A paperless office?

[Tim Hicks (Texas)]

Are many of you utilizing a paperless office? Do you have a high speed scanner to scan your entire work file? Anything else that you think that helps? I am ready to jettison the giant file cabinets.

 

[Mountain Man]

Am paperless on the real estate side, not so much on the appraisal side. The real estate side is easy, even our contracts are written within MLS software to be e-signed. I still write too many notes on site inspections to want to scan it all in and convert to PDF. I only keep PDF of reports, but still have a thin paper file for my print outs and notes.

 

[JTip]

but still have a thin paper file for my print outs and notes.

Without having 5 screens, it's nice to have a hard copy of the tax card and MLS sheet. Together with the order, my file is 5-10 pages. I haven't printed out a full appraisal for a few years.

Check this out MM. An office gift to myself:

http://us.aoc.com/monitor_displays/e1759fwu

No power cord, just a usb. Plug it in your lappy and boom, two screens. I'll give you a review after the holidays. IDK, you probably had this last year.....got a used one you can sell me?

 

[james stephens]

I'm as close to paperless as I think I'm ever going to get. I average about 4 or 5 sheets of paper for each appraisal. Stuff I like to print out is 1st page of engagement letter, Subject MLS listing with agent phone #, one page list of comps and map, and I have a one page inspection sheet. Other relevant documents are stored in a folder on my computer desktop. A couple of months after the appraisal is complete I'll scan the 4 or 5 sheets of paper into the Subject's desktop folder and then shred or recycle the scanned sheets of paper. The Subject desktop folder then is moved off the desktop to a file folder for Workfiles in a different folder on the drive. I suppose I don't need to wait a couple of months to scan the 4 or 5 sheets of paper but I just figure I want to make sure that I don't need to do anymore follow up work on the appraisal before wrapping things up. Multi-monitor setup is a must, IMO. I'm using 3 now and would welcome a 4th. My scanner is an old Cannon multi-function printer than has a automatic document feeder that can hold about 30 pages of letter and legal at the same time. It's rated to scan about 5 pages per minute, but I don't think its that fast. I'm usually working on other things while the scanner is working so scan speed is no concern for me.

 

[Joe Flacco]

I'm paperless. My work file looks like this..

 

[Joe Flacco]

For inspection notes, I like to to compose email to myself and type everything in a email to myself on my phone. I use my gmail for all kinds of notes. Notes during inspection. Notes on desktop while talking to agents. I like sending emails to myself because the gmail search is so good and I never run out of space. I still have all emails since I started appraising in 2006.

I think doing this helps me be paperless the most.

 

[TN Pro]

Completely paperless. Use ipad and total mobile for inspection, only keep electronic work files, print all documents to PDF which then go in to the digital workfile.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

I don't have a "high speed" scanner, but I do have a multi-page scanner. It is relatively easy to scan duplex (both sides) and have a pdf file of pertinent files. I download pdf field cards and MLS sheets but still print them out to work from. hard to write notes on a computer screen.

 

[LarryJewell]

I'm semi paperless, I keep around 5 pages in the file cabinet, but store everything on a Drobo drive. I am in the process of scanning all old files and shredding. Just started this past spring.

 

[Mr Rex]

Don't print it to paper and you won't have to scan it. Use multiple screens and print to pdf and dump the pdf in the workfile. For MLS sheets, you can use the multi select option in the MLS and print all of your comps to 1 pdf and put it in the workfile or print singularly for easier searching the workfile later. You will find it a bit irritating at frist to create the pdf and then saving it to the workfile, until you realize how much time you have been wasting waiting for the printer to spit out a hard copy and how much time it takes to scan versus pdf etc.