Monday, November 15, 2010

Case Study: A national bank

There are many different industries that benefit from our document hosting services every day. Today, we’re profiling a national bank for which we’re managing approximately 35,000 wire transfer agreements per month from over 500 locations.

Currently, each location maintains these agreements on-site. Not only do all these documents take up a great deal of space, it’s a nightmare and a huge liability in terms of risk management. With the current system, it’s nearly impossible to track who authorized the agreement and whether the agreement was actually completed.

The bank decided this paper-based system is simply unacceptable when there are corporate customers transferring large sums of money. On the PaperHost platform, the bank can now validate that the agreement was completed with a confirmation number. Organization is crucial!

We’ve set up 10 fax numbers that we monitor to ensure there’s never a busy signal, so we can process 150 faxes simultaneously.

When the fax of the wire transfer agreement comes in, we receive the image and run it through our Automated Data Capture to lift information from five critical fields. We then load this content onto PaperHost so it is searchable by any authorized member of the bank.

These documents will be housed on the secure PaperHost platform for seven years. With 35,000 agreements at six pages each, that’s 210,000 pages per month for seven years – or 17.6 million pages total, which constitutes half a terabyte. That’s a lot of paper for which these bank locations no longer need to allot storage space!

With all this information loaded and processed by PaperHost, we’re also able to provide analytics on the data. In the case of the bank, the central wire transfer department can download a custom data file in order to perform analytics for the transfers from all their locations.

By having PaperHost manage the flow of these agreements, the loss of a wire transfer agreement is greatly reduced without adding additional personnel. Our mission: Eliminate legal liability while streamlining the organization process.

Learn more about what PaperHost can do for your business at www.PaperHost.com or contact us direct at 800-882-3573.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Evidence: Store it, Share it, Keep it

Photos, video, audio recordings — these are crucial pieces of evidence gathered by our Private Investigators. But if the DA or others associated with the case can’t use them, what’s the point?

What if the PI could allow certain parties limited access to certain documents and other components necessary for building a case?

In the past the PI would have to burn a CD consisting of relevant material, and mail it to the interested party. However, this can result in many problems:

  • The CD could be damaged in transit.
  • It could easily fall into the wrong hands.
  • The documents can be difficult and time-consuming to encrypt.
  • The CD might not be compatible with everyone’s software.

But with PaperHost, we store all the components on a secure server where the PI can grant special access as needed. The PI can grant full access or allow someone to only access one piece of evidence, their choice.

Don’t create a paper trail. Instead, learn more about all of our capabilities to securely host any sort of document for you. Find out more on our website or give us a call at 800-882-3573.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Go Green and Eliminate Paper Cluter

How much paper does your office go through on a daily basis?

If you’re like most companies, documents are printed and passed from office to office and then eventually tossed or filed away somewhere.

But with today’s technology, more and more businesses are finding ways to reduce paper usage. So not only are you saving trees in the process, you don’t have to order paper supplies as frequently.

Think about it: For most documents, it’s probably not necessary for them ever to be in paper form.

With a PaperHost solution, you can stop the print-scan-throw away cycle. We offer services that will streamline your company’s document management system – and simultaneously reduce your paper dependence.

Give us a call at 800-882-3573 to find out how your office can “Go Green” today!

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Say goodbye to file cabinets!

You’ve just sent out a bunch of forms such as contracts or agreements. They get filled out and returned, but what do you do when they are received?

That’s what file cabinets are for, of course! But wait, most businesses have limited space for files so they’re thrown out after so much time. And say you want to actually do something with information in those forms – someone has to manually type it up into a spreadsheet or another application.

No more! Our data capture service will take your received forms and create a database by lifting list-based or repeating data elements from documents. This process saves you time, money and eliminates potential human error.

We even make document submission easy for you. We’ll create a toll-free or local fax number and set up an email address so we can receive both electronic and paper forms.

The technological wow-factor doesn’t end there.

We can send confirmation to the location responsible for that form, letting them know it was received and processed – we can even send them a link to view the submitted document. No more worrying if anything got lost in electronic limbo.

And because these documents are stored through our secure website, there’s no reason for frantic searches of the file room for a specific file. Say an attorney needs to reference a particular contract; you can seamlessly give them access to that file.

We can even easily integrate with your existing applications to “Image Enable” them using our API White Paper. There is no expensive programming or customization required.

Rummaging through stacks of files is a thing of the past. Let us help your business step into the future.

Sound like a pleasant, paper-free solution for your business? Learn more at www.PaperHost.com or give us a call at 800-882-3573 to get started.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Celebrating 10 Years in Business - Questions for Paperhost Founder, Jim Coyle

June 2010 marks the 10th birthday or anniversary for Paperhost as a company! Our owner, Jim Coyle was interviewed and asked to reflect on the past, present and future of Paperhost, and here's what he shared...


