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Document Scanning Services

From a document scanning service to a complete document management solution – we provide secure and quality services to businesses across the UK.

Next day UK collection service
Complete end-to-end service
GDPR, BIP0008 and ISO270001 compliant
Rated excellent in customer service and project delivery

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Peace of mind document scanning services by a highly experienced and technically savvy team to help support your project

You don’t have to do much – we provide a hassel-free service so that you do not have to worry about a thing. Our support team can pack the documents into secure boxes and bring them back to us in our tracked vehicles. On arrival to our facility we will remove all staples before scanning the documents as well as index them so that you can easily find what you need.

If you need to import the scanned documents into your existing document management system, we have a dedicated team here who will be delighted to help you or you can choose one of our document management systems – it’s a bit of a treat!

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Pearl Scan

5.0

Based on 63 reviews

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Tim Forsyth

10:19 15 Dec 21

I am a private customer. I wanted to scan some old diaries including photographs in a non-destructive way. The scans were good, and the diaries were returned to me in good condition. I was impressed with Pearl Scan, they did a good job, and would recommend them.

Kevin Goulding

16:52 08 Dec 21

I’d just like to put on record that I’m very impressed by your service and support during this exercise. Everyone who I’ve spoken to and emailed in your organisation has been very professional as well as taking an interest in my requests. I hope we get the opportunity to deal with your company again in the future.

Clare Parry

16:40 24 Nov 21

I found Pearl Scan to be friendly and efficient. They were incredibly, adaptable to my requirements which were pretty challenging. They kept me updated as to the projects progress snd got in touch to clarify the details of the work undertaken.They actually were the first company I got in touch with and i didn't bother to enquire with others because they seemed to have it all covered in a really confident but approachable manner at all stages in the process.Thank you

Tim Dibb

12:58 20 Sep 21

Really excellent service. They sent a courier to pick up the plans who arrived when they said he would. Results of the scan are good, despite the age of the documents. Pearl Scan have a minimum price per job, which, as this was only a small job, made it a little expensive, but otherwise very good. I would use them again.

Low Salt

18:03 18 Sep 21

Professional service from start to finish;An excellent, very high quality scan of a vintage text book,both the text and the high definition, black and white photographs appear just as they do in in the original.I can't recommend Pearl Scan highly enough. Holly kept in touch throughout the whole process, and kept me appraised of progress, and made special arrangements to return the original to me.5 stars !

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Nationwide document scanning

Wherever you are in the country, we can come to you as quickly as the next day and securely collect your documents.

We can bring boxes and other packaging material if needed as well as assist you to pack them in the boxes. Our document collection team will ensure that the whole process is smooth and carried out when it's convenient for you.

Not sure how many pages you need to scan?

Try our page count calculator!

Trust us - we have it covered

For the last 19 years we have worked with organisations in all sectors and scanned every kind of document.

Providing document scanning services to a wide variety of customers, we always ensure that our team is uses the best technologies and that audits are carried out by third parties to ensure compliance.

Our accreditations

Small and large volume document scanning

As one of the leading providers in the industry, we get asked to scan anything from a few documents to rooms full of boxes.

Thanks to our flexible infrasture, with dedicated scanners and large storage capabilities, we can quickly scale up our team to process large volume of documents. Our facility has a range of scanners to handle different sizes, condition and types of documents.

We've been helping business scan documents for over 19 years... _{Get in touch today and join our happy customers!}

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Document Shredding

Upon completion of the scanning process and delivery of your data, we can shred your documents according to EN BSI 15713 document destruction standards. We will only do this with your approval and after an agreed period of time. If you don’t want your documents shredded after the scanning process, we’ll either return or store them securely for you.

OCR Conversion

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is a process used to automatically extract text from images. We’ll usually use the text to create Searchable PDFs, but can also produce many other file types. OCR makes it trivial to search through your documents or produce editable versions of them.

Document Storage

Documents that do not require scanning and the documents that have been scanned but you do not wish to have them shredded, can be placed in our interim or long term storage facility until needed. We will manage your the storage as well as your document rention schedule, ensuring cost savings and reducing compliance risk.

Document scanning for all industries

Purchase Invoices

Supplier invoices, statements, debit/credit notes, expenses and audit reports.

HR Files

Employee files and payroll records for both ‘live’ files and ‘leaver’ files.

Medical Records

Patient notes, GPs’ Lloyd George, dental records, mental health and occupational health.

Legal Documents

Client files, intellectual property rights and permissions files.

Logistics and Operations

Collection, delivery and dispatch notes, site files and plans and health & safety files.

Local Councils

Planning and building control files, maps, plans and housing and tenancy files.

Schools and Universities

Pupil and student files, payroll, HR files, archives and student registration cards.

Aerospace

Client files, production records, technical drawings and maps and audit reports.

Digital Mailroom

All incoming post (Including invoices and general office documents) via paper and digital.

Oil & Gas

Project folders, invoices, drawings, microfiche and rolls of microfilm etc.

Engineering

Large format plans, electrical & mechanical drawings, parts lists and operational folders.

Manufacturing

Product documents, testing and sampling log records and audit documentation.

Make your data work for you

Easy to find your data
Imagine searching through a filing cabinet looking for a key piece of information. Even with a perfect filing system, this would be very time-consuming! Imagine instead being able to type a single search phrase into your computer to instantly find what you are looking for.

Easy integration into your applications
While your data is trapped on paper, you will find it difficult to integrate into your existing systems. What if adding a scanned document to an application meant that other processes were able to read and make use of that data?

