulk scanning with OfficeDrop’s document scanning service is an easy way to get all your office documents organized online, and keep them that way. To help you celebrate spring cleaning, we are offering $20 off any bulk scanning order of $200 or more until the end of this month. If you’re going to be organizing your paper anyway, why not prep them for scanning and online storage where they can be filed, labeled and managed from any internet connection? All you have to do to prep your documents for online management is to attach documents of each category or label with a paper clip and label that stack. Then just pack them up in the pre-paid boxes we provide and mail them to our secure facility.

If you want, you can even send everything in no particular order in the box at all and organize it later from our convenient online portal. Once they’re all in the system, you can mail us your paper each month as if flows into your office. That way, come next spring, you’ll be able to enjoy the season knowing your documents are secure and organized with OfficeDrop.

How to get the Spring Cleaning Discount

Give us a ring when you place your order at 888-674-6493 and mention this spring cleaning discount. It’s that easy!

Remember, you must place and ship your order in March 2010 to receive this $20 discount, and your bulk scanning order needs to be over $200.

Posted in Benefits, Document Management, Events, Organization, Paperless, Pricing | No Comments »

WebWorkerDaily Spreads the OfficeDrop Word

March 9th, 2010 by mfellows

OfficeDrop and our FreshBooks integration was recently written up in an article featured on WebWorkerDaily which can be seen here.

As we noted in a previous blog post, OfficeDrop can now be integrated with FreshBooks with the OfficeDrop-FreshBooks app. We are very excited about helping people with their online billing, and others are starting to take note of the convenience this integration provides.

For example, we recently caught the eye of WebWorkerDaily, a resource site which is part of the popular GigaOM network and provides tips, news, and guides for people in web-focused careers.

We were fortunate enough to be featured on WebWorkerDaily in a post by the talented Aliza Sherman, who explained the notable features of both OfficeDrop and the FreshBooks integration. We especially liked her real-world examples that noted the benefits of a graphic designer attaching images right to an invoice, or a freelance writer sharing drafts with clients so that they can see progress right from the bill.

Since WebWorkerDaily is a great resource for the digital workforce, we are proud to have our very own article to join the ranks of pieces geared toward promoting productivity and making online careers easier.

Thank you to Aliza and WebWorkerDaily for spreading the word about OfficeDrop and our new FreshBooks integration!

Posted in Benefits, Press coverage, Product Features, partnerships | No Comments »

Online Services Boost Small Business Profits

March 8th, 2010 by mfellows

In a recent study done by Microsoft found that small and mid-sized businesses have shown greater financial success when using hosted IT services (hey, that’s us). The study surveyed 3,193 small to medium sized businesses in Australia, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, the U.K., and the U.S. A.

Essentially, the survey asked small business owners how important IT was to their business. Once the businesses were broken into 4 sections of varying use of IT services, this data was cross-referenced with the financial earnings of those companies. The result of this comparison revealed that businesses with higher IT focus were more likely to have had increases in average revenue over 12 months! Conversely, businesses that utilized IT services less were more likely to have static or declining revenue averages in the same 12 month period.

Within the IT focused businesses, more than 40 percent of the businesses that use hosted or cloud technology saw an increase of 30 percent or more in revenue. Compare this to participants not using hosted IT, 90 percent of whom saw a profit decrease.

This is a very interesting find, though it is consistent with small business trends in SaaS and cloud computing. Using hosted services are more cost effective and practical in a digital world, so it is no wonder that businesses using these services do well since employees have more time and money to focus on increasing revenue.

That’s our goal at OfficeDrop - to save you time and money, specifically, by eliminating unnecessary costs stemming from the storage, management, and loss of paper. Manage your documents online with OfficeDrop and you too can benefit from hosted IT services. Learn about how cloud content management can help your small business take advantage of enterprise content management, at a fraction of the price by using cloud computing.

Posted in Benefits, Document Management, Small Business, cloud computing | 1 Comment »

OfficeDrop Intern Discusses Life @OfficeDrop

March 5th, 2010 by Healy Jones

Our fearless marketing intern, Matt Fellows, is also a reporter for a local technology publication, BostInnovation. He has just written a fun “report” of life at OfficeDrop as an intern - check it out!

My favorite lines from his article:

Regarding the name change from Pixily to OfficeDrop: “Sadly, ScanNinja did not make the final cut.”

“Whether discussing SEO strategy or our favorites from the snack cabinet, conversation is free flowing.”

And the best line (and yes, he is joking): “With every pot of coffee I make and lunch I deliver, I feel like I’m really making a difference.”

Thanks for the fun write up Matt!

Posted in OfficeDrop | No Comments »

Wait a Minute, What is a PDF?

March 4th, 2010 by mfellows

OfficeDrop turns all of your paper into text-searchable PDFs, but those new to our services may be wondering “what is a PDF?”

A PDF (Portable Document Format) is, essentially, a standardized way to represent two dimensional digital images. These images may be graphics, text documents, or a combination of the two. The PDF was created by Adobe Systems in 1993 and since them has become a standard in digital document representation. In 2008 it was published by the International Organization for Standardization as an open standard, meaning that it is now universalized and available to the public royalty-free.

The format is especially versatile because it not exclusive to any software, hardware, or operating systems - making it very easy to share. In addition, the PDF is completely extensible, which means it can be adapted to guarantee compatibility with future innovations. A PDF is typically viewed as a digital representation of a piece of paper as you would expect to see on a word processor.

Additional features of the PDF include security options like password protection, text-searchability, and interactive properties such as annotations and other edits.

Due to its heightened accessibility, security, and feature list, the PDF is the format we have chosen for your documents. We hope you now have a better appreciation of how you are viewing your documents, and why this is our favorite format here at OfficeDrop.

Posted in Customer Satisfaction, Product Features, Security | No Comments »