document management for schools

Document management services for schools, colleges and universities

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Here at PDM we have many years of expertise in the secure digitising of records. The need to accurately and securely capture paperwork for safeguarding purposes is something which is of particular relevance to education providers to ensure they comply with the latest data protection regulations.

According to guidelines set out by the Department of Education in 2016, schools and colleges have a duty to record in writing all concerns, discussions made and the reasons for those decisions. As a result, many schools and colleges now ensure they adhere to these guidelines by using software applications designed to monitor safeguarding, child protection and a wide range of welfare and pastoral issues.

Using specially designed software enables those involved in safeguarding to be altered immediately to any issues, whilst allowing senior leaders to build a chronology surrounding the student concerned. As such, reports on vulnerable individual pupils and groups of pupils can be quickly and easily generated for case conference meetings, governors and Oftsted. However, to integrate existing paper records into the system a complete data capture and document scanning process is required. We are experts in this area and have the expertise to securely scan and then transfer paper documents into a user-friendly, fully secure archive, designed to allow you to correctly manage these important documents within your school system.

PDM – the document management experts

Our services are fast, reliable and efficient, with an emphasis upon security and confidentiality at all times. Prioritising the protection of sensitive information is of paramount important to us, providing you with reassurance that your important documents are in safe and reliable hands. Get in touch to find out more about how our services can help you.

PDM-Post business mail services

What are digital mail rooms and how do they work?

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Switching to a digital mail offers the potential to save your business money and time, whilst improving efficiency and customer service. Our hybrid mail service, PDM-Post, is proving popular with many of our clients who are making the most benefits. However, if you’ve never used a digital mail room before, it can seem like a mystifying concept! With this in mind, we thought we’d give you an outline of how digital mail rooms work.

Inbound digital mail

All PDM-Post incoming mail is a system by which all inbound mail is delivered to our secure handling centre via a dedicated PO box. Once mail has been opened, the contents are digitised, eradicating the need for your staff to have to handle incoming mail at all, freeing up their time to spend on more important tasks.

The digitisation of incoming mail involves the scanning of each mail item as a separate documents. Once this process has taken place, the digital versions of your mail are then forwarded electronically to the relevant department. In addition, it’s possible to classify mail into different categories such as invoices, general correspondence or contracts.

It’s worth bearing in mind that after you’ve received your inbound digital mail, correspondence can be integrated into your systems and workflows using one of our digital document management systems.

Outbound hybrid mail

Outgoing correspondence is uploaded by the user to our fully secure PDM-Post portal and this is possible in a wide range of formats such as Microsoft Word or PDF. Documents/letters can be uploaded individually or en mass, taking the headache out of mass mailings/mailshots.

To reduce the amount of mail being returned as undeliverable, all postcodes are validated and you’ll receive confirmation of posting via the PDM-Post portal. In addition, you’ll also receive a notification of any items which haven’t been delivered.

The benefits of hybrid mail

Hybrid mail systems offer a range of benefits including savings on paper, stationery, printer ink and photocopying, whilst efficiency and customer service are improved. If you’d like to find out more about our hybrid mail service, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

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Digital document management – the greener solution to document storage

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Paper-based document management systems not only require significant amounts of physical storage space, they also generate the need for additional resources such as paper, files, folders, toner cartridge…the list goes on! Switching to a digital storage system is a great way to reduce your need for a physical document ‘infrastructure’, whilst also helping to improve efficiency and cut costs. With this in mind, here a few examples of how moving from paper to digital document storage can help you increase your green credentials whilst decreasing your consumption of office consumables.

  • There’s no doubt that a lot of room is required for storing paper files and documents! Even the smallest businesses are likely to have at least one filing cabinet stuffed full of paperwork but for large businesses, document storage can take up significant amounts of room. Switching to a digital document management and storage system makes paperwork a thing of the past, with solutions designed to cover everything from file storage and sharing, through to receiving and sending mail.
  • Paperwork requires a huge amount of paraphernalia; from paper itself, through to files, space to store files, paper clips, ink and toner cartridges, envelopes and postage stamps. Moving to digital document storage can help you make significant savings on office consumables by dramatically reducing your use of paper.
  • A reliance upon a paper-based system makes it difficult to improve efficiency and speed up processes. Digital document management makes finding and sharing documents as simple as pressing a button, whilst systems can be easily designed to improve work flow, enhance customer service and improve staff efficiency.

Contact the document management experts

At PDM we provide a wide range of cost-effective solutions designed to help businesses and organisations of all sizes save money and improve efficiency. To find out more about how we can help you transform the way you run your business, why not get in touch?

document scanning services

Covid-19 makes digital document management a priority

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Although many businesses would like to switch to a digital document management system, they’re often deterred by misconceptions surrounding complexity, concerns that they have too many paper-based systems or a company culture that’s slow to embrace change. Despite this, the Covid-19 pandemic has kick-started a rising trend towards digital business processes, forcing businesses to take the plunge and upgrade or transform their approach to document management. If yours is one of the businesses yet to make the change, don’t think it’s time to make the move and enjoy the benefits of digitisation?

