Document distribution to external recipients still relies heavily on postal delivery, but over recent years, communication with trading partners and other outside parties has transitioned to electronic document delivery and distribution methods: electronic mail, authorized intranet access, webforms and in the case of financial transactions, the banking industry's Automated Clearing House (ACH) network and Financial-EDI.

Electronic document and delivery introduces efficiencies and cost savings not realizable only a couple of decades ago. ACH payments, for example, reduce per-payment costs of more than $2.00 using preprinted check forms and IT department check printing, to mere pennies. Savings stem from the eliminating of printing costs, forms inventory and handling, personnel costs, po

1. Document Capture
2. Document delivery and distribution
3. Document workflow
4. Document storage and retrieval

Document Capture

Conventional document capture involves printing a document and placing it in an organized filing system. Electronic document capture places the document in an organized file environment as well, but without resorting to paper copies.

Documents enter the electronic filing system, now increasingly called the "document management system," in several ways. External documents can originate almost anywhere: from trading partners, media sources, research institutions, government and regulatory agencies, to name a few. These documents normally are captured using document imaging, or scanning devices, using optical character recognition technology. Internal documents most often originate as output from office productivity solutions, such as document printing and check printing systems. Other sources are incoming faxes and incoming email documents.

Historically, there have been two methods for channeling internal documents into the document management system: raw data could be printed and then scanned into the archive system; or the data could be exported as a PDF file. External paper documents, including hard-copy faxes, usually are scanned into archives. E-mail documents normally enter the system in their electronic form.

A host of factors impact corporate archiving requirements. Not least of these are legal, financial and compliance matters but customer related considerations induce their own mandates. In all cases, companies must know where their information resides. For archives to be useful and successfully maintained, a comprehensive and precise indexing system procedure is mandatory.

Parallels exist in the traditional file cabinet processes, which typically are sectioned of by departmental and/or file type and which employ alphabetical and hierarchical file structures, and in the library industry's Dewey decimal system. The contemporary imaging/scanning/OCR solution is electronic but in most cases it still involves extensive manual indexing, which can be time-consuming and error-prone.

A far better solution is to employ software solutions that employ automated document capture processes that interact with the document management system to apply indexing automatically as documents are captured - at the time of production, for internal documents, or as they are scanned into the system.

Document Delivery/Distribution

Until recently, paper documents have moved about an organization via the company mail system. While this is still commonplace, an increasing amount of document delivery and distribution is being accomplished electronically, with document delivery via email or intranet postings and alerts.

Document distribution to external recipients still relies heavily on postal delivery, but over recent years, communication with trading partners and other outside parties has transitioned to electronic document delivery and distribution methods: electronic mail, authorized intranet access, webforms and in the case of financial transactions, the banking industry's Automated Clearing House (ACH) network and Financial-EDI.

Electronic document and delivery introduces efficiencies and cost savings not realizable only a couple of decades ago. ACH payments, for example, reduce per-payment costs of more than $2.00 using preprinted check forms and IT department check printing, to mere pennies. Savings stem from the eliminating of printing costs, forms inventory and handling, personnel costs, pos

Historically, there have been two methods for channeling internal documents into the document management system: raw data could be printed and then scanned into the archive system; or the data could be exported as a PDF file. External paper documents, including hard-copy faxes, usually are scanned into archives. E-mail documents normally enter the system in their electronic form.

A host of factors impact corporate archiving requirements. Not least of these are legal, financial and compliance matters but customer related considerations induce their own mandates. In all cases, companies must know where their information resides. For archives to be useful and successfully maintained, a comprehensive and precise indexing system procedure is mandatory.

Parallels exist in the traditional file cabinet processes, which typically are sectioned of by departmental and/or file type and which employ alphabetical and hierarchical file structures, and in the library industry's Dewey decimal system. The contemporary imaging/scanning/OCR solution is electronic but in most cases it still involves extensive manual indexing, which can be time-consuming and error-prone.

A far better solution is to employ software solutions that employ automated document capture processes that interact with the document management system to apply indexing automatically as documents are captured - at the time of production, for internal documents, or as they are scanned into the system.

Document Delivery/Distribution

Until recently, paper documents have moved about an organization via the company mail system. While this is still commonplace, an increasing amount of document delivery and distribution is being accomplished electronically, with document delivery via email or intranet postings and alerts.

Document distribution to external recipients still relies heavily on postal delivery, but over recent years, communication with trading partners and other outside parties has transitioned to electronic document delivery and distribution methods: electronic mail, authorized intranet access, webforms and in the case of financial transactions, the banking industry's Automated Clearing House (ACH) network and Financial-EDI.

Electronic document and delivery introduces efficiencies and cost savings not realizable only a couple of decades ago. ACH payments, for example, reduce per-payment costs of more than $2.00 using preprinted check forms and IT department check printing, to mere pennies. Savings stem from the eliminating of printing costs, forms inventory and handling, personnel costs, po

A host of factors impact corporate archiving requirements. Not least of these are legal, financial and compliance matters but customer related considerations induce their own mandates. In all cases, companies must know where their information resides. For archives to be useful and successfully maintained, a comprehensive and precise indexing system procedure is mandatory.

