For small businesses, a lot hinges on physical mail: There’s critical communication from banks, the IRS, and other agencies that can only happen through traditional postal mail. But when you’re scaling and moving around, switching addresses (and staying on top of these communications in the process) is hectic and takes time away from growing your business.
But even within large companies, physical mail can be a major sticking point. Some receive tremendous volumes of physical mail and checks — so much that it requires dozens of staff hours each week to manage it.
But there’s good news: Mail scanning services can drastically reduce the time and costs spent on mail management, no matter the size of your business.
Today’s innovative mail scanning services streamline business mail operations, keeping you organized and removing the tedious manual element from many mail-related operations (like depositing checks and shredding junk mail).
Here, we’ll take a closer look at mail scanning services and their many benefits. Then, we’ll examine the key features and advantages of five leading services to help you identify which best align with your business’s unique needs and goals.
Exactly what they sound like, mail scanning services handle mail management, allowing businesses to leverage automation that eliminates the time-consuming burden of manually sorting, storing, and disposing of mail items.
Research shows that the average business owner spends about 68% of their time handling day-to-day administrative duties. Only about 32% of their time is spent on tasks that focus on moving the business forward (like strategic planning and long-term goals). With a mail scanning service that reduces the manual work involved in mail management, business owners have greater flexibility to focus on those more important matters.
Mail scanning services also let you quickly and easily identify important mail so you can make expedient business decisions. When your mail is digitized, instead of rummaging through physical mail manually looking for items from a certain sender, you can use a quick keyword search for the sender’s name.
From scanning incoming mail and forwarding packages to depositing checks and extracting key information, mail scanning services securely handle all mail and packages delivered to your own virtual business address.
The benefits of utilizing a mail scanning service are manifold, including the following:
Mail management services receive, sort, and manage mail on your behalf. If your business receives large volumes of paper mail, a mail scanning service can help save on storage space, costs, and the time you (or a staff member) would spend manually organizing it.
Meanwhile, digitization services further save time and space by eliminating physical mail. Not only is this an eco-friendly solution, but it also makes it easier to locate documents — when mail is digitized, you can pull up the document you’re looking for with a quick keyword search.
More than half of office professionals spend more time “digging for files they need” than they do on actual work, according to Wakefield Research and Elastic.
Furthermore, 58% of office workers identified the ability to quickly search for files and documentation as a “top-three problem.”
By scanning and digitizing incoming mail, mail management services make accessing incoming digital mail from anywhere easy and convenient via user-friendly software. Rather than searching through physical files, employees simply conduct a quick online search.
And unlike with a P.O. Box, scanned mail can be easily accessed from wherever you are — 24 hours a day.
Physical files are inherently at risk, from fire and theft to environmental damage and human error. In the best-case scenario, the result is wasted time. But in the worst case? Sensitive data falls into the wrong hands to the detriment of your company, employees, and customers.
On the other hand, converting files to digital form minimizes these threats while protecting and preserving documentation. Some mail scanning services, like Stable, include permission and roles management, allowing you to give certain departments access to certain mail.
We’ve already touched on the inconvenience factor associated with handling physical mail. However, the impacts can be profound when amplified across your organization.
The Wakefield report concludes that this “loss of time negatively impacts companies and cultures as workers waste energy that would be better spent on planning, strategy and overall company growth.”
The takeaway here is that keeping up with physical mail isn’t just a hassle; it can actually harm employee morale, erode company culture, and detract from your bottom line.
More businesses choose to work with mail scanning services because of their powerful potential. Which begs the question: How do you select the best mail scanning service for your operation?
Here’s a breakdown of five leading mail scanning services to consider.
With the mission of making it simple for businesses to operate from anywhere, Stable simplifies and streamlines mail management by providing a permanent address and virtual mailbox for scanning mail, forwarding packages, depositing checks, and more.
Offering more than 600 local mailing addresses for receiving mail, PostScanMail gives businesses complete control. The company receives, scans, and uploads the front of mail to an online portal, which customers access to request opening and further scanning, recycling, or forwarding.
This secure cloud-based platform makes viewing and managing your mail from your computer or mobile device easy. After selecting a physical street address from Anytime Mailbox’s network of locations, users choose a service plan that suits their needs.
US Global Mail provides virtual mailbox solutions for individuals, small businesses, enterprises, and expats — all via a convenient virtual mailbox. Services include viewing, scanning, and shipping.
A pioneer in virtual mailbox forwarding and mailroom management software, this digital mailbox service also includes scanning, mail forwarding, and other mail management services for everything from streamlining business operations to package theft prevention.
Looking for help managing your physical mail from anywhere with a premium business address? Whether you’re looking for the best virtual mailbox and best virtual address for individuals and businesses, the best corporate mailing services for receiving and sending mail, Stable’s premier mail management services are an innovative solution to the challenges of running a remote, distributed, or fast-scaling company.
Stable provides permanent virtual addresses and mailboxes to streamline your business’s mail operations. We securely digitize your mail so that you can scan, forward, shred, or even deposit checks from anywhere in the world through our intuitive web dashboard. To start saving time and resources by joining them, create your Stable address today.
