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Archive for the ‘Paperless’ Category

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

Monday, March 15th, 2010

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 »

Bulk Scanning Discount: Simplify Spring Cleaning With OfficeDrop

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

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 »

Organizing your paper into Evernote just got easier

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

OfficeDrop already has an integration with Evernote (see our first blog post about it here), but now organizing your paper and digital documents using the two services just got even easier! Come, visit us at the Notable Tech Event today in San Francisco to learn all about this. If you can’t make it, no worries. Just read on.

With this new feature, you can now link entire OfficeDrop folders to any of your Evernote notebooks. This means that paper scanned into your OfficeDrop account that you put into linked folders will automatically be available in the Evernote notebook that you’ve linked to it. As always, documents labels carry over, maintaining all of your organizational work.

You can link folders to notebooks, simply by using the “Link to Evernote” action in the context menu for a folder. Once linked, the folder has the evernote icon next to it to signify that the folder is linked to a notebook.

Folder linked to evernote

You can view all the linked folders and a log activity with Evernote for documents in those folders from the Addons page

List of linked notebooks and activity log

With OfficeDrop and Evernote, it is now even more easier to stay organized and never forget a thing!

Posted in Document Management, OfficeDrop, Paperless, Pixily, document scanning service, partnerships | 1 Comment »

WSJ Reviews Some Home Office Paper Technologies

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

The Wall Street Journal recently reviewed a couple of pieces of hardware that you could use to help you manage your paper in your home office. Katherine Boehret looked at the PlanOn System Solutions Inc.’s $300 PrintStik PS905ME (a printer) and the ScanSnap S1300 (a scanner). While she liked the small size of each, she did not love either device. The small printer sounds like it comes with a number of drawbacks, including using a funny + expensive thermal paper and printing on paper that comes in a single, long roll.

She appreciated the ScanSnap’s software because it is very easy to use and install. Katherine’s main complaint on the ScanSnap is that it is probably not good at handling old or fragile documents. I’d agree with this, but point out that even OfficeDrop’s expensive industrial scanners are not meant for fragile paper. Instead, we flatbed these materials - as should you. I’ve got an older ScanSnap on my desk, and while it does not provide the same level of beautiful scans as our multi-thousand dollar scanners, it does a great job for the size and price. We continue to recommend ScanSnaps to our customers who want to do their own scanning.

Posted in Document Scanners, Paperless, Paperless Champions, Small Business, document scanning service | No Comments »

What is Preventing Businesses from Going Paperless?

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Going paperless can yield many benefits for a small business. However, there are a number of reasons people aren’t trying to convert to a paperless office, or are reluctant to consider it.

How Much Does It Cost?

The most influential reason is probably the question of price. Small businesses seem to be the entities struggling most with the pros and cons of document scanning, because prices can be unclear. In today’s economy, small businesses need to know exactly where a project like going paperless would fit into their budgets, but it isn’t that simple. Though many document scanning services outline their pricing concisely, these prices are dependent on page count - and who keeps a running tally of every piece of paper in their office? Tools like determine your page count, on documentscanningservice.com can give small businesses an idea of how much paper they have, allowing them an idea of how much they would spend going paperless.

Intimidation Factor

Also a major reason is that those interested in going paperless don’t know where to begin. Especially with businesses that have already compiled mountains of paper, starting to go paperless can seem like an insurmountable task. And no one wants to start a project they can’t finish. However, it can be pretty simple to have all that paper scanned - people just need step-by-step help to get them from legacy paperwork, to stored digital documents. For example, paper documents can be mailed to OfficeDrop in bulk and all the scanning and storage is done for you.

Too Many Choices

Yet another reason is people don’t know what their options are, or they don’t know which options to choose. Even if a business has decided to go paperless, the question that remains is how? Will a service scan their paper or will they scan themselves? In what format will the digital data be stored? Will it be stored on a desktop, server, or cloud system? A menu with too many items is always sure to hinder a decisive action. Information on many of these variables can be found on the documentscanningservice.com learning center. Again, price comes into play here because there is no frame of reference to know how each of these different options should differ in cost.

