A Humanim Social Enterprise, iScan provides a secure document and image scanning service to businesses and fellow non-profits. 

Launched by Humanim, iScan provides document management services and employs 20 to 40 individuals with disabilities annually, to add to its team. It is a social enterprise that provides or finds employment for individuals with disabilities and other barriers to employment. Working with Maryland state agencies, Headquartered in Columbia, it serves about 70 business customers, such as Maryland Department of Motor Vehicles Administration, and Maryland Department of Health. “We scan vehicle titles every day for the DMV, and we also do medical claims for the health department,” explains Jeff Edwards, VP of Technology Solutions. “Our team does the prep, the indexing, the quality assurance and returns it to our clients in a secure, encrypted format.” Since the 1990s, iScan has been scanning 10 to 20 million images annually, and currently maintains about 32,000 documents in DocuWare. At present, the company holds 15 DocuWare licenses with 10 to 15 active users at any time.

Indexing tools help eliminate errors

DocuWare not only speeds up operations, but eliminates human error, says Edwards, citing a particular project where a client needed to scan a large volume of invoices and index several fields on each. The way DocuWare’s Intelligent Indexing feature with its Machine Learning technology worked, the person initially doing the indexing did not have to continue to key in the same information — Intelligent Indexing learnt what information they wanted and started inputting it for them – in the end they only had to approve DocuWare’s work. “When typing a long string of characters, you have to get them all in the right order, and humans can sometimes flip two numbers or two letters,” Edwards explains. “Intelligent Indexing doesn’t do that, it is highly precise, which was a huge help for us — we didn’t have to look for those errors.”

DocuWare inspires ways to grow business

iScan was already using DocuWare for the indexing capabilities when its umbrella organization Humanim asked to digitize its HR files. “We built a cabinet structure within DocuWare, and a structure within the cabinet, matching how HR was storing its paper files, with the right subsections,” Edwards explains. That project served as a stimulus to expand and grow the business, attracting new clients. “I thought it would be a good fit for customers who need to get backfile-scanning projects done,” says Edwards. “I also think it can help attract more commercial clients and diversify our funding.”