Scanning your archive in house or outsourcing it: how to decide

What scanning an archive actually involves

Most people picture the scanner. In practice, scanning is the shortest part of the job. Before a page can be captured it has to be found, sorted and prepared: staples and clips removed, torn pages repaired, folded sheets flattened and loose papers put back in the right file.

After capture, every image needs checking for missing pages, skewed scans and unreadable text. Text recognition (OCR) turns the images into searchable text, and each file needs an index: a name, a reference number, a date and whatever fields your staff will search by. Then the files have to be stored securely, with the right people able to find them, and someone has to decide what happens to the paper.

Preparation and indexing usually take far more hours than scanning. Any plan that only counts scanner time will run late.

When scanning in house makes sense

Keeping the work inside the organisation suits a small archive, a few cabinets rather than a records room. It suits records that cannot leave the premises at all, and organisations with staff who genuinely have time to spare for weeks or months.

It is also the right model for new paper. Once a backlog is dealt with, scanning each document as it arrives, sometimes called day forward scanning, is best done by the people who receive it.

The costs are easy to underestimate. You will need a production scanner rather than the office copier, software for OCR and indexing, storage, and staff hours that come out of other work. The common failure is not cost but drift: the project starts well, daily work takes priority, and a year later half the archive is scanned with no consistent naming.

When outsourcing makes sense

Outsourcing fits a large backlog, a fixed deadline such as an audit, an office move or a request from a regulator, and documents that need special handling: bound registers, large drawings, fragile or faded pages. A specialist team brings equipment built for these jobs and people who prepare and scan all day, so the work moves faster and the quality stays even across the whole archive.

It also separates the project from daily operations. Your staff answer questions and approve the index while the volume work happens elsewhere, or on your premises with a dedicated team.

The trade is control. Your records are in someone else's hands for a time, so the arrangement has to be written down before the first box moves.

Keeping control when someone else does the scanning

Whoever scans your records, these controls should be agreed in writing:

• A box level inventory signed at every handover, so nothing goes missing between your shelves and the scanner.
• Named, vetted staff who sign confidentiality agreements before they handle any file.
• Scanning on your premises for records that cannot leave the building.
• An agreed file format, naming rule and index fields, set before scanning starts.
• Quality checks on a sample of every batch, with rescans at no extra charge.
• A recorded return of every original, or certified destruction where you have approved it.

Personal information in paper files is still personal information once it is scanned, and data protection law applies to it. Our guide to digitizing paper records covers that side in more detail.

The hybrid that often works best

Many organisations do both. A specialist clears the backlog once, properly indexed, and the organisation scans new paper itself from then on using the same naming rules and the same system. The archive ends up complete and searchable, and it stays that way without a second project in five years.

For this to work, the indexing scheme has to be designed once and shared by both sides, and staff need a short, written routine for scanning new documents.

How Elitecross approaches archive projects

Elitecross starts every archive project with a survey of the records: what exists, how it is stored, how sensitive it is and how people need to search it. That sets the index, the security controls and a realistic timeline before any scanning starts.

A vetted scanning partner handles physical capture under Elitecross supervision, with chain of custody controls from collection to return or secure storage. Elitecross builds the searchable archive itself, with access controls, and sets up the day forward routine so new paper keeps flowing into the same system.