Digitisation gets into gear

According to a survey carried out by McKinsey Global in May 2021, the Covid-19 pandemic led to businesses urgently seeking for ways to empower remote staff working, build business resilience, reduce a reliance on manual processes and ensure visibility of workflow. As such, for many companies, digitisation of their systems became an immediate priority, forcing them to accelerate their plans by three to four years.

In the past, digitisation was often just seen as a way to cut costs. However, thanks to the pandemic, digitisation and the use of technology rose to the top of the list of critical business components.

The benefits of digitisation for your businesses

Switching digital document management not only helps reduce costs but also offers a number of benefits for businesses and organisations of all shapes and sizes. Here are a few examples of how digital document management can help you:

  • storage space of paper documents is reduced resulting in a tidy and efficient workplace
  • documents are easy to find, fully searchable and can be shared amongst members of staff or departments in seconds
  • documents are stored securely
  • documents and the information stored inside them can be accessed at the touch of a button – regardless of where you are
  • systems are streamlined, efficiency improves and valuable time isn’t wasted on managing and storing paperwork
  • switching to a digitised systems is simple and straightforward

If you would like to find out more about the benefits of digitisation for your business, please get in touch.

hybrid mail services uk

The business benefits of hybrid mail

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Our hybrid mail service has been developed by us with the aim of helping our clients streamline their business processes and improve efficiency. So, what is PDM-Post hybrid mail and how does it work?

PDM-Post covers both outgoing mail and incoming mail. Using our outgoing mail service is simple as letters are uploaded by the user to our fully secure PDM-Post portal. Correspondence can either be uploaded either as individual letters or in bulk. Post codes are validated before items are sent, therefore eliminating the expense of incorrectly addressed items. Verification of posting is sent to you via the PDM-Post portal and you’ll also receive a notification of letters which have been returned as undelivered. Lastly, a copy of every letter you send will be stored in the PDM-Post portal.

Incoming mail is received into a dedicated PO box and then delivered to our fully secure processing centre. Once received, hard copy mail is opened and the contents digitally captured before being sent directly our PDM-Post portal inbox. From this point onwards, you’ll be able to download your mail and incorporate it into the system of your choice.

How can moving to hybrid mail benefit your organisation?

Moving to our hybrid mail service offers businesses and organisations of all shapes and sizes. From reduced printing costs and a reduction in paper consumption, through to the eradication of expensive franking machines, switching from a traditional postal system through to hybrid mail can help you make big savings.

It isn’t all about costs though as the other significant advantage of moving to hybrid mail is the benefits is an improvement in efficiency. Staff time is freed up, allowing them to concentrate on more productive tasks instead of sending and receiving mail.

If you’d like to find out more about our hybrid mail services and how they could save your business time and money, why not get in touch?

legal document copying scanning services

Did you know that we provide document management services for accountancy firms?

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As with other industry sectors, accounting practices face pressure to provide services which are cost-effective, accurate and fast. With this in mind, it’s important to make the most of the latest document management and archive systems.

At PDM we are leading professionals in document management and work with a number of accountancy firms. We provide a range of solutions designed to meet the specialist requirements of accountancy firms, helping them streamline their systems, improve efficiency and cut costs.

Tailor made document management systems for accountancy firms

Coping with mountains of paper documents generated by their clients is something which accountancy firms have always had to cope with. Whilst this is unlikely to change in the near future, there are steps you can take to manage accountancy process. Accounting documentation such as client files, audits, VAT, PAYE, Corporation Tax and general correspondence can all be filed and stored electronically under one document management system. Not only does this enable the efficient location of information, it also ensures everyone involved can access the documents they need at the touch of the button.

Here are some of the benefits a document management system could offer your accountancy business:

  • Provide an improved service to your clients.

  • Improve data security and ensure you are protected as all information is regularly backed up and encrypted.

  • Provide authorised personnel with the access they need to client information.

  • Cut the costs associated with off-site document storage.

  • Staff are able to manage their workloads better, helping them to work more efficiently.

  • Last and by no means least: de-clutter your office space and reduce your reliance upon paper documents.

Contact PDM to find out more about document management for accountants

Our document management services can help you save time and money whilst improving efficiency. To discover how our systems could benefit your business, call PDM on 01274 883459 for a free, no-obligation quote.

merry christmas from Pro-Doc

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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We’d like to take this opportunity to wish all of our customers a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year! We hope you’ve enjoyed reading our news and insights into the world of document management and will be back with more blog posts in 2022!

With very best wishes from the team at Pro-Doc!

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Will 2022 be the year you change your approach to document management?

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Although there’s still a month to go until the start of a new year, now is a good time to think about making resolutions for the year ahead. So, instead of setting yourself the usual challenges of getting more exercise or eating healthily, why not focus upon finding new ways to manage your businesses documents?

