Document Management | Document Management and Scanning Blog

Archive for the ‘Document Management’ Category

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

One of the most prevalent reasons people hang on to documents is that they think they will be important later. Even if there is no imaginable future need for a certain receipt or bill, there’s still the nagging doubt that somehow, years in the future, you’ll regret throwing away the record of some purchase or transaction.

So years go by and those documents stay in boxes and filing cabinets until you start to wonder “when is it safe to throw this stuff out?” We get that question a lot, and we’re here to help. To save you the time, and answer your questions we’ve compiled a list of suggested durations for a few different types of documents.

Tax Related:

7 years is the magic number when it comes to tax documents. Different kinds of tax documents may be thrown out as soon as three years, but 7 years is the max, so that duration will guarantee you have all your bases covered. For more detail on saving tax documents, see our blog post, How long should I save tax documents?

Banking Documents:

Unless they’re tax related, save checks and other banking documents for one year. Checks related to mortgages and business expenses should be saved longer or indefinitely. When in doubt, save it, or better yet, scan it!

Bills:

It’s recommended that you hang on to bills for about one year, or until you’re sure they are no longer relevant. However, bills for high-value purchases should be saved indefinitely for use as proof of value in the case you decide to sell an expensive appliance or jewelry, for example.

Credit Card/Receipts/Statements:

Credit card expenses need only be saved until you receive your monthly statement. If the receipts add up to your bill, shred ‘em. Unless, of course, they are tax-related in which case we recommend the seven year rule.

Paycheck Stubs:

Hang on to paycheck stubs for about a year. Once you compare them to your W-2 form, you can throw them out if they add up.

Hopefully that info can free up some of your attic space from cabinets and boxes. Don’t forget, scanning and storing your documents online with OfficeDrop lets you save documents as long as you like without sacrificing space in your home. This list should give you more confidence to throw out some documents you’re sure you don’t need. As for the rest, send them off to OfficeDrop. We do all the scanning for you and you’ll never have to worry about saving or losing an important document again.

Posted in Document Management, Organization, Taxes | No Comments »

3 Reasons to Share A Document

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Storing digital documents saves time and money, but it’s the sharing that really puts those documents to work. Your OfficeDrop “Share” button links all of your digital documents to employees, clients, and anyone else that needs secure access to your data. Sharing documents can be used for many different purposes. To get you started, here are three examples of how sharing can be used to turn digital documents into office solutions.

Share an Expense Report

Going on business trips and buying company equipment/ supplies generates a lot of records that need to be organized if you want to be compensated for things paid for out of your own pocket. With an OfficeDrop account, you can consolidate all of those records online as digital documents, and then email a link to the boss. Expenses are viewed instantly, nothing gets lost, and you get reimbursed in full.

Get Multiple Signatures

Some documents require multiple signatures from people that might not be in the same room…or the same state. Scanning and sharing documents that need authorization can save a lot of time and risk mailing one document from office to office to get the necessary signatures. With OfficeDrop, just sign, scan and share. All the second signer has to do is print and add his or her signature. *check to see if this is legally binding in your area.

Keep Everyone on the Same Page

Anytime you need to share information across the office, sharing with OfficeDrop is a quick, secure solution. Whether it’s client information, or procedural instructions, the share option will instantly deliver the data to those who need it. Don’t deny employees information because it’s stuck on paper, scan and share to grant everyone secure access.

Those are just a few ways that sharing documents will make your life easier. With so many different kinds of documents, and so many workflows, the reasons for sharing documents are infinite. Whatever your reason, be sure that you’re using OfficeDrop’s share feature to expand document access, and make your business more productive.

Posted in Document Management, Product Features | No Comments »

3 Ways to Use Labels

Friday, May 28th, 2010

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.

1. Document Type

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.

2. Paid/Unpaid

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.

3. Client Names

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.

Posted in Benefits, Document Management, Home Office, Product Features, cloud computing | No Comments »

Get Organized Webinar Tomorrow

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

Josh Zerkel, a Professional Organizer and CEO of Custom Living Solutions, will give an online talk tomorrow as part of Intuit’s Get Organized Get Rewarded campaign. He will be discussing various technology strategies for realizing the paperless office dream. You can sign up for his talk at: http://community.intuit.com/small_business_events

He has also written a post on Intuit’s small business blog on using technologies to start on the path to the paperless office. Read it here: http://smallbusiness.intuit.com/blog/where-small-is-now/2010/05/tech-tools-to-boost-productivity-–-part-1.html

Posted in Document Management, Organization, Paperless, Paperless Champions | 1 Comment »

Get More From Your OfficeDrop Account: 5 Awesome Features You Might Not Know About

Monday, May 10th, 2010

You love searching your documents and adding labels in your OfficeDrop account, but are you using the online document management system to its full potential? OfficeDrop is packed with productivity boosting features - some of which you may not even know exist. To help you get the most out of your online OfficeDrop account, here are 5 of the best features that you might have overlooked.