Parallels exist in the traditional file cabinet processes, which typically are sectioned of by departmental and/or file type and which employ alphabetical and hierarchical file structures, and in the library industry's Dewey decimal system. The contemporary imaging/scanning/OCR solution is electronic but in most cases it still involves extensive manual indexing, which can be time-consuming and error-prone.

A far better solution is to employ software solutions that employ automated document capture processes that interact with the document management system to apply indexing automatically as documents are captured - at the time of production, for internal documents, or as they are scanned into the system.

Document Delivery/Distribution

Until recently, paper documents have moved about an organization via the company mail system. While this is still commonplace, an increasing amount of document delivery and distribution is being accomplished electronically, with document delivery via email or intranet postings and alerts.

Document distribution to external recipients still relies heavily on postal delivery, but over recent years, communication with trading partners and other outside parties has transitioned to electronic document delivery and distribution methods: electronic mail, authorized intranet access, webforms and in the case of financial transactions, the banking industry's Automated Clearing House (ACH) network and Financial-EDI.

Electronic document and delivery introduces efficiencies and cost savings not realizable only a couple of decades ago. ACH payments, for example, reduce per-payment costs of more than $2.00 using preprinted check forms and IT department check printing, to mere pennies. Savings stem from the eliminating of printing costs, forms inventory and handling, personnel costs, po

A far better solution is to employ software solutions that employ automated document capture processes that interact with the document management system to apply indexing automatically as documents are captured - at the time of production, for internal documents, or as they are scanned into the system.

Document Delivery/Distribution

Until recently, paper documents have moved about an organization via the company mail system. While this is still commonplace, an increasing amount of document delivery and distribution is being accomplished electronically, with document delivery via email or intranet postings and alerts.

Document distribution to external recipients still relies heavily on postal delivery, but over recent years, communication with trading partners and other outside parties has transitioned to electronic document delivery and distribution methods: electronic mail, authorized intranet access, webforms and in the case of financial transactions, the banking industry's Automated Clearing House (ACH) network and Financial-EDI.

Electronic document and delivery introduces efficiencies and cost savings not realizable only a couple of decades ago. ACH payments, for example, reduce per-payment costs of more than $2.00 using preprinted check forms and IT department check printing, to mere pennies. Savings stem from the eliminating of printing costs, forms inventory and handling, personnel costs, po

Document distribution to external recipients still relies heavily on postal delivery, but over recent years, communication with trading partners and other outside parties has transitioned to electronic document delivery and distribution methods: electronic mail, authorized intranet access, webforms and in the case of financial transactions, the banking industry's Automated Clearing House (ACH) network and Financial-EDI.

Electronic document and delivery introduces efficiencies and cost savings not realizable only a couple of decades ago. ACH payments, for example, reduce per-payment costs of more than $2.00 using preprinted check forms and IT department check printing, to mere pennies. Savings stem from the eliminating of printing costs, forms inventory and handling, personnel costs, post-production and mailing charges.

The savings are similarly dramatic for general/special-purpose documents.

The following examples provide a general idea of the difference in costs between physical and electronic document delivery and distribution.

Document Distribution Costs by Delivery Method

• Mailed $0.80 per document x 10,000 volume = $8,000
• Manual Fax $0.60 per document x 10,000 volume = $6,000
• Automated-fax $0.25 per document x 10,000 volume = $2,500
• Emailed $0.03 per document x 10,000 volume = $300

1. Mailed document costs include paper, toner, labor, envelope, labor, and postage.
2. Fax document costs include paper, toner, labor, and phone call to fax.
3. Auto-fax document costs consist of phone charge for cover page, average-length document.
4. Email document costs are negligible.

Consider also that the comparatively high costs of the printed documents referenced above are generated on plain paper on laser printers from templates within electronic document delivery and distribution methodologies. As such, they already represent reductions of more than half from the cost of producing business documents using preprinted form. Documents generated using these conventional processes, like conventionally printed checks, can easily approach $2.00 per delivered document versus a relatively few cents using electronic document delivery and distribution.

The cost implications are significant and rapid ROI is apparent.

Document workflow

In concept, workflow embraces many areas of corporate activity, from the assembly line to the business office. In office, it is concerned primarily with the creation and management of business documents - most specifically document routing, document approval and document versioning. Examples might include the development of marketing materials or engineering specifications, both of which often involve the input of multiple individuals at various touch points.

Workflow challenges have always existed, and now, electronic workflow environments exist which erase most of the complications and confusion endemic to the handling and flow, not only of paper documents but also those of manually executed electronic document workflow models.

In document routing applications, for example, documents can be circulated in a variety of ways. Ad-hoc routing is based on human decisions and judgment. A linear document approval routing system moves documents along step-by-step as phases or stages are accomplished - an invoice or purchase order approval cycle, for example. Rules-based routing adds logic to the equation and circulates the documents according to prescribed conditions. Parallel routing systems essentially "broadcast" the documents to all concerned - for example, a request for comments on a request for proposal.

In an automated electronic workflow environment, most document routing, document approval and document versioning steps can take place untended, using general, imbedded or application/content specific rules.