Storage issues force businesses to go paperless

March 12, 2013

Many businesses know the advantages of going paperless – increased efficiency, lower printing and paper costs, more environmentally friendly. But for offices overflowing in paper, how do you get there?

In Murphysboro, Illinois, this is exactly what’s keeping the Jackson County Courthouse from going paperless. Currently, paper files from the 1970s are taking up space, including boxes stacked “nearly floor to ceiling in the basement,” the Southern Illinoisan said.

Not all of the files need to be kept, including some related to traffic violations. But just going through all the files is a challenge in itself, let alone scanning and organizing. But at the same time, storing all the paper is costing the courthouse too, taking up space, and is much more vulnerable to weather or security incidents.

“You want to keep the least amount you can, but be responsible in what you’re getting rid of,” Judge William Schwartz told the news source. “In this day and age of electronics there ought to be an electronic method of storing a lot of this stuff that is unlikely to be needed in the future.”

Having digital documents would also help the courthouse communicate with other legal offices, potentially speeding up cases and increasing efficiency.

To fully go paperless, as the judge envisioned, courthouses and other offices with large volumes of paper can also turn to bulk scanning services to digitize documents quickly. With document scanning companies, the courthouse can have electronic documents without the leg work, saving money in the long run and preventing the files from falling to data breaches or other potential damage.

Tab Service Company is a leading provider of document scanning and data entry services. As an SOC2-approved service organization, we apply industry-best practices to our approach with clients when it comes to helping businesses go paperless.