The first thing is to get rid of incoming faxes. I signed up with a toll-free fax number with my VOIP service provider, Vitelity. This costs $3 monthly, plus a few cents for actual minutes of usage. I doubt I’ve ever used more than $5.

For a while I used Vitelity for outgoing faxes as well. You can e-mail a PDF or word document to the service and it’s sent out. Unfortunately there was no way to send direct from an application (using a virtual printer driver) which was what I wanted. Dragging PDFs and setting up e-mails was too many steps to remember the few times I send faxes.

Now I’m using a service called Fax1.com. It’s billed by actual usage with no monthly fee. I’ve loaded $10 into the account and never had to refill it yet. You can send from any application (in Windows) and it is Vista compatible.

The most common reason I’ve sent faxes recently is when I’m stuck somewhere and need to print a document off my Dash. I can forward an e-mail with a PDF attachment to my fax account and have it print out on any fax machine. Since just about every business has a fax machine it’s very convenient.

I also have found that using fax acts as a decent gatekeeper from sales people. Any time someone calls trying to sell advertisements or other crap, I simply ask for them to fax the information. 50% won’t bother.

The tools have been available for some time. All you need is a scanner, preferably one with an Automatic Document Feeder (ADF). I’m using an older Brother MFC-5440CN that I purchased refurbished for under $100. This is a networked device, so I can now print and scan from anywhere in the house over the wireless network. The printer sucks, as I don’t use it often enough to keep the heads from drying out. I don’t care. I bought it for the scanner and ADF only. It also included PaperPort 9, which we’ll get to later.

The Secret to Successfully Going Paperless

My secret to successfully going paperless was scanning in all my old files first. It’s very easy to start with everything new, but then you’ll still be going back to find old bank statements, bills, invoices, etc. in your file cabinet.

I started with my oldest docuements. Bank statements from several years ago were making my files a pain to sort through, so I took a stack of a year’s worth of statements, scanned them in, and shredded the originals. Now I had no choice but to use the Paperless system. I didn’t scan in anything new until I had cleared out the vast majority of my file cabinet. The only things that stayed were odd shaped files, brochures and business cards.

Any new documents coming in were simply placed in my inbox (see Getting Things Done) until it was time for them to be scanned. The entire process took several weeks, but it was a one-time process. Now new items are scanned in as they arrive.

PaperPort

The cornerstone of my Paperless Office has been PaperPort 9. If you want to be fancy, you’d call PaperPort a system for organizing and working with paper documents in an electronic world. Basically it creates an easier interface for scanning and organizing PDFs than most scanner software. You can stack/unstack pages, reorder, straighten, add tags, etc.

You’ll notice I’m using PaperPort 9, even though Nuance is now up to PaperPort 11. I’ve tried upgrading and found the new version didn’t offer enough value to justify the $149 upgrade price. Notice I said value, which is subjective. There are a TON of features in the new version, such as the ability to automatically OCR each page (convert the image of text into searchable text). While this would be nice (you could search through digital “stacks” of paperwork to find a keyword or name) it’s just not something I need. Maybe one day.

If you decide to download the trial of PaperPort 11, be careful. They require a credit card number, and it’s a 15 day trial. No instructions were given on how to end your trial, so I simply uninstalled the software. Sure enough, at the end of 15 days an e-mail came showing I had purchased the full version for $200. A 5 minute phone call cancelled the order.

Data Security and Disaster Planning

My paperless office is based around PDF documents saved on my computer’s hard drive. Many of these documents contain sensitive information such as credit card / bank account numbers, medical history, and personal letter. You’ll want to make sure your computer is secure from remote access, co-workers/kids/roommates and theives. At a minimum make sure you have a strong password, updates, virus protection, and all the other basic recommendations for any Internet-connected computer. Encryption software is recommended, especially if you’re using a laptop.

The scary part for me is not the data getting in the wrong hands but rather getting lost or destroyed. Sure, there was the risk of my file cabinet burning down in a housefire, but computers crash more frequently than houses burn down. I use a combination of an off-site backup service (automatic!) and manually burning the data onto a DVD for my safety deposit box. The DVD is mostly for redundancy.

No backup system is 100% failproof. I recommend testing your backups to make sure you can get at your files if need be.

Usage and Benefits

My main rationale for going paperless was to reduce the amount of paper I was warehousing in my home office. I’ve relized several additional benefits:

• Documents are already scanned in. When I need to send someone a copy of something (bank statement, etc) I simply find the PDF and attach it to an e-mail.

• Now and then, when I need a paper copy, I just push “print” rather than messing with a copier.

• I can access my records anywhere. Since I have remote access to my office computer, I just open the file and print/view it locally. No printer? I’ll send it as a fax, using an eFax service.

• Information is at my fingertips. I’m a computer nerd, which means I’m usually at my computer. If I need to review my insurance policy it’s right there. Before I would have (eventually) pulled out the file. It then would sit on my desk until I had time to look it over. Chances are it would get covered with other papers in the process and never returned to the file cabinet.

Always wanted to go paperless? Done it and have a tip? Please comment.