how to transition to a fully remote mailroom team · a huge misconception of getting a mailroom...

How to transition to a fully remote mailroom team

Guide

and what other service providers are nottelling you!!

Introduction

Remote workforces and business continuity are the driving forces for implementing a digital mail program. Streamlining the intake and conversion of physical-to-digital mail can help your employ-ees, customers, and business maintain opera-tions during a time of economic uncertainty and turbulence.

Why this guide matters

A huge misconception of getting a mailroom partner is that

they are trying to eliminate your scanning staff.

While that may save your bottom line a bit, we believe differ-

ently. We believe your staff is essential to your business and

would continue to produce an ROI - even with a partner.

Mailroom Automation teams help businesses maintain conti-

nuity by ensuring that all contracts, business communications,

invoices, checks, and more, are collected and distributed

securely and efficiently to key stakeholders and departments.

Finding the right partner isn’t always easy, but once you make

the leap you’ll realize that you can still maintain your business

secrets and know-how while also gaining immense efficiency.

You’ll be glad you read this guide.

If you believe that company culture and moral is more import-

ant than trying to cut staff, then guide is for you.

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If you’re looking for mailroom automation partners who

would help you eliminate staff, this guide isn’t for you. If

you’re looking for a partner who can automate your ineffi-

ciencies and help scale with your staff, now we’re talking.

Transitioning to a fully remote and digital mailroom Transitioning to a fully remote and digital mailroom

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Getting Started

// Assessing your current situation

Few departments are more deserving candidates for re-engi-

neering than the traditional mailroom. Technology has by and

large out paced the current processes and organizational

workflows that traditional mailrooms have.

With the introductions of artificial intelligence, intelligent OCR,

digital transformations, and the Internet of things, we’ve seen

leaps and bounds in terms of innovations towards generating a

smarter ROI.

However, the downside is that these investments are some-

times costly – especially for smaller organizations. That is why

they choose partners. These organizations (like us) have made

the investment on your behalf so that you are able to scale on

the first day.

The tricky part is identifying where the inefficiencies are

since most companies have operated that way for quite

some time. Everything just feels normal since you’ve been

operating that way without questioning the status quo. But

when we talk with clients we help them identify ‘red flags’

like:

Outsourced mail services are especially useful for companies

heavily reliant on paper documents that ultimately require

digitization. Companies that deal in healthcare, banking,

insurance, transportation, and logistics have shown exceptional

financial gain, and automated workflow benefits from

outsourcing their mailrooms.

Workflows (if there are any) that are simple, but

could be taken to the next level

Scalable infrastructure already built out (both

hardware and software)

Hand-keying information instead of using OCR for

data extraction

Incorporating Artificial Intelligence for further

scalability and accuracy

Incorporating Artificial Intelligence

scalability and accuracy


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Partners are able to identify perfect solutions for teams

because they’ve worked with hundreds of teams.

// The Benefits of Mailroom Automation

While this isn’t cumulative, here are our most valuable benefits

that companies should consider:

1) Better, Faster, Cheaper Ways to Handle Mail

With a document scanning services average accuracy rate of

over 99%, we’ve learned a thing or two about handling compa-

ny’s information. For years, we’ve beaten the competition when

it comes to scanning, organizing, and providing your informa-

tion to business across the globe.

2) Integration of Artificial Intelligence

AI (artificial intelligence) is quite the attractive solution in today’s

modern world – and for good reason. AI specifically in the mail-

room is used in tandem with OCR. Over time, as more documents

and invoices are processed using a neural network they begin to

‘learn’ and become more familiar with the layouts pertaining to

your business. This is important because computers can process

this information immensely faster than a person, especially if it

has instantaneous recognition and data extraction.

Transitioning to a fully remote and digital mailroom

“Using a partner is the LEASTrisky option for an incrediblylarge majority of organizations.”

Kyle Foster - VP of Automation Services


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Most companies (like us) are able to process your informa-

tion faster and more accurately because they are better

equipped. There is value in letting other organizations

invest in new technologies and innovations on your behalf,

rather than you taking the leap to purchase and maintain

cutting-edge technologies.

Not to toot our own horn, but with near perfect marks, it

seems like a no-brainer to partner with Imagetek on

document scanning needs.

Phase 1 - Automate

This is normally the easiest part of the transition – the

collection of information. Whether that’s all electronic (like

email), mail forwarded to our facility (invoices, checks,

packages, mailers, etc.), or even picked up directly from

your facility, there is always a way to find a solution that

works for both you and the partner, and high volumes of

mail are never an issue.

// Automating Physical Mail

Forwarding your mail and email is normally the easiest of the

three, since it presents the lowest cost to both parties. You do

this by setting up a PO box. The PO Box gives customers

control over where, when, and how they receive their mail and

packages. This allows companies to use an alternate address

instead of their residential or business address.


