Document Capture

Conventional document capture involves printing a record and placing it in an organized filing system. Electronic document capture places the document in an organized file environment as well, but without resorting to paper copies. Documents enter the electronic filing system, now increasingly called the "document management system," in many ways. External documents can originate almost anywhere: from trading partners, media sources, research institutions, government and regulatory agencies, to call a few. These documents normally are captured using document imaging, or scanning devices, using optical character recognition technology. Internal documents usually originate as output from office productivity solutions, such as document printing and check printing systems. Other sources are incoming faxes and incoming email documents.

Historically, there have been two methods for channeling internal documents in to the document management system: raw data might be printed and then scanned in to the archive system; or the info might be exported as a PDF file. External paper documents, including hard-copy faxes, are often scanned into archives. E-mail documents normally enter the system inside their electronic form. A number of factors impact corporate archiving requirements. Not least of these are legal, financial and compliance matters but customer related considerations induce their own mandates. In most cases, companies must know where their information resides. For archives to be useful and successfully maintained, a thorough and precise indexing system procedure is mandatory.

Parallels exist in the traditional file cabinet processes, which typically are sectioned of by departmental and/or file type and which employ alphabetical and hierarchical file structures, and in the library industry's Dewey decimal system. The contemporary imaging/scanning/OCR solution is electronic but in most cases it still involves extensive manual indexing Dokumenty kolekcjonerskie, which is often time-consuming and error-prone. A far better solution is always to employ software solutions that employ automated document capture processes that communicate with the document management system to apply indexing automatically as documents are captured - during the time of production, for internal documents, or since they are scanned in to the system.

Document Delivery/Distribution

Until recently, paper documents have moved about an organization via the organization mail system. While that is still commonplace, an increasing number of document delivery and distribution will be accomplished electronically, with document delivery via email or intranet postings and alerts. Document distribution to external recipients still relies heavily on postal delivery, but over recent years, communication with trading partners and other outside parties has transitioned to electronic document delivery and distribution methods: electronic mail, authorized intranet access, webforms and in the case of financial transactions, the banking industry's Automated Clearing House (ACH) network and Financial-EDI.

Electronic document and delivery introduces efficiencies and cost savings not realizable a couple of decades ago. ACH payments, for instance, reduce per-payment costs of more than $2.00 using preprinted check forms and IT department check printing, to mere pennies. Savings stem from the eliminating of printing costs, forms inventory and handling, personnel costs, post-production and mailing charges.