OfficeDrop Can Help

As an affordable document scanning service that bulk scans, scans monthly, and hosts documents online, we think that OfficeDrop provides a good one-stop solution for small businesses’ paperless woes. We do, however, recognize that some business owners have different preferences as to scanning and storage methods, and for that reason we can supply any scanning or hosting services exclusively. Scan with us, and store somewhere else, or scan with another option and we’ll store for you. The bottom line is that going paperless can be a productive, cost effective move for small businesses and it should be made easier for them to complete.

Posted in Organization, Paperless, discussions | No Comments »

Paper Management Tips for the New Year

Friday, January 1st, 2010

Get ready to face 2010 with a cleaner desk and better organization through smart document management and better paper management. Here are some easy tips you can use to start the New Year off right by taming your paper problem.

Use the New Year as an excuse to purge. Do you know what all of those folders are? Are any a surprise or just plain old? Throw them away if you don’t need them.
Learn from your failures. Do you have a pile of paper somewhere on your desk or floor that has been slowly growing? That’s a “fail” to properly manage your documents. Go through the pile and look for patterns – are any similar items piling up? If so, you probably need a folder or special storage space for that type of document.
Move files you don’t need regularly to more long term storage. If space near your desk is precious, archive-able items to make room for documents you need every day.
Consider going digital! At OfficeDrop, we always encourage small businesses and home offices to go paperless by going digital. You might be a good candidate for going digital if you:
- Need to access your documents from multiple locations, such as your home office, office office, customer sites, etc.
- Lose documents or need document backup. Since OfficeDrop will scan your paper and store it securely on the cloud, you will never lose your paper again!
- Love search engines for finding information. Since going digital with OfficeDrop allows you to text search within your paper, it’s like a search engine for paper. If you are a search engine junkie then digital paper may be the thing you need.
- Constantly share paper documents. Do you need to collaborate with other people but find that copying and distributing paper documents is too cumbersome? OfficeDrop’s secure share allows you to let anyone see your paper and digital files but gives you the control to revoke access at any time.

If you are ready to go paperless, checkout OfficeDrop’s pricing plans.

Happy New Years!

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

Top Nine of ‘09

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

We’re all looking forward to the New Year here at OfficeDrop, but have found ourselves thinking back on the events of the last 12 months. To bring closure to the passing year, we’ve compiled a list of the top 9 most helpful/ popular blog posts of 2009.

Our Top Nine of ‘09:

1. OfficeDrop Scans Google QR Code

Google brought about a new level of business advertising with the new QR code. We showed you how to scan your code and spread your business. You’ll be sure to see more of the QR code in 2010.

2. How Long Should I Save Tax Documents?

OfficeDrop makes storage of your tax documents easy and hassle free, but how long are you meant to hang on to this information? This post was especially popular and will become especially helpful come April.

3. Scanning Documents to OfficeDrop using Snow Leopard and Preview

Apple’s new OS made document scanning easier by allowing you to scan, view and correct files through the image preview. In this helpful blog post we provide a video informing you of how to get the most out of document scanning with Snow Leopard.

4. Steps to Create the Paperless Office

Going paperless is both productive for your office, and friendly toward the environment. In this blog post we’ve provided you with some important steps to move you in a paperless direction.

5. Count Your Documents (Series)

In our ‘count your documents’ series of blog posts, we help you answer the question “how much paper do I have?” You can use these guides to determine the paper count in your boxes, shelves, cabinets and unbound paper.

6. Online, DVD, USB, and Hard Drive: Finding the Best Storage Medium for Your Digital Documents

There are a lot of ways to store your digital documents. This post will give you a price breakdown of each option, and description of when each is most effective.

7. OfficeDrop Launches Information Site on Document Scanning Services

Some big news of ‘09 was the launch of Documentscanningservice.com. Powered by OfficeDrop, Document Scanning Service is a free resource for those who want to know all the facts on document scanning.

8. Remember Everything, including paper, with OfficeDrop and Evernote

At OfficeDrop, we are really happy to have integrated with Evernote. With OfficeDrop and Evernote, you can get to your scanned documents without an internet connection. Find out how to use OfficeDrop and Evernote!

9. OfficeDrop iPhone Interface: The other side of ubiquitous capture

These days, mobile access is huge. OfficeDrop offers a mobile optimized web page so you can access all of your documents on the go on your iphone.