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// Automating Email (or any electronic documents)

However, emails are even easier to process – all you

have to do is set up forwarding addresses. Even if they

have attachments, most systems are able to able to still

process those and not need to be written inside the

body of an email. You can either set up your own

forwarding addresses directly to your partner, or have

your partner set them up on your behalf. Then, all of

your information gets instantaneously sent to your

provider who then extracts and processes those emails

for you.

For example, let’s say you have all of your invoices sent

to a specific email you use (like, accountspayable@com-

pany.com). With a forwarding address, anything that

gets sent to that email could also be forwarded to your

providers (something like companyname.accountspay-

[email protected])

The big benefit of you setting up your own forwarding

addresses is that get to own the whole process for that.

You can choose when to turn on and off that forwarding

process instead of relying on your partner to do that for

you.

A new emerging trend is onboarding your vendors and suppliers

onto your process for further efficiencies. They will automatically

forward any of their communications to us at the same time it’s

being sent to you, so that we can digitize, make it keyword friendly,

and store it on your behalf. In addition, any attached documents or

pictures are also processed. This eliminates the need for extra

work on including all the information directly in the email body

content.

Shameless plug – this is one of the larger services that we offer is

working directly with your vendors to help them meet your

process. In addition, we can deliver data back in excel reports with

data analytics. Send Kyle an email ([email protected]) and

he can show you what all the magic is about.

////// BONUS POINTS

Kyle FosterVice President, General Manager of Automation Solutions

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]



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// Preparing your information

Once we have your physical documents, there is great care provided

by the partner to not damage or tamper with your information.

Handling checks and packages of content with care is vital to ensure

that the capture process has the most accurate reading of the

information.

It sounds obvious, but it is amazing how sneaky those staples, paper

clips and tape strips can be. This task may be boring, but it is a very

important part of the conversion process. Straightening out any

folds in the documents to ensure that information in the folded

section will be scanned. And don’t forget those bent corners.

This is all tedious and meticulous work, but it’s necessary to ensure

that the data is transcribed correctly.

// Capture and Extraction

While the documents are being separated their characteristics

are also being taken into consideration. Things like: black and

white, amount of color, one-sided or double sided, document

size, age of the document, etc. The difference in documents

matter on an organizational business. Companies in health-

care, finance, HR, and law all have varying needs.

With the integration of advanced OCR (optical character

recognition) technologies they are able to speed through the

data extraction process and eliminate the need for hand

keying. The data extraction (from OCR) helps take the informa-

tion off the page and enables it to be more ‘keyword’ friendly

for when you’re searching for content. This is usually done by

identifying specific index fields on pieces of content.

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For example, typical index fields to be captured from an

invoice would be:

1. Invoice numbers and amounts

2. Invoice dates

3. Vendor names

4. Vendor numbers and addresses

5. PO #’s

6. Item numbers

7. Quantities

8. Unit costs

9. And more!

Documents of similar types can often be scanned in

batches using the appropriate scanners and categorization

techniques. This is where artificial intelligence comes into

play, with the mass data extraction and classification.

And thankfully, in terms of electronic documents (like

email), it’s normally automatic, so a lot of the other work

such as sorting and prepping doesn’t need to take place.

This saves more costs down the line and further rockets

your ROI.

As you can see, extraction software is automatically pull-ing off certain line items off of invoices. Virtually any type of information is able to be pulled off and stored for later use. Whatever your business needs, the software is there to serve.


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Phase 2 - Integrate

The next phase is integrating other tools and software to

further power your team. This could be systems such as a

document management system for storage and search, to

electronic forms, to advanced workflow setups (but more

on that in Phase 3). In the ideal world, you’d have a

one-stop shop with an all-in-one platform to reduce redun-

dancies and eliminate the possibility of things breaking.

But, that’s sometimes easier said than done.

Most partners have ‘templated’ setups to get you up and

running on day one and will be able to integrate with any

pre-existing tools or set you up with their products.

// Document Storage

Having a place to store and access your information is one of the

major factors into an effective mailroom automation setup. Physi-

cal documents are turned into ‘images’ like PDFs, JPEGs, TIFFs, GIFs,

and more to enable them to be keyword friendly and reduce

storage size.

These are the tools that help you eliminate the problem of having

to search through file cabinets or ask team members where your

content is at.

While most providers have a document management system (DMS)

for you to use, you always have the option to use your own. Provid-

ers normally can integrate with most ECM’s (electronic manage-

ment systems – just another name for DMS), so don’t worry about

having to jump ship on a tool you already love and use.

We have a proprietary DMS solution that connects everything we’ll

talk about in this document. You can check it out here if your

interest is piqued.

https://bit.ly/2X1h7FQ


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// Line of Business

Integrating your line of business software isn’t always

necessary, but it does add another layer of efficiency and

speed.