Streamlining your document management systems can offer a huge range of benefits, not least in terms of being able to find documents when you need them! In addition, efficient document management means more than a tidy office and when done correctly, can help you save significant amounts of time and money. Here are a few examples of how improving your approach to document management could help:

  1. Although a tidy office is just one benefit of efficient document management, it’s important not to underestimate the power of de-cluttering. Not only does a tidy office look professional, it will also go a long way towards helping to boost the image of a business. Furthermore, there’s nothing more disheartening than piles of unfiled paperwork which has to be sorted through by hand to find information. Switching to a digital document system is a highly effective way to address these problems and isn’t as difficult as it sounds. Documents are scanned using powerful high resolution scanners and are then converted into a digital format designed to be stored electronically in the format of your choice. Digital documents can be searched and shared in seconds and scanning is ideal for a huge range of documents; from architectural plans and invoices, through to historical archives, legal documents and medical records.

  2. Digital document management offers an unbeatable way to improve efficiency. As already mentioned, rather than wasting time searching paperwork, documents can be searched and then shared, if necessary, at the touch of a button. This improvement in efficiency enables teams

    to complete work quickly and meet important deadlines.

  3. An additional factor which is often overlooked is that paper documents are highly susceptible to loss and damage; for the majority of businesses the loss of all paperwork in a fire or flood would be devastating. With this in mind, the safest solution is to store information online rather than in a filling cabinet. Online document storage is highly secure and information can be assessed as and when you need it, regardless of where you are.

Contact PDM – the document storage specialists

If you would like to find out more about how can help you make the move to digital document storage, please don’t hesitate to get in touch by calling 01274 883459 or email info@pro-doc.co.uk

document scanning services from Pro-Doc

Document scanning provides a space-saving solution to document storage

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Not only do paper documents take up significant amounts of office space, they’re time consuming to search and are at risk of loss or damage. So with this in mind, if you still rely upon filing cabinets and paper documents, it’s time to start thinking about an alternative solution.

Providing a cost effective way to reduce the amount of storage space you need for physical documents, digital imaging can also help you improve efficiency and security, whilst also helping to cut costs.

Cost-effective document scanning services from PDM

At PDM we use powerful high speed duplex colour scanners which have the capacity to scan over 100,00 documents each week. We have the expertise to scan on demand everything from invoices and legal documents, through to architectural plans and historical archives. It’s important to note that size isn’t an issue as our equipment can be used to scan tiny, postage stamp sized documents, through to large format documents or drawings larger than A0 size.

The perfect solution for all businesses and organisations, digital imaging and scanning is now widely used by accounts payable departments, human resources, legal firms, schools and colleges as a cost effective approach to record scanning and data capture.

Next steps

After documents have been scanned and digitised they can be saved in a range of digital formats, depending on your individual requirements. The following step is data capture and we are able to provide a range of options, designed to make the information within your digital documents easy to find. Furthermore, it’s possible to capture data in a different levels of details; for example you might simply need to capture document titles, or multiple fields within each document to allow for forward processing through other business applications.

Once data capture has been completed, we can then offer you a choice of different document management software solutions, depending on how you’d prefer to access the information. Digital document managements systems are safe and secure and will help you free up storage space whilst providing you with instant access to information as and when you need it.

Document scanning and document management services

If your businesses is finding it difficult to free-up sufficient storage space for paperwork, or you’re looking for a way to improve efficiency and streamline the way you manage your business, our professional document scanning services provide a cost-effective, efficient solution.

PDM-Post business mail services

Using our PDM-Post service can help you save time and money

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Sending bulk mail can be expensive, not only costing considerable amounts of money, but also taking up lots of staff time. Our PDM-Post service has been designed to help organisations of all sizes cut the cost of printing and processing both inbound and outbound mail.

PDM-Post can be tailored to suit the individual requirements of your business or organisation. Here’s an overview of what’s on offer – you have the option to use the entire service or just one element:

PDM-Post Incoming Mail

• Mail is collected from a dedicated PO box and delivered to our secure production centre.
• Your hard copy mail is opened and digitally captured.
• Your mail is sent directly to your PDM-Post portal inbox.
• From our secure PDM-Post portal your mail can be downloaded and then incorporated into a system of your choice.
• As an option mail items can be named and sorted as you require, this could be using the date received, the details of the sender, and the individual recipient. This metadata is also available in a variety of formats which could enable the direct import to your existing systems.

PDM-Post Outgoing Hybrid Mail

• Letters are uploaded by the user to the PDM-Post portal. This can be done using a variety of formats including Microsoft Word or PDF. They can be uploaded individually or en-mass.
• All post codes are validated prior to postage which eliminates the cost of incorrectly addressed items.
• Verification of posting using the PDM-Post portal.
• Notification is made to you for any letters returned e.g. people have moved away.
• A copy of each letter sent will be stored in the PDM-Post portal.

The benefits of PDM-Post

Using PDM-Post offers a range of cost-effective benefits:
1. Reduced printing costs.
2. Staff can spend time doing productive tasks instead of processing in/outbound mail.
3. No further need for costly franking machines, toner etc.
4. Lower cost per envelope and postal charges.
5. No minimum volumes
6. Paper consumption reduced.
7. You are can chose to use either or both services.

Sending and receiving mail directly to and from your desktop offers substantial savings on mail costs.

If you would like to find out more about how our PDM-Post service could save you time and money, get in touch by calling 01274 883459 or email info@pro-doc.co.uk