Easy compliance
If you need to remove documents older than a certain date or containing a certain keyphrase, this again can be very time-consuming. Make the process easier by quickly being able to search your digital documents and take action.

Scan a box, plant a tree

When scanning your documents with us, we help to offset your carbon footprint by planting a tree for every box scanned, no matter how many boxes you have.

As a responsible document scanning company, we are accredited to ISO 14001. We care about the future of our planet and want to have a lasting climate-positive legacy.

Scan your paper into trees today!

The document scanning process

Secure collection - We can collect from anywhere in the UK within 24 hours and can also provide archive boxes and help with on-site packing.
Preparation and scanning - We remove staples, paperclips and bindings to allow a seamless feed through our high-spec scanning equipment.
Processing and data capture - We can clean up your images and process to your requirements, before outputting to a digital format of your choice.
Delivery - We return your data via a secure download or storage medium, or host it on Pearl Cloud, our fully managed cloud-based solution.

See the process in detail

Find out how we can help you make the most of your scanned documents

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Our industry knowledge and wide range of expertise, coupled with digital innovation, can support your organisation’s move to a paper-free environment.

Industry Expertise – Sector-specific experienced account managers understand the challenges and have in-depth knowledge of each industry.
Innovation – We’re at the forefront of innovation to simplify your scanning needs – saving you time, reducing cost, and transforming how your organisation manages its documents.
Flexibility – To ensure that we cater for all types of organisations and budgets, our services offer flexible solutions that work for you.
Understanding your needs – We offer a free-of-charge consultation and on-site scope-of-work survey, detailed cost breakdown and full project plan to get you started with your scanning project.

Need to scan your documents?

Give us a call or fill in our contact form.

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Other scanning services...

Book Scanning

We offer a service that you can trust for both scanning of modern and antiquarian books, newspapers and magazines. Our scanning experts ensure that complete care is taken with every book digitisation project.

Microfiche Scanning

Using our advanced microfiche and microfilm scanners, we can convert your microfiche sheets or microfilm rolls to high-quality digital images such as TIFF, PDF and JPEG.

Archive Scanning

Archive documents stored in filing cabinets, boxes or offsite/onsite archive facilities can be scanned as bulk to save ongoing storage costs and cut down retrieval time.

Large Format Scanning

Our large format scanning service provides digitisation and conversion of technical drawings and building plans. We convert to digital image formats including TIFF, PDF, JPEG and fully editable CAD files including DWG and DXF.

Survey Scanning

Our intelligent survey scanning and data entry service provides the scanning and capturing of data from forms, surveys, questionnaires and any types of structured/non-structured documents to formats including Microsoft Excel, CSV, XML and SPSS.

See All

Frequently asked questions

I have files filled with documents I would like scanning; how does that work?

We offer two main scanning methods here at Pearl Scan – file level or document level. Dependant on your objectives we can scan the entirety of each file producing multipage PDFs or alternatively, we can separate each file into individual documents, scanning each document into their own PDF. Scanning methods can be discussed fully with our sales team!

Can my documents be collected?

Yes, we offer a nationwide collection service and can provide all the archive boxes you may need or alternatively we also provide a packing service where we take care of it all for you.

Once all documents are boxed up and ready to go, we can arrange a nationwide tracked collection as early as next day! If you then require the originals back after scanning, we can deliver them right back to you!

How much does document scanning cost?

The cost for document scanning varies based on the quality and type of documents you want to scan. The average document scanning price in the UK ranges from £0.03 – £0.08 per page. We have created a cost table below with example paper quality and sizes;

Paper Type	Price Range
Prestine documents (All A4 sizes)	£0.03 – £0.05 per page
Mixed Quality and Sizes (Mixed sizes and shapes but max page size up to an A4)	£0.04 – £0.06 per page
Mixed Quality and Sizes (Mixed sizes and shapes but max page size up to an A3)	£0.05 – £0.08 per page

The above price range will enable you to have a budgetry estimate of your total project cost, but please note that each scanning project requires a full scope of work to provide you with an accurate quotation. The significant factors in the document scanning cost calcuation are the price of manaul labour which includes the pre-scan work (e.g. removal of staples and paper clips, etc.) as well as the total volume of pages to be scanned.

I would like my files indexed in a specific way, is that possible?

Absolutely! Just let us know what you need. We can group documents by certain fields, index using a lookup file or anything else you might need.

Giving us as much information as possible on how you will use the digitised data will enable our team to create something bespoke to you. Our processing team can provide a sample to show how the indexing of the data may look – allowing any changes to be made and any further information to be extracted if needed before the scanning process is completed.

What happens to the original documents after scanning?

That is up to you! We offer several options upon scanning completion; we can return them or put them into secure storage if you need to save space. Alternatively we can shred your documents according to BSI standards – we’ll only do this with your approval after a set time.

What is the maximum resolution I can have my documents scanned at?

We would normally scan to 200-300 dpi for general documents, this is a good mixture of quality while keeping the file size small. But depending on your needs, we can scan at much higher levels – have a chat with our team and we can provide you with a solution tailored to your needs.

Do I have to remove the staples before my documents are scanned?

If there are staples, paperclips or bindings on your documents, our team will remove these as part of the document scanning process – we can also put these back once processed should you wish.

Why do I need a document scanning company if I already have a scanner in the office?

Being tasked with finding a document scanning company, you may have thought “We have a scanner at work that can scan documents, why would I need someone else to scan our documents”?

An