Document Imaging Is the Solution to Bank Overdraft Fees

OK, that headline may be slightly overblown. But only slightly, because document imaging technology may soon help bank customers avoid overdraft fees.

Overdraft fees, which are expected to generate $39 billion in revenues for banks in 2009, are often caused by the fact that banks run withdrawals immediately, but do not run deposits immediately.

For example, you can swipe your debit card to buy some gas and it goes through right now. But the paycheck you deposited two days ago is still not credited to your account.

Therefore, your gas purchase causes an overdraft, which costs you $35.

Enraged by such practices, bank customers are fighting hard for a solution. Document imaging may be just such a solution.

If you can scan your paycheck from your home computer or even your cell phone, and then send the scanned image to the bank, banks may start crediting deposits sooner.

Document imaging has already greatly changed how banks do business. It looks like that trend will continue.

Document Imaging Becoming New Revenue Source for Crafty Companies

Document scanning has always been a wonderful tool for storing files without filling up entire warehouses with filing cabinets. And most companies at least begin the foray into document imaging by exploiting the storage, record-keeping component.

But some--increasingly many, actually--companies are going beyond the storage utility of document imaging to create new revenue streams with document imaging technology.

AIIM had a nice case study of a company called Security Benefit that illustrates this point. Sign up at AIIM as a member to download the full report, but the short version tale is this:

Security Benefit handles retirement investments, and has reduced its overall IT costs 40 percent by automating its paper processes, which are very intensive.

Now, Security Benefit is selling its document imaging-fueled system as a product, to other companies in its industry. The selling point, easy: we reduced our IT costs 40 percent.

Can your company go beyond the basic uses of document imaging to actually create new revenue from document imaging? We wouldn't rule it out.

Slowly But Surely, Mobile Document Imaging Becomes Reality

Mobile document imaging has seen considerable excitement over the past year, as new products intended to facilitate "distributed capture" enter the marketplace. Distributed capture refers to the idea that documents can be scanned from anywhere, at any time.

Did you know there's an iPhone app for mobile document scanning?

Canon, meanwhile, released today a nifty little machine called the FORMULA P-150, a personal document scanning device meant for the "road warrior."

Set to retail for $295, the P-150 seeks to capitalize on the growing realization by road warriors (and their ilk) that scanning documents while on the road and shooting them back to a centralized database is something a road warrior could really get used to.

The accuracy of mobile document scanning, up till now, has not been on par with full-scale office scanners. But with each new product that comes out, mobile document imaging takes another strong step towards the status of the coolest technology most people don't know exists.

Document Imaging Can Save Your Business -- Literally

Although we've blogged about document imaging and disaster recovery before, the topic deserves repeated looks because of how incredibly important it is:

Business owners who maintain hard copy files, and do not scan those documents and save them to another location, are quite literally risking the survival of their business should disaster strike.

Document imaging can save your bacon if your office gets hit by a fire, flood, or burglary incident. Could your business survive without those documents? Think about it even though it's unpleasant to even bring up the thought, because this is a serious matter.

There are a variety of reasons to work with a document imaging service provider, but the "insurance policy" aspect is perhaps the most powerful. In some cases, such as with financial or legal documents, document scanning helps business owners comply with actual laws about handling certain documents.

However, business decision-makers should not need a law to tell them that document protection in the event of a document-destroying disaster is as important as important gets.

3D Scanning in Real-Time by Imaging3

Document scanning is not the only kind of scanning that is making a big impact on the field of medicine. Scanning of the human body is another area of scanning innovation.

One small company that has created an interesting scanning device is called Imaging3. Chairman and CEO Dean Janes invented a scanner called the "Dominion," which images the human body in three dimensions in (almost) real time.

Watch Dominion videos here.

This desire in the medical profession for increased transparency, better, faster information, is by no means confined to the desire for electronic medical records. Diagnostics equipment of increasing complexity and power is a part of this general trend.

Seeing is believing when it comes to the role of scanning in medicine.

Google's Secret Weapon: Document Scanners

Microsoft has a fancy new search engine on the market, and SharePoint, too. But Google is, most methodically, doing some serious damage to competition with their use of document scanning and document imaging technology.

Look at this news clip here, as turned up by Google natural search.

Scan as many newspapers as possible, with labor had for cheap enough, right, and then see what happens--this strategy seems a smart one. Not only can you populate the rest of the page with ads, your search stands out from the competition in terms of quality.

Remember, for instance, how newspapers used to employ great writers and pay them enough to live with. Those days are not yet completely gone, but another age has arrived in the meantime.

Discount Document Imaging Doing Big Things

One thing that strikes the casual or not-so-casual observer about today's demand for document imaging is the sheer humongous size of the projects being undertaken. Google is scanning books by the millions (with a cool scanner machine, too!). Obama wants all medical records electronic.

The massive size of these projects makes discount document scanning appealing.

Discount document imaging, price-wise, usually comes in at about 3 cents per page. Non-discount document imaging, you're looking more in the range of 8-15 cents per page, depending.

Discount document imaging is all about securing that giant project, and then blasting through it with incredible speed. Document imaging service providers who master this art-will be raking in the revenues over the next five years.

One thing to think about, from the client side, is the quality of the images being produced, especially with respect to how they can or cannot be manipulated after the fact.

Very low resolution scanned documents, or documents saved in file formats not in wide use, are going to cost you money in the long-run if you need to do anything else with them other than the simplest store and back-up.

Document Imaging, Paper, and the Best of Both Worlds

Katie is known as an eccentric business owner. Part of her eccentricity comes from her refusal to use computers to maintain customer files.

Instead, Katie uses an "old school" filing cabinet system where each customer file is literally a file, in a manilla folder. There is something very charming about this system, and it works great, so customers are not really losing anything by Katie's decision to stay un-digital.

Unless, of course, those hard copy files are somehow lost.

With document imaging, Katie could have backups of all those paper files at a separate location. Hiring a document imaging service would not be prohibitively expensive. And a lot cheaper than taking the chance of losing decades worth of customer data.

Reaching business owners like Katie is a challenge for document imaging services. Overcoming inertia can be a hard sell.