Phrase Search
This feature was added recently, and it takes document retrieval to a new level of accuracy. Just like you do with Google, you can put quotes around a search term to indicate you only want results containing those words in that order. By searching “expense report,” with quotes, you don’t have to see documents containing only one of the terms, saving you a lot of time finding the document you want.

Expire a Share
If you don’t already know, you can easily share documents with friends and co-workers. For detailed instructions on sharing, see our tutorial video. If you already know about this feature, you should also know that what you giveth, you can taketh away. Meaning: any document share can be expired at any time, assuring that you are always in control of your documents.

Folder Share
Ok, so you already know you can share documents, but did you know you can also share an entire folder? The same way you can share a document, limiting access, privacy etc, you can also share a folder. To do this just click the small arrow next to the folder you wish to share, select “share,” and specify sharing options. Of course once you share a folder you can expire that share at any time.

Upload to Folder
Uploading from your desktop is fast and easy, but did you know you can upload files directly into a folder of your choice? By going back to that little arrow next to the folder you can access that folder’s context menu and select “Upload Files.” As you might guess, upload documents from there and they will be uploaded right into that specific folder.

Downloaded PDFs Stay Text-Searchable
A lot of people ask “When I download a PDF to my desktop, is it still text searchable?” When they do, we’re happy to answer “They sure are.” Once a document is scanned into OfficeDrop, it is converted into a text-searchable PDF automatically unless specified otherwise. That way you can download to your machine, open it with any PDF reader and you will still be able to search that document.

Posted in Document Management, OfficeDrop, Organization, Product, Product Features | No Comments »

New ScanDrop Video for TWAIN Scanning

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

In our first ScanDrop video, we showed you how you can scan directly to Google Docs with a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner. Though the ScanSnap is a great scanner, there are a lot of other brands that use a different software protocol called TWAIN, and the ScanDrop scanning software works with all of these as well.

Basically, all you need to know is that configuring ScanDrop will be a little different if you aren’t using a ScanSnap. It’s still easy to do, so if you’re scanning with a scanner that isn’t a ScanSnap, see the following video to get ScanDrop up and running on your TWAIN scanner.

Posted in Customer Satisfaction, Document Management, Document Scanners, Product Announcements, cloud computing, document scanning service | No Comments »

Try OfficeDrop for Free – You Could Win A Free Kindle!

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

We’re proud to announce that OfficeDrop has been featured as one of the workplace apps featured on Intuit’s “Get Organized. Get Rewarded” campaign. Designed to get businesses started with helpful organization apps, OfficeDrop and other helpful tools will offer free trials and other limited-time offers for a one month period.

Ok so here’s the kindle part: As part of the campaign, Intuit is giving away a Kindle to users who will increase their chances of winning the more they sign up for apps and use them. You are automatically eligible once you sign up for a workplace app, so be sure to sign up for your OfficeDrop free trial through Intuit to give yourself the chance to win.

If you find yourself wading through paper, or struggling to utilize information around your office, now is the perfect opportunity to sign up for the apps that can save your sanity. OfficeDrop and other featured apps will require little to no commitment and will be sure to get you organized quickly and easily. If that wasn’t enough, you might win a kindle too. What’s not to love?

Posted in Document Management, Marketing, OfficeDrop, Paperless, Paperless Champions | No Comments »

OfficeDrop Featured in Intuit’s “Get Organized Get Rewarded” Event

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

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!

Posted in Benefits, Document Management, OfficeDrop, Organization, Paperless, Product Updates, document scanning service | 1 Comment »

New OfficeDrop Features: Favorite Documents and Phrase Search

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

We’re always innovating to make a better OfficeDrop product, and recently we added two more features to make it easier to find your scanned documents. For your document management pleasure, we would like to introduce the “Favorite Documents” feature and phrase searching.

Favorite Documents

You have favorite songs and websites, why not favorite digital documents? To help out those who have a handful of documents that need constant reference, you can now make a document a “Favorite Document”, which will place it in the “Favorite Documents” list under the “Labels” list. “Favorited” documents are in no way moved from previous folders or labels, so they stay organized, but easily accessible. To show a document you care, click “More” and then “Favorite Document” from that document’s list view, or click “Favorite Document” from the options on the right of the full document view. To remove documents from the favorites list, simply repeat the previous sequence which will then provide a “Remove Favorite” button.

Phrase Search

To speed up your text-searching, OfficeDrop can now recognize and filter by a specific phrase. As with other search engines, you can throw quotations around your search (e.g. “document scanner”) and the results will yield only documents that feature those words in that order. This feature gives more power to your search bar, and saves you the time of sifting through pesky coincidental matches for common words within your search terms.

It’s thanks to customer feedback that we are inspired to add new features like these, so we encourage you to keep your questions and comments coming. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy these two new features and we’ll be here building new ways to make document management easier.

Posted in Document Management, Product, Product Announcements, Product Features, Product Updates | No Comments »

Announcing our New Scanning Software - Make Your Scanner a Google Scanner!

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

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.)

Configuring your Scanner for ScanDrop

For help configuring your scanner to work with the ScanDrop scanning software, click here.

Posted in Benefits, Document Management, Document Scanners, Product, Product Announcements, cloud computing | 3 Comments »