How To Setup A "Paperless" Office -- You Can Do It and Save Money

"Scanner Cover Sheet & PDF "Rubber" Stamps included FREE when you purchase How To Setup A "Paperless" Office... before 11/5/2016.

A Guide To Planning and Implementing a Paperless Office System

Contents

• How To Setup A "Paperless" Office -- You Can Do It and Save Money (Preface and Chapter 1)
• Introduction
• What You Will Learn
• What People Are Saying About How To Setup A "Paperless" Office
• The Document Retention Problem Caused By Obsolete Files
• Revisions
  
   

Introduction

Whether you are talking paperless office for accountants, paperless office for lawyers or paperless office for other businesses, it is much easier to make a paperless office run more efficiently than it was just a few years ago.

How To Setup A "Paperless" Office -- You Can Do It and Save Money is a book in Acrobat's PDF format that will guide you through the steps to get your paperless office running efficiently. Your business will save money with reduced storage costs. You will find things faster with your paperless office. Setting up a paperless office can be done easily and inexpensively when you use this guide.

What You Will Learn:

• The three phases to get your paperless office up and running. Detailed step by step instructions for each phase.
• 35 specific Tips to make your paperless office run smooth.
• 14 Traps that are guaranteed to frustrate your paperless office.
• Six paperless office conversion success stories.
• How to cross reference Excel spread sheets.
• How to get the most out of Adobe Acrobat.
• What scanner(s) to buy and where to put them.
• Wireless network and laptop security warnings and solutions.
• What to do with the paper documents already in your files. Make the wrong decision and you will regret going paperless.
• How to organize your hard drive, server and folders for maximum convenience and efficiency.
• The Pros and Cons of using an integrated system.
• What to do with the “paper trail.”
• How to backup for maximum safety and convenience.
• How to prevent old computers from giving up business secrets.
• What to look for in new computer systems.
• How to determine if your existing systems will work for a paperless office.
• How to set up folders on your hard drive.
• How to use shortcuts and desktop icons effectively.
• Paperless office software recommendations.
• How to add increased security to folders or directories.
• And many more time and money saving tips.

     Use this inexpensive guide to avoid the hundreds, probably thousands, of dollars that an integrated paperless office or paperless engagement system would cost. Use How To Setup A “Paperless” Office as your manual for a reasonably priced system.

      Learn how using the right file naming system can be the key to solving document retention issues. Keeping obsolete files can bloat the hard drive and even lead to legal issues.

   If you need to make copies of documents in your files, a paperless system is much faster than hunting for documents, removing staples, copying and re-stapeling.

      You can easily search your paperless office documents the same way that you would search the Web. This guide shows you how.

Included with this guide:

Top of Page

What People Say About "How To Setup A Paperless Office"

“As a small office I felt that we were going into this project blind because we didn’t want to spend the money for the systems designed for larger offices. Your guide has so much information, I know we can get off to a good start now.”
Karen Johnson, Anderson Arritt, CPAs, Burley, ID

“It was very well done – very comprehensive and right on target.”
Gary Danca, Wilson Miller, Inc., Naples, FL

"Well done. I read through your guide today and think you did a very nice job. (I’m biased as you wrote the manual for the system I have been following for the last year or so!)"
Thomas Donovan, The Donovan Company, Newport Beach, CA

Hear what other customers are saying...

The Document Retention Problem Caused By Obsolete Files

An accumulation of obsolete files can clog a paperless office system. Here is an easy solution:

1. Include the deletion date in the filename when the file is created. Example, file "ltr to mom 02-15-2003 del-02-15-2004.doc" will no longer be needed after 02-15-2004. Remember, the time when a file is created is the best time to decide when the file should be deleted.
2. Periodically, go through your files looking for out of date files. This can be a task. The DTS File Butler™ can do this automatically every night for you.

Top of Page

Digital Filing System Components:

Scanners: List & Discount Prices

Digital to Digital: Adobe Acrobat 

Almost everyone is familiar with using the Acrobat Reader which is free. The Acrobat Reader reads PDF, portable document files.

To create an Acrobat PDF file, print to the Acrobat Distiller or Acrobat Writer instead of printing to a printer. Thus, if you want to make a searchable copy of Jane Doe's tax return, if you have Acrobat, print to the Acrobat Distiller instead of the laser printer.  Acrobat, not to be confused with the Acrobat Reader, is not free, but is reasonably priced.

Scanned Digital to Digital:

This takes the information from the scanner and creates a searchable PDF file.

Our favorite for small to medium sized offices:

FineReader Pro (single machine). It is our experience that this is better than the software that comes with the scanner. We have seen comments that FineReader is better than the more expensive OmniPage.

FineReader Office (multiple machines). It is our experience that this is better than the software that comes with the scanner. We have seen comments that FineReader Pro is better than the more expensive OmniPage.

Very large volumes of scanning:

Acrobat Capture

ScanSoft's OmniPage (this will replace TextBridge). We have heard souces say that FineReader Pro is better.

Personal scanning or where security is not an issue:

PaperPort Deluxe

Security Software

For small offices Norton Internet Security includes editor's choice Norton Antivirus and Norton Personal Firewall.

Norton Antivirus is an excellent antivirus program for small businesses.

Zonealarm is an excellent software firewall.

For larger offices consider Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition (26-50 users) or (up to 25 users) for antivirus protection.

Revisions

Last revised 4/28/2003. Previous purchasers can use the password that was emailed to them to install pap0310pw.exe (1,015KB). The download should take about 5 - 10 minutes at 56K. One of the files that installs is Additions2003-04-28.pdf which lists the changes from the previous version.