Feeling Boxed In Without a Document Imaging Solution

A story that's a bit personal, but still about document imaging:

I work at a tax preparation firm that's been in business since 1965. My partner, the senior member of our team, doesn't like to throw stuff away.

In the tax business, that's a virtue; there's always a client who may need some obscure paper from 1988, and it makes us look good to have those "on file," as they say.

Recently, however, we moved offices, and it became apparent to us that our reliance on paper was perhaps becoming a problem. We now have upwards of 40 boxes piled high in the back of our new, smaller office, and the mess is not only an eyesore, it's impossible to find anything.

I'm going to call a document imaging services company and see how much it would cost to reduce all those boxes to four or five CDs. Other organizations have benefited. So can we.

I'll insist, though, on three prerequisites before choosing a vendor:

1. Documents must remain secure (remember, these papers contain social security numbers and other sensitive info).
2. How, once the documents are digitized, am I going to find them? How exactly, too, don't just give me a "general run down."
3. Provide me with two names and phone numbers from prior clients.

If I can find a document imaging service that gives me those three things, I'm going to sign up.

I'm sick of looking at all these boxes. They're ugly.