What made you decide to start this business?

I wish I could say that PaperHost was the product of a well crafted business plan supported by copious amounts of market research and careful product development. But the reality is that its genesis is more evolutionary than revolutionary. Having spent years in the business of selling and supporting document imaging systems, we simply suggested to a few customers that this new-fangled thing called the Internet might be a way to expose business documents to the many people that needed access to them. One in particular said "Build it and we will come". That encouragement, coupled with a small amount of angel investment, started us down the road of exploring web-based document management delivered as a service rather than a system. The geek side of our development team just wanted to prove it could be done. This was before Enron and 911 raised our collective consciousness about security, compliance and redundancy. So PaperHost started with a closet and a couple of servers. But it was the rush of starting something new that pushed us to just get started.


When did you know you were going to "make-it" and what was the determining factor?

PaperHost started in June of 2000 just months before the dot-com bust. Even though we called ourselves "PaperHost.com", we were not modeled after the traditional dot-com company. The mentality of the time was to get a wad of venture capital, determine a burn rate, grab market share and worry about how to turn a profit sometime in the future. PaperHost grew organically. We already had a book of business and clients willing to take a chance on this new service. We turned a profit 10 months into starting the service. We have grown the business ever since, without any venture capital.


What was the number one lesson you took away from the earlier years of operations?

When we had a sales and service business, we could only upset one client at a time. Once we launched a centralized ASP model business, we could upset them all with one major screw-up. Thus, it became critically important to learn how to build highly redundant systems with monitoring capabilities to let us know when any component was unhealthy instead of waiting for an irate customer to call. This idea of redundancy had to extend to the human talent pool as well. We quickly had to focus on making sure there was no single point of failure in either our infrastructure or our staffing.


What has been the biggest milestone achievement for you/the company thus far?

The first time a dollar arrived from a customer that I did not personally sell to was huge. If a business cannot get past the passion and energy of the founding entrepreneur, then it cannot grow. Once I was surrounded by talented and dedicated people that could feed on my dream and grow the company without me micro-managing that growth, I knew we had a path to success.

What does the next 10 years look like?

As Enterprise document management becomes more of a commodity, PaperHost will need to find new niche markets where our customers value the experience and the high security and compliance levels we offer. Anyone with a big disk drive and an internet connection can claim to be our competition. We will differentiate ourselves by being a top tier company that sells to those customers that will pay a premium for our services. To that end, we are making a play into the healthcare space where PaperHost will be the back end platform for our sister company MediStreams as we host all transactions associated with remittance processing.


Congratulations to the team at Paperhost for 10 years of successfully serving businesses, and all the best on at least 10 more! Please let us know if you business recently had a birthday or any other milestones you and your team achieved in the comments below.

Monday, May 3, 2010

CASE STUDY: Marathon HR Services, L.L.C.

We’ve given you examples before regarding the specific ways different industries can utilize the functionality of our PaperHost system. But now, we’d like you to take a look at a real-world example from one of our clients:

Marathon HR Services is a Human Resources Outsourcing firm, providing administrative and consultative services in the areas of Payroll, Benefits, Risk Management, Safety and Human Resource Compliance to small to medium-sized businesses.

Think about the traditional method of distributing a payroll check or stub: print, fold, stuff, seal, send and distribute. As you might imagine, it’s quite a labor-intensive process to complete manually.

And these days, with the trend toward electronic payment (i.e. direct deposit), employees—especially younger workers—will often dispose of their stubs without even opening them!

It’s easy to recognize the waste in the traditional system. Marathon HR saw the need for a solution that would:
1. eliminate work and cost for the company,
2. save effort on the part of their clients,
3. and give employees better access to payroll information.

Rather than automating their current steps, Marathon HR chose to rethink the process entirely. The company turned to PaperHost to initiate and automate their web presentment of payroll checks and reports for all employees and customers to access from a secure web-based repository.

Not only did this eliminate almost all the manual labor from Marathon’s internal processing, but it also alleviated the burden of storing, retrieving and managing the payroll documents for their customers.

Now, when anyone wants to see any payroll-related document, all they have to do is log on to Marathon HR’s website from their home or office. It’s as simple as that!

Because there was virtually no upfront investment to get the service started, the company saw an immediate ROI the very first month the system was deployed. An analysis of the ROI indicates that it’s easily above 100%.

According to Ralph Cimperman, President of Marathon HR, “We are now more competitive with the larger payroll services without having to invest tens of thousands of dollars to build an in-house system.”

And with the relief of the administrative processing burdens, Ralph can now add new customers without increasing staff—thereby increasing his ROI even further!

