Estimating Document Quantities

To help you in estimating the number of pages that you wish to include in the quote the following guide to the quantity of documents found in different types of storage may be helpful.

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Our staff will visit you and conduct an audit of your paper documents advising on the best way to use and then archive your paperwork.  Quantity estimates will  be made to enable you to see what cost would be involved should you decide to take up any of the  recommended alternatives.

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How to Prepare your Documents

So you have decided to do the preparation, or PREP as we will call it from now on, yourselves.

Prep is one of those things that looks so simple but it is where the battle is won or lost. Poor prep will cost you dearly when you, or your scanning Bureau, come to actually scan the documents. However a few simple procedures can make all the difference so here they are:

The Six Golden Rules of Document Preparation

• Prep Away from The Scannner
• Use Finger Quick
• Use correct De-staplers for the type of staples.
• Place the documents a standard way round.
• Face up or Face down - to reverse or not to reverse ?
• Bundle with the right elastic Bands

To look at each of these in greater detail:

Prep Away from the Scanner.

All document prep should be carried out on a separate table or desk for the one where the scanner is located. Staples are little demons in disguise and like nothing better than to climb into the internal workings of scanners and bring them to a shuddering halt.

Every effort must be taken to ensure that they stay well away from the electronic equipment.

It is impossible to stop staples getting into the scanner mechanism but any invasion must be limited. However harmless a wondering rogue staple may look it can cause days of delay whilst you wait for the engineer to come and repair your equipment. That is not to mention the cost of the repair at roughly £130.00/ hour plus parts.

Use the Correct De-stapler

When you are prepping it is obvious that the documents will go with the top of the document away from you i.e. the top enters the scanner first. But what about documents that are printed in a  landscape format ?

You must decide on a convention and we always use Top to the Left. Although this is arbitrary you should always place pages the same way. If this is a habit then people prepping may change they way that they place pages within a batch and if you ever view a set of documents where they have been scanned different ways round you will appreciate how difficult they are to read.

Face up or Face Down ?

This refers to the documents and not to you. If you have a pile of documents and you pickup one at a time and place them in a separate pile you must be careful which way up they face.

If they face up they will be in the reverse order to that in which they were originally filed. This is handy if documents were placed in a lever arch file as they came in i.e. most recent document at the top and you wish them to be in date order starting with the oldest first.

If they are placed face down they will remain in the original order. Therefore if you are placing your documents face up when you come across a batch that do not need prepping you must remember not to place the bundle down all together. This would leave a section of un-reversed documents in the center of a section of those that have been reversed.

If in doubt number a few pages and practice both methods noting exactly what happens. Believe me this  has fooled the best of us on a bad day.

Bundle with the right Elastic Bands

When you have completed a bundle of documents tap them along the front edge to get all the edges to line up which will help them to feed into the scanner.

When they look neat secure with a suitable elastic band. Do not use strong bands unless absolutely necessary as this will cause the documents to curl up or to be dented by the impact of the band.

For small bundles 3 1/2 inch by 1/8th of an inch bands are quite adequate whilst for heavier bundles 1/4 inch bands are preferred.

Quality Tip