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Document management software -- What do you use for paperless filing?

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by jmann, Jan 31, 2007.

  1. jmann

    jmann Member

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    This is an technologically savvy group of people here, and I figured maybe some of you have already figured out a good way to store and manage personal "paperless" documents and would not mind sharing your secrets. By "paperless" documents, I mean paper document, mail, bank statements, etc, that you scan and keep in digital form instead of paper. I have thousands of such documents and I have reached the point where I need some document management software to manage and database these so that I can scan more easily, and more importantly, find my scans again.

    I have been using Adobe Acrobat and a scanner to scan and shred many of my documents. While this was going great, I have reached the point where I have exceeded the capacity of this simple solution. First of all the scanning tool in acrobat is poor at best and this solution does very little to keep my files organized.

    So, alas, I am in the market for a document management software. While there are a few products aimed at "home users," I have not yet found a software that is actually database driven (which without a database, I have no idea how it could search through thousands of files efficiently.) I have loaded Paperport pro 11, and started evaluating it, but it does not look network and multi-user friendly, and does not appear to have a database backed. I am also considering evaluating the document management system made by Intuit, but at first glance, it appears to be too strongly designed for physician type businesses that it would not be suitable for home. There are several web based options, but the number of steps required to get a document from paper into these make them unpractical.

    While I do not need multi-user capabilities like a law firm would, I do have multiple computers and need access from all of my computers. Also, as I run a server, I would prefer a client-server system because it keeps everything neat and creates a central point for managing backups, but that is not really necessary.

    So, I ask: Do you use a document management package to convert your files to paperless and keep them organized? What is it? what else have you tried? and finally what other home suitable document management system softwares do you know of that might bw worth checking out?

    Like always, Thanks for your help.
     
    #1 jmann, Jan 31, 2007
  2. fphinney

    fphinney Member

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    #2 fphinney, Jan 31, 2007
  3. tideland_raj

    tideland_raj New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jmann @ Jan 31 2007, 01:28 AM) [snapback]383162[/snapback]</div>

    I used a printer at my previous office that scanned, then emailed the document (to my email). I then copied the pdf to a location on a shared drive (which was RAID-1, and encrypted offsite weekly backup'd to a remote location aka friend's PC).

    I know of no good software that will make this process easy. The above is the easiest I'd seen and even then it took several button presses for each document/folder that I wanted to digitize.

    A quick google search returned this possible option (expensive at $2k):
    http://www.simpleindex.com/default.asp
     
    #3 tideland_raj, Jan 31, 2007
  4. EricGo

    EricGo New Member

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    First off, I don't try to force everything paperless.
    Second, I treat docs I expect to return to, different than those I keep but will probably never want to see again.

    PAPER
    One box that holds folders of every tax year
    One box unorganized
    One nice looking metal container that holds hanging folders. The folders are periodically shuffled, and old ones go into ..
    box #3.

    E
    I love this system .. built on one piece of software, called SOHO for the Macintosh, and the Macintosh's built-in ability to grab any arbitrary rectange of the screen either as a jpeg file, or to the clipboard (to be used in copy/paste).

    SOHO is a data organizer, that accepts just about any format I can think of. I'll have a go at describing it's structure: A folders hierarchy, that contain 'notes', each of which can hold just about any format(s) in any combination.

    Retreival: I add a couple of keywords, or a descriptive sentence to my pictures, organize them in folders, and use descriptive file names.

    SCANS
    Few and far between, typically only done on docs that I want to fax or email. The panapoly of licenses we physicians have to keep is a good example.

    MAIL
    I find a fair amount of 'docs' and useful info comes in email. I keep a lot of it within the mail program, organized also into hierarchal folders, and often make a duplicate into SOHO for my convenience and as a safety measure. Macintosh Mail from OS X 10.4 has a brilliant search engine. I know it is going system wide in 10.5, and look forward to seeing it incorporated into SOHO which has a good but not great search engine.

    BACKUP
    Last, but not least. An external HD used every couple of weeks for email and SOHO.
     
    #4 EricGo, Jan 31, 2007
  5. TonyPSchaefer

    TonyPSchaefer Your Friendly Moderator
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    I have really come to love a program called "CutePDF". It's like Adobe's Distiller, if you know what that is. If not, then it's the ability to convert anything to a PDF file. When there's a good article that I want to keep, I convert it to a PDF. That way, I will have it forever and it will not require paper to keep it.

    You can get CutePDF here: http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp

    NOTE: you will also need a program called "GPL Ghostscript" which you can get also on the above link.

    The reason I think this is appropriate here is that I can view my paycheck, W2, financial reports, and all sorts of things online but they come in a variety of formats: some emails, some web pages, etc. With Cute PDF, I convert them all to PDF for long-term storage.

    And all those news articles, they store just like this:
    [attachmentid=6392]
     

    Attached Files:

    #5 TonyPSchaefer, Jan 31, 2007
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