Learn more about what PaperHost can do for your business at www.PaperHost.com or contact us direct at 800-882-3573.

Monday, March 1, 2010

If only moving a business were that simple!

You’ve packed up your briefcase, and it’s time to head to your new workspace.

If only moving a business were that simple!

Whether your office is expanding or downsizing, the transition from one space to another can be a daunting task—especially if you have a large collection of filing cabinets to assess and transport.

Every business has to keep their essential documents somewhere, and traditionally, they’re printed and filed away in some dark closet most employees fear to visit.

All those filing cabinets may take up 1,000 square feet of office space, or more!

And when you decide to move, someone has to go through the many files in the many cabinets to decide what’s necessary, what’s not and where it all goes. Will you need this or that document in the future? Should it be sent to the new office, or should it go to storage? How difficult will it be to access if you do need it?

Don’t tell the poor guy who went through all the files during your last move, but there’s just no reason for all that hassle!

When you store your corporate files with PaperHost, transporting them is as simple as packing up a few DVDs. There are no tough decisions about what’s worth moving because it’s all right there in your hands.

You also don’t have to worry about files being misplaced, mislabeled or discarded entirely during the moving process. Whenever you’re dealing with that many boxes of documents, something will almost certainly get lost in the shuffle.

So in your new office, save the square footage, and maintain your peace of mind by knowing that all your important documents can go wherever you go—without the hassle.

Learn more about PaperHost Web-based document hosting at www.PaperHost.com or contact us direct at 800-882-3573.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Scanning Documents is Only Half the Battle

So you’ve been persuaded to go paperless.

Maybe your office is joining the green movement or taking part in the digital revolution. Whatever your reasoning, you now feel comfortable knowing that all your company documents have been scanned into a digital format.

But did you know that scanning is only half the process?

If your scanned files are gathering dust on a server somewhere, waiting there in case of an emergency, then your digital data is only being used to a fraction of its potential.

Through a well-executed document management system, information retrieval is a breeze. Your document library can also be optimized for comprehensive indexing, allowing for quick keyword searches as well as complex queries.

Use this indexed information to create custom reports and graphs from your digital data. You may even allow clients to access certain documents via password, eliminating the go-between.

For larger more text driven documents such as legal agreements, correspondence or medical studies, your documents can be run through an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) engine. This enables searching by any word, phrase or even word proximity searches across your entire library of documents. Once inside the document, the exact instances can be located and accessed with hyperlinks to quickly navigate to the exact verbiage that needs reviewing.

These features are tailored to fit seamlessly into your business environment, and the entire PaperHost system can be customized to closely match your company’s specific business practices.

Employees easily find the information they need; work gets completed faster, and your whole workflow system becomes streamlined for greater efficiency.

More and more offices are going paperless for a reason—because that digital database provides a valuable resource, which if strategically applied, can enhance business processes on a daily basis.

So if you’ve already made the leap into digital, don’t just let those files sit. PaperHost can help you put them to use for your business! And if your organization hasn’t been through the scanning process, PaperHost can get you started.

Learn more about how PaperHost can manage the entire lifecycle of your digital assets at www.PaperHost.com or contact us direct at 800-882-3573.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Another Advantage of PaperHost ~ A Convenience for your Clients

No business owner would argue with the idea that making life easier for your clients ultimately pays off for your business. However, when it comes to an internal process like document management, you typically think only of the benefits to the company—increased efficiency, organization, etc. for employees.

But have you thought about what a web-based document management system could mean for your clients?

Let’s look at the accounting industry.

On the one hand, you have a traditional CPA. When a client’s income taxes have been prepared, a large packet of documents must now be printed, bound and shipped. Then you find one tiny error, and the corrected packet must now be printed, bound and shipped all over again.

The time and materials lost in this back-and-forth game are substantial for both parties.

On the other hand, if your CPA were using PaperHost’s web-based document management system, you’re provided with a client login, which allows you to review, print, e-mail and search all your personal tax documents online. And since the system has been customized with your CPA’s logo and business information, you’ll never even realize they’ve outsourced their document hosting.

You’re just left thinking, ‘What a great accountant!’

By offering clients the convenience and efficiency of online document access, your business saves clients’ time and headaches, which makes a lasting impression.

And all the sudden, many new avenues begin to appear. Clients can get the information they need even if they can’t reach the office—including evenings and weekends. If a client misplaces a key document, anyone in your office can e-mail a new copy immediately.

In short, customer solutions are made simpler.

Deployment of a PaperHost web-based document management system will not only improve internal business processes but also enhance customer service, meaning happier employees and happier clients.

Learn more about how the PaperHost advantage at www.PaperHost.com or contact us direct at 800-882-3573.