This could be direct integrations into pretty much any

system you or your team uses. To name a few common

ones:

1. Freshbooks

2. Quickbooks

3. JD Edwards

4. SAP

5. Realtor.com

6. Google Drive

7. SharePoint

8. Workday

9. Any and every Microsoft product

10. And more!

We seriously mean it that any of your systems can be

connected together. Normally if they aren’t listed all you

have to do is ask your provider and they can normally

make it happen for you.

Integrate With:

AND MORE!


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follow-up response. Sign forms electronically and turn any

form into a digital copy and collect all information accu-

rately and instantly.

• Virtually any form can be input into the system for

your recognition

• Automate your submissions, routing and review for

faster approval or denial

• Simple and easy to user interface allows you to add

new forms in seconds

• Multi-page PDF document breaking allows you to take

one form and divide it into smaller pieces

• Add or delete questions from any form without

needing any programming assistance.

// Electronic Forms

Eforms are another way to capture incoming information

without needing the traditional paper form. Think Google

Survey, Qualtrics, Survey Monkey – that type of thing. The

information collected from these forms are then fed

directly into the ECM and/or the line of business software.

E-Forms, an electronic forms processing software, comes

complete with audit trails and acknowledgments and

digital signatures – making approving and seeing forms a

breeze! Surveys and questionnaires can automatically

enter an electronic forms workflow to trigger up a


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Phase 3 - Accelerate

Ah, the beauty of workflows. Incorporating workflows into

your mailroom automation software helps everything run on

autopilot.

This is important to remember that it’s running automatically

in the background and not that it eliminates personnel.

Knowledgeable staff are now freed up to do more important

things to better utilize their skill sets, and work on other

revenue generating activities.

Workflows make standard business operations easy to

execute and manage, and in this case it’s electronically

routing documents to key individuals.

Some of the most commons reasons for integrating work-

flows are:

Ensure proper procedures are completed within

set time-frames by receiving alerts showing

stalled or inactive documents

The Workflow automation software leverages all

the security, scalability, reliability and integration

of the ECM system to guarantee the integrity and

availability of the data

The top-tier software’s are ones that offer

drag-and-drop functionality to set them up (hint –

that’s what we offer)

Security reasons for ensuring that only the right

people are seeing private documents

Provided documented evidence of compliant

procedures with detailed audit reports


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We use this same process for companies all over the globe

because our processes scale:

1. Log and Process incoming mail by date / number of

pieces (envelopes) received by product

2. Open pieces (envelopes), sort by document yype and

prepare pages for scanning (remove fasteners, repair cut,

torn edges, etc)

3. Perform advanced document capture processes

using cutting-edge hardware and a robust classification

system.

4. Import electronic faxes/emails (if applicable), on a

scheduled basis, as received from customers, to designat-

ed Imagetek E-mail addresses

5. Perform automated classification and data

extraction processing

Imagetek Mailroom AutomationProcess Example

Our own process looks something like this:

This process will utilize AI technology as well as Imagetek’s

Outsourcing Services staff to maintain data accuracy.

Administrators use an icon-based, graphical diagram for

simple point-and-click creation. For example, a mortgage

administrator can effortlessly navigate thousands of

mortgage applications through an otherwise complex loan

approval process. Even if a loan application arrives via

email with attachments, the system can initiate the process

and forward the attached documents. When a procedure is

complete, approved loan documents can be emailed to the

appropriate manager.

Each and every workflow is fully customizable to the

organization, which is what makes these software’s so

valuable.


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6. Perform Image and Index QC processing (secondary pass of

image and index values)

7. All original checks are overnighted from Imagetek to the

customer’s location.

8. Source data storage management (to be held at Imagetek

until retention date is met).

9. Daily processed volume reporting (logs to be completed after

day’s volume is processed), delivered via email

10. Daily deliveries, via secure FTP hosted by the customer, of

images, and corresponding index data.

While this is only one example, every process is different and

highly customizable to whatever the organizations needs are. It

just takes some exploring to figure that out.

Conclusion

Getting started can be a little intimidating, but it doesn’t have

to be difficult. If you’re questioning on where to start or how

to assess your current situation, we’re here to help.

Imagetek has been designated an essential service for

businesses. Our transportation fleet and services teams are

operational, and working to the highest safety standards.

Our virtual mailbox service provides secure chain of custody

for retrieving and delivering your post mail digitally.

We can work with you no matter what your current office

environment looks like. Multiple locations? Employees

working from home? Virtual central office? In any scenario,

collecting and distributing mail with our Digital Mailroom will

increase productivity and security for your business.

How to transition to a fully remote mailroom team

Guide

and what other service providers are nottelling you!!

Schedule a demo here!GET STARTED

Yes, I’m really clickable

Is your office considering moving to remote operations? Im-agetek can help ensure your remote staff gets the commu-nication and correspondence they need. Contact us today at [email protected]!


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