These days, there are a number of different way to go paperless. Of course, OfficeDrop is one of them, but in this video, Josh Zerkel, a Professional Organizer in San Francisco and founder of Custom Living Solutions, outlines the different options you have when going paperless.
Josh outlines the different types of scanner available, the power of OCR, online backup, text-search, different online applications and mail-in scanning services.
Here is a helpful video done by a ScanDrop user on how to connect your scanner directly to Google Docs. Thousands of people are now using ScanDrop to get their paper into the cloud - either Google Docs, Evernote or OfficeDrop Online.
Check out the great video by @GSKLUBB!
You can download ScanDrop scanning software for free.
It’s easy to scan to Google Docs with ScanDrop!
Going paperless can certainly make things easier for you and your employees, but you aren’t the only one who benefits from a paperless office. Just as your life becomes easier by reducing paper, so will the lives of your clients. Here are a few ways reducing paper and going digital will generate benefits that your clients will thank you for.
Faster Responses
When it comes to resolving client issues, there’s a negative correlation between customer mood and time taken for resolution. Oftentimes, the answers to client questions depend on the location of a paper document, and it used to be that clients had to wait while you rifled through filing cabinets for their answer. In the paperless office digital documents can be searched and retrieved instantly. Going paperless lets you locate documents quickly, and a faster reaction to client needs will always be appreciated.
They Get Anywhere Access
Clients like to stay informed; sharing a collection of digital documents with clients will build trust and make them feel valued. Digital documents can be hosted online, so they’re accessible anywhere your client can find a connection.
Less Clutter
It sounds obvious, but going paperless lets you maintain client relations without sending them stacks of physical documents. Doing business online will save your clients’ desks from excess clutter and make them grateful that they work with your paperless business.
They Feel Safe
Once you can boast the enhanced security features of online document storage, your clients will be reassured knowing that their information is backed up, firewalled, and securely guarded in state-of-the-art data facilities. Not only does this make you look good, but you and your client can sleep easy without nightmares of lost or destroyed paper documents.
They Become Environmentalists
The paperless office certainly has “green” values, and more and more people are becoming environmentally conscious. Knowing that they work with a paperless company will make clients feel good about working with you and good about themselves.
So do yourself and your clients a favor and send documents to us. We do all the scanning, leaving you and your associates to enjoy the security and convenience of reducing paper and managing documents online.
Storing documents online with OfficeDrop is a great way to manage your information. Not only can you view and search your digital and converted paper documents, but you can organize them, adding context and making them even more productive.
One of the best and easiest ways to do this is by applying labels. A label, usually a word or description relevant to a document, is much like a tag and shows up in the gray area under a document in list view or on the right in the individual document view. Once created, you can filter documents by label and quickly see all documents that share a label you’ve created.
If you don’t already use labels, or aren’t sure how, here are some example uses for labels that we’ve found especially useful.
Contracts, bills, invoices, receipts, forms, deposits, articles, and anything else that might be in your account should be classified by applying labels. If you aren’t sure how to organize a document, applying a label classifying the document type is always a good start. That way, if you need to find a receipt, you can at least click your “receipts” label and all receipts are listed instantly.
If you’re storing bills and invoices on your OfficeDrop account, labels are a quick way to indicate the status of that document. Now, if you want to view all the bills you have yet to pay, all you have to do is click your “Unpaid” label, and you have them all right there to review. The same can be done to review paid documents, and payment notes can also be added as annotations.
For use with documents when it isn’t clear who sent it or who it has to do with. Punching in a quick label will forever prevent questions like “who the heck sent me this?” and “why didn’t I just add a name label?” Once labeled, just click the name to see all the documents related to that person.
So if you find yourself staring at documents thinking “this is that…thing, from Bill…someone, that I…paid?” then labels are your new best friend. Take just a couple seconds to add the power of context with labels and you’re instantly informed of the who, where, what, and why for all of your documents.
OfficeDrop and Intuit, the nation’s number one selling accounting software package, want small business owners to know that getting organized and going paperless is easier than you think! OfficeDrop will be showcased among the Intuit Marketplace’s best organizational tools in Intuit’s “Get Organized. Get Rewarded.” event this month. OfficeDrop’s mail-in scanning service and online document management are offering a free trial through the Intuit Partner Program.
The Intuit “Get Organized. Get Rewarded” Campaign offers customers limited-time deals on web apps focusing on office organization. OfficeDrop’s free trial is a great opportunity to see how document scanning and online document management can save money and improve productivity. In addition to the exclusive deals featured with the individual apps, those who sign up for an app will have a chance at winning a free Kindle e-reader.
We’ll be updating our blog with more organizational tips and tricks and more happenings as the “Get Organized. Get Rewarded” event continues this month!
OfficeDrop is excited to announce release of a new free desktop scanning software that connects most scanners directly with Google Docs. This free scanning software, called “ScanDrop,” makes most any scanner a “Google scanner” or a “cloud scanner”.
