Decluttering the world, one office at a time

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After working for a well-known copier and printer company for more than a decade, followed by a few stints at some other Fortune 500 companies, Craig Matherne decided that it was time to be his own boss. Armed with the knowledge and training he received in his prior professions, Matherne, who had lived in Dallas, and had moved to frigid Minneapolis, returned to sunny Houma with more of an idea than a full-blown plan.


“When I decided to move back to Houma, I knew I didn’t want to work for anyone,” expressed Matherne in a phone interview. “I met with a friend of mine, Leslie Bundy, who owns Micro Technology a computer company here in Houma, and I asked him, ‘What in the computer world are we not doing here?’ … And this was one of the topics that came up.”


The topic to which Matherne is referencing is the idea of a company that converts offices into paperless believers. So in 2002, after some much needed research, Matherne opened Document Management Solutions, the first business of its kind in the area.

While the technology to transfer paper documents into digital files is not new, it has been slow to catch on in this corner of the world, according to Matherne, who said that some people are just anxious about the switch.


“This technology has been around for a while and it’s more prevalent in major cities, but Houma is behind. But we are getting there. A lot of people, when I started in 2002, kind of heard the word paperless, however they never really understood the whole concept of it. And there are people still, I guess, nervous about it. They just don’t want to get rid of their documents. But every client I have, and they’re from all industries, once we converted them they say, ‘I should have done this years ago,'” he explained.


Matherne also noted that while a lot of major corporations already use this tree-saving method, small businesses, which are Document Management Solutions’ primary focus, really benefit from this conversion as well, especially when it comes to document accessibility.

“Everything is at a touch of a finger now. If you’re in a multi-computer office, on a network, we store information directly on the server, and anybody in the office with a few clicks of the keyboard can pull up information that they need, anything that is scanned. They don’t have to walk to a file cabinet. They don’t have to dig on somebody else’s desk. There is time saved by tracking documents, by going to pull documents, by going to print out documents.”


Security is another added advantage to switching to a digitally filed office, according to the business owner. Employers can assign who has access to what, and government regulations are able to be met with ease. Customers are happy because their information is more secure than ever.


“One of the software programs that I use, PaperVision Enterprise, has all the security where in an office, I can allocate who has permission to do what to those files. So, if a customer, Mr. Business Owner, says, I want this person to be able to just view the files, I don’t want them to be able to print it, email it or fax it; I want this person to have access to do these activities; and I want this person only able to view and print,’ the security is there where we can dictate who does what,” Matherne remarked. “It also monitors users activities, and this helps out with HIPAA and the Fair Credit Act where everything has to monitored, now, who is doing what with patients’ or customers’ files.”

Another notable upside is the amount of space an organization, company or even individual can save, added the proprietor, who explained how in one instance he was able to combine 60, 4-drawer filing cabinets onto a single, 16 gig flash drive.

When a customer decides it is time to go paperless and reap the aforementioned benefits, they can call Document Management Solutions, who will usually convert from paper to digital onsite.

The paper documents are first prepared by removing staples, paperclips, sticky notes, etc. Depending on the condition of the files, this can be even more time consuming than the actual scanning process, said Matherne, who has a scanner that can complete 96 images in a minute.

Next, one of the various scanning methods is performed, followed by the indexing of the digital content, a critical part of the transition.

“Scanning is only one segment of paperless. You can scan a million pages, however if they are not indexed, if they are not coded properly, it’s like having a stack of papers and you’ll never find what you need,” explained Matherne, who has many clients that use the scanned and indexed material every day.

“For the most part, the majority of our business is workable documents. For example, I do a lot of work for local insurance companies in Houma, Thibodaux, Morgan City and New Orleans, and these files are active files where the customer generates policies and endorsement that are always being manipulated,” he said. “We are constantly adding pages to them every month. We do just scan and store for archiving purposes, however the majority of our work is we scan and then our customers use these files on a daily basis.”

With an impressive list of benefits that extend beyond the plus of going green, Matherne believes every company will one day change to a paper-free office, saying “There is no doubt. Everybody in some form is going to implement some type of paperless system.

“The technology is here. It’s just amazing what we can do.”

After compiling paper documents onto a CD, flash drive, server, etc., the proper destruction of the paper files is extremely important. When Document Management Solutions is placed in charge, owner Craig Matherne uses Cross Cut Shredders to ensure accurate disposal. ALYSON SHOWALTER