Skip to content

Paperless office · a project plan

Empty the filing cabinets, one drawer at a time.

Not everything should be scanned, and not all of it at once. Here is the plan: what to scan first, what to scan only when asked, what to shred, and when the paper can finally go. CapturePoint 6 does the scanning, splitting and naming.

Jump to the plan
A four-drawer filing cabinet with a plan tag on every drawer: active client files opened every week are scanned first, older vendor files are scanned when someone needs them, deeds and contracts are scanned and their originals kept, and payroll records past their retention period are shredded on schedule.Active clients A–Mopened every weekScan firstVendors 2019–2023opened a few times a yearScan on demandDeeds and contractsirreplaceable originalsScan, keep originalPayroll 2012–2018past its retention periodShred on schedule
Every drawer gets a tag before anything is scanned. Example cabinet.

Step one is not scanning

Ask five questions of every drawer.

Take them in order. The first one that gets a yes decides the drawer's tag. Some of your paper will turn out not to need scanning at all.

  1. 1

    Is it past its retention period, and not on hold?

    Do not scan it. Shred it under your retention policy, and record that you did.

    Shred
  2. 2

    Does someone open it every week or month?

    Scan it first. Active files are where the hours are lost, and where people feel the change on day one.

    Scan first
  3. 3

    Would you be stuck if this drawer burned or flooded?

    Scan it early, even if nobody opens it. Deeds, contracts, personnel and client files usually exist on paper only once.

    Scan early
  4. 4

    Rarely opened, but still inside its retention period?

    Scan on demand: box it, label the box, and scan a file the first time someone asks for it.

    Scan on demand
  5. 5

    Does counsel or a regulator want the original kept?

    Scan it so people can work from the copy, and keep the original in a box that is labeled and listed.

    Keep original too

The plan

Stop the cabinet growing first. Then shrink it.

Scanning new paper the day it arrives (day-forward) is easy and ends the problem. The old paper (the backfile) is the project. Do them in that order.

Phase 1

Count

Walk the cabinets and the storage room. List every drawer and box by what is in it and its date range.

Office manager

A one-page inventory

Phase 2

Decide

Tag every drawer with one of the five answers above. Get the retention periods from your schedule or counsel.

Office manager with the owners of each record

A tag on every drawer

Phase 3

Start day-forward

From a set Monday, new paper is scanned the day it arrives. The cabinet stops growing.

Whoever opens the mail

No new paper filed

Phase 4

Scan the backfile

Work through the scan-first and scan-early drawers. One drawer at a time, finished before the next.

A small scanning crew, on a regular schedule

Searchable files, named

Phase 5

Check

Spot-check each drawer: page counts, names, nothing upside down or missing. Fix, then sign the drawer off.

The team that uses the files

A signed-off drawer

Phase 6

Let go

After your waiting period, shred the signed-off drawers that may be shredded, and keep the shredding certificate.

Office manager

An empty cabinet

At the scanner

Put a whole folder through. Get back separate, named files.

CapturePoint 6 works with the scanner you have. Point it at a folder of samples and it works out your document types and what to read from each. Then scan a folder at a time: it splits the stack into documents, names each one from what it says, and files it in a folder path built from those values, as a searchable PDF.

Choose PDF/A for anything you are keeping for many years. Every page is read on your own PC, so personnel and client files are not uploaded anywhere to be read.

Box prep, before a page touches the scanner

  • Take out staples, clips and binder spines
  • Unfold letters; flatten curled pages
  • Peel sticky notes onto a blank page so they scan too
  • Tape torn pages or put them in a carrier sleeve
  • Keep each folder together, in order
  • Set aside photos, oversized drawings and bound books

Why the scan-early drawer matters

Paper cannot be restored from a backup.

Your servers are backed up every night. The filing room never is. A burst pipe, a fire or a closed building takes the records and the work with them.

On paper

  • One copy
  • In one building
  • Found by whoever filed it
  • Water and smoke damage are permanent

Scanned

  • In your backups, or in the cloud
  • Reachable when the office is closed
  • Found by anyone allowed, by any word
  • Restored like any other file

What to shred, and when

The paper goes after it is checked, not after it is scanned.

When scanned paper can go: scanned, checked, a waiting period, a check for holds, then shredded on schedule.Scannedsearchable PDF filedCheckedpages and names verifiedWaiting periodthe paper sits, boxedHold?nothing shredded if heldShreddedlogged, per schedule

Pick a waiting period between a signed-off drawer and the shredder, so anyone who spots a gap has time to find the page while it still exists.

Never shred anything on hold. If litigation, an audit or an investigation is expected, the paper and the scan both stay. In Content Central, a hold keeps a document indefinitely, overriding its schedule.

Keep the proof. Keep your shredding vendor's certificate. In Content Central, scheduled destruction of the digital copy later is recorded in the audit trail.

Where the scans live

Three good homes. Pick by the rules your records live under.

For records with rules attached

Content Central

Every page searchable by every word, permissions by role, retention per document type with a destruction schedule, legal holds, and a record of every view and deletion. In the cloud, or on your own servers inside the backups your IT team already runs.

Learn more

For a small team that wants it simple

Nucleus One

Documents, search, workflows and e-signatures in one simple app, reachable from a browser or phone when the office is closed. Runs on Google Cloud, whose infrastructure is SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certified.

Learn more

SharePoint, OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox or folders

What you already have

CapturePoint 6 sends the searchable PDFs there with sensible names, and its values attached where the destination allows.

Learn more

Start with the first scan-first drawer this week.

Install CapturePoint 6 on the PC by your scanner; the free trial starts when you open it. Or bring a box to a free live demo and we will plan the project with you.

Book a free demo