Those are our top nine of ‘09. Hope you found them helpful. Let us know your thoughts on OfficeDrop, blog topics, or the past year by commenting below!

Posted in Document Management, Document Scanners, Organization, Paperless, Paperless Champions, Pixily, Product Features, Taxes, document scanning service, partnerships | 1 Comment »

Document Scanning to Boost the Economy

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

In a recent blog post, “Put Down that Shovel,” Andy Kessler criticizes government attempts to create jobs and stimulate the economy with hackneyed infrastructure projects (building roads and bridges). As a more productive alternative, he suggests our job production mirror the modern economy we now live in by shifting government spending toward more high-tech projects.

We were enthused to read that two of his ideas for high-tech stimulus included document scanning!

That’s right, document scanning is not only productive in your office, but for the nation’s economy. At least Andy Kessler, former hedge fund manager and author of “How We Got Here,” thinks so. Kessler suggests in his article that scanning student textbooks and medical records would yield great benefits. As the article states, scanning medical records would save time and money on an enormous scale. Another innovative project, scanning student textbooks could modernize education, and transform twenty pound backpacks into lighter, more high tech alternatives like the Amazon Kindle.

Other interesting and insightful projects include:

Wireless installation in streetlights
Fiber optic home installations for faster internet speeds
Protein sequencing for cancer prevention
Construction of the “smart electric grid”

Posted in Benefits, Paperless, Press coverage | No Comments »

Steps to Create the Paperless Office

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

Creating a paperless office is process, but that process can be fast and simple with a little preparation. Some well thought out planning is necessary in making a paperless environment successful in your business. At OfficeDrop, we have done a good job eliminating most paper usage (other than the hundreds of thousands of customer documents we scan every month). We would recommend the following steps if you wish to go paperless.

Going paperless - Preparation Checklist

Identify Your Goals

Why do you want to go paperless? To reduce clutter? Streamline information access? Maybe you want to make it easy to access critical business information from outside the office, or maybe you just want a place to securely backup your data. Determining what you want from a document scanning service will allow you do choose the best method of attaining it.

Review Your Current Process

Consider what happens to paper when it first enters your business. How does this differ from what happens to digital information? Determine who needs access to the data, how frequently it is touched, and whether it gets photocopied, faxed or shared with anyone inside or outside of the organization. This will allow you to determine ideal storage methods and formatting for your information.

Identify Your Files

Which pieces of paper do you want to turn digital? Compare this to your process above. What currently happens with the files you want to digitize? How will you digitize the new files of the same type that you get in the future? Answering these questions will help us understand your situation, allowing us to give you better storage recommendations and price estimates.

Implement

Now that you know which files you will turn digital, implement your program. By now you should know how you are going to deal with the back files that you currently have, and how you will handle the new ones. With the previous steps complete, talking with a OfficeDrop representative to get you started will be fast and easy.

Sustain

The best paperless systems require continuous work to maintain, because paper will continue to come into your business. Keep it under control by developing habits of promptly digitizing and storing documents as they enter your workspace. Develop a schedule for submitting your paper documents, and we will continue to keep your office organized.

OfficeDrop can help your office go paperless!

Let OfficeDrop help you go paperless - our document scanning and online document management services can help you implement and sustain your paperless office.

Posted in Benefits, Customer Satisfaction, Document Management, Organization, Paperless | 1 Comment »

Count Your Documents: Filing Cabinets

Monday, December 7th, 2009

Estimating how many documents you have is the first step in starting to convert your paper documents. However, with paper hiding in all sorts of forms, it can be difficult to know how much paper is in each store. Here is the next of several posts to help you estimate the paper volume in your office.

Filing Cabinets: The Office Storage Cliché

Filing cabinets have been the standard for paper storage for years. Use this guide to estimate how many documents are actually stacked in those drawers.

lateral-file-cabinet vertical-file-cabinet

30″W x 18″D x 13″H lateral drawer would contain 5,500 - 6,000 pages.

18″w x 26″D x 13″H vertical drawer would contain 3,000 - 4,000 pages.

*This is the page count for a full drawer.

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