Without effective document indexing trying to find a document stored off-site is extremely difficult and time-consuming. Document indexing is not as confusing or complicated as it may seem. We can index your document for you, or you can index your own documents with our easy tips.
What is document indexing?
Document indexing is simply the process of tagging search terms or phrases to each document for quick and easy document retrieval. The terms you chose should be relevant information that can be used to locate the correct document.
Data used to index documents
A good place to start is knowing what indexing criteria to use to ensure your documents can be easily found. Some examples of data used for indexing includes:
- Customer/account numbers
- Dates
- Addresses
- Phone numbers
- First and last names
- Invoice number
- Order number
- Keyword descriptors
The search terms you decide to use will vary according to your industry and type of document. For examples, in personnel files, first and last names and employment dates would be common searching terms. Whereas finance documents could reference invoice number or account number.
The best approach is to create multiple search terms for each document to help narrow down the search even more. When scanning your documents, we would advise to save them in PDF format as this document type is most searchable.
Why do you need to index your documents
Saves Time
One of the biggest reasons to index your documents is the time it saves looking for documents. It enables staff to spend less time searching through boxes or filing cabinets looking for documents.
Creates Space
Storing hardcopy documents takes up a lot of space, which can be used more productively. Storing your documents off site frees up the space and indexing files gives digital access to the files instantly.
Easier & Faster Collaboration
Collaboration between various departments and management teams in your business is important, especially when working from home. This can be difficult to achieve when using paper documents. Digital documents are easily shared, edited and viewed, ensuring a smooth working collaboration.
Audit Compliance
Keeping on top of your physical documents helps for audit compliance. Having your information scanned and indexed will make the process of organising your document life cycle easier as you can search for terms like dates to ensure you don’t keep hold of documents longer than necessary.
Safety and Security
In terms of information security, it’s challenging to keep unauthorised people from viewing sensitive information. Indexing can allow for account-based privileges so that each employee can only access the information they require to perform their job.
Storing physical documents in your office or home can present several safety concerns, things like flood or fire damage. Storing your files in a secure warehouse facility, keeps them safe as it’s designed to keep your documents secure and prevents loss of information.
Going Green
Continuously printing documents takes a strain on the plant, which is something every business needs to be mindful of. Document indexing and scanning turns paper documents into digital formats, helping reduce the amount of paper being used. Once paper is scanned/stored and indexed it can be securely shredded by a professional service to ensure the paper is recycled at paper mills.
Our Document Indexing Service
By storing your documents at our secure facility, you are able to create space at your office/home and still have access to your documents via our document management system.
Our document management system allows you to access all your stored documents from your desktop. Indexing your documents allows you to effectively search and find the exact document you need.
Speak to our team for further assistance or to start your document indexing process.