From a very simple desktop interface, ScanDrop users will be able to scan, verify, organize, re-order, and upload paper documents as PDFs and, from the same interface, upload these PDFs directly to their Google Docs accounts. The ScanDrop software also lets users pick a specific Google Docs folder into which the scanned document will be uploaded and can also name the PDF prior to upload. Scanners supported include the popular Fujitsu ScanSnap, as well as TWAIN standard scanners like the Epson Perfection, Xerox DocuMate, HP ScanJet, Canon LiDE, Visioneer OneTouch, and Fujitsu fi along with many others.
Since we have digitized hundreds of thousands of pages of documents for our clients, we think we’ve got a pretty decent idea of what a simple scanning software should look like. ScanDrop is an easy way for Google Docs users to take advantage of some of the software we created for our own purposes.
ScanDrop is available for download in both the and also off of OfficeDrop’s website at: http://www.officedrop.com/scandrop-scanning-software/scan-google-docs/. This beta version of the desktop scanner software will run on Windows operating systems, such as Windows 7, XP or Vista (sorry, not on the Mac.)
For help configuring your scanner to work with the ScanDrop scanning software, click here.
As a company that promotes the reduction of paper waste and consequently the preservation of trees, we would like to wish everyone a happy Earth Day. As you quest to find ways to preserve the environment, and fight pollution, we urge you to consider paper scanning as a green initiative. Not only does document s scanning reduce your dependence on paper, it makes it fast and easy to locate and manage your information.
This Earth Day, consider going paperless, Arnold will thank you for it.
Web Worker Daily mentioned 10 apps that are the best solutions for critical tasks in 2010. OfficeDrop was mentioned as an easy way to add functionality to to the online invoicing solution FreshBooks. Check out the article and see which applications like OfficeDrop and FreshBooks can help you manage your online business!
People seem to use paper because they don’t think there’s any better way. People have been using paper for thousands of years, but it’s time for a change. Physical paper eats up your time and money, but we’re here to tell you that there is an alternative, and it’s one that’s much, much better.
Now is the age of digital documents. You had a good run, paper, but it’s time to step aside because digital documents are about to end your thousand year reign of impracticality. No more hiding in your cozy file cabinet palaces, selfishly consuming trees, or cutting the fingers of unsuspecting employees (ouch!). Digital documents are taking the throne and here’s why:
No filing cabinets necessary. Digital documents are accessible from either your desktop, or any internet connection, taking up virtually (pun intended) no space at all. Hosted online with OfficeDrop, all of your documents can be securely accessed by any employee that has been granted access to your account. You can also share and email documents instantly. Think about what it takes to get to your stubborn paper documents. In many cases, there is one copy that hides in a filing cabinet, accessible only to those in the office. What if someone needs that document that isn’t around? You would have to copy it, or you end up scanning it anyway. That is, of course, if you can find it.
In addition to easy access, digital documents grant you peace of mind. Securely stored in two redundant digital storage facilities, it would take two simultaneous and massive disasters across the country to threaten your documents. Even in that case, you could still have them on a personal hard drive and not lose a thing. What about paper? You can make copies, but how much time do you want to spend doing that. A single digital document represents an infinite supply of copies that are virtually indestructible. Paper, on the other hand, is vulnerable to a multitude of threats including fire, moisture, misplacement, and of course scissors.
Digital documents are easier to utilize, and they work for you. Completely text-searchable, digital documents are happy to instantly show you the location of any words or numbers you type into the OfficeDrop search bar. I doubt you’ll get such an offer from your paper, which withholds your information in endless lines of text. Do your eyes a favor, scan once with OfficeDrop, and never have to spend hours sifting through piles of paper again.
With OfficeDrop, you can end the tyranny of paper, and set your information, and your office free. There’s a better way to deal with information. By scanning and storing with OfficeDrop, you can turn your outmoded paper into accessible, indestructible, and searchable digital documents.
In a recent article featured on CNN.com, the idea of the paperless office was evaluated, showing evidence that though it is slow going, some offices are moving toward the paperless initiative.
The concept of the paperless office has been around since 1975, when BusinessWeek predicted that offices would use a network of linked electronic filing cabinets.
Here we are 35 years later, but most offices are still dependant on the paper document system. According to the article, businesses use paper printouts to archive 62 percent of important documents.
However, there is hope yet for the spread of the paperless office in the near future. For example, featured online magazine, Trendhunter.com, is a completely paperless office that stores electronically even their important financial performance records.
Though the article notes that people still cling to the portability and disposability of the printed page, it also notes the increasing emergence of e-readers and tablet PCs that allow portability and familiar layout for all digital documents in one place.
We’re happy to be helping with the spread of the paperless office both for environmental purposes as well as general productivity. Hopefully offices will find inspiration in our simple, no hassle document scanning service that allows your office not only to turn paper into digital documents, but organize, search, and share those documents easier than with any paper system.
Though we certainly aren’t there yet, the paperless office is on its way. The technology is certainly available, and small to mid-sized offices can easily go paperless with OfficeDrop today. It seems, however, that people aren’t quite ready to let go of their paper entirely just yet. So until then, we’re happy to help businesses reduce their paper use even if they still want to keep a couple filing cabinets around.
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