There are <strong>four</strong> main components in quoting a potential scanning project. In ascending cost:
<ol>
	<li><strong>Scanning</strong> Although this is the purpose of the project this is determined by the size of the document and the speed at which the documents can be feed to the scanner.</li>
	<li><strong>Quality Assurance</strong> Anyone can scan, but that doesn't mean the images will be clarity, proper orientation, blank page removal, data completeness, page overlaps, file sequence, and file completeness.</li>
	<li><strong>File Naming</strong> Although Optical Character Recognition (OCR) has progressed, it is not yet a reliable, cost effect method of naming your files.  The more complex the file structure and naming conventions, the more time required to complete the project.</li>
	<li><strong>Preparation</strong> Preparing the documents for scanning is typically the highest cost component of a scanning project.  Besides the obvious need to remove staples and paperclips, the documents need to be examined and repaired so not to damage the scanner and insure the documents will not be damaged as they pass through the scanner.</li>
</ol>
Other costs to consider are pickup, delivery, storage (physical and electronic) and document destruction.

Keeping these points in mind as you look over stuffed filling cabinets and disintegrating banker's boxes, you should have a better appreciation of the time and effort your scanning vendor will be undertaking.

Jim Geldermann
Director of Technology
BizDoc Storage, LLC
(847)910-3010

&lt;a href="mailto:jim@bizdocstorage.com" target="_top"&gt;jim@bizdocstorage.com&lt;/a&gt;