Documents created electronically, such as word-processed document or sale transaction recorded by a POS terminal automatically go into the electronic document storage. Paper documents, however, have to be scanned (and OCRed) before they can be transferred into that storage. Is it worthwhile to do this transfer?

The answer is yes, for several reasons.

• Paper documents are difficult to work with. They are stored in a separate filing section, and once stored thus, retrieving a particular document needed for a business process is clumsy and time consuming. Documents in the electronic storage, however, can be accessed instantly, and that too from your own workstation if it is connected to the network server where the documents are stored.
• Paper document storage is not only clumsy and time-wasting but also expensive. You need paper folders, filing cabinet, considerable floor space and an army of paper handlers to manage a paper document storage facility. By converting paper documents into an electronic form, and implementing systematic procedures that authenticate these electronic documents, you can shred most of the paper, thus saving on the storage costs.
• Paper documents are easy to get lost, damaged or fall into the hands of unauthorized persons (who can even be your competitor’s spies) during the frequent handling they are subjected to. On the other hand, access to electronic documents can be restricted through a system of permissions and passwords.

What Are the Alternatives for Document Storage?

In addition to electronic storage on computer media and paper storage in paper folders and filing cabinets (or other containers), you can go in for microfilm document storage. Also, you have different options available under electronic document storage.

Microfilm is one such alternative. Paper documents are photographed into small sized pictures and stored on film rolls. This is durable option, perhaps more durable than even electronic storage that is subject to corruption and damage.

However, microfilm rolls also require significant storage space, and containers for safe storage. You also need specialist staff to keep track of the rolls and their storage locations, as well as for the microfilming and incidental work. Microfilmed records also need a special viewer to view them.

Electronic document storage options involve storage on magnetic tapes, compact magnetic or optical disks and on the Web. Each of these options has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Magnetic tapes, once a low cost option, is not all that attractive now with falling disk costs. Documents stored and tapes can be retrieved only in a serial manner, i.e. you have to unwind the tape to the location where the document is recorded. This is a time consuming process compared to the almost instant access possible with random access disks.

Disks offer ever-increasing storage capacity and today, a thumb sized flash disk can store a million and more documents. A search program can index all the documents and make retrieval of any document a matter of seconds.

Storing documents on the Web, say with a third party service provider or your own dedicated server, makes it possible to access the documents from geographically spread out locations. For a global corporation, this can be a great feature. Web storage is also physically safer compared to storing the documents in-house. (We discuss these in a separate article.)

With al these options, electronic document storage is definitely the best choice today, provided you take care to back up all documents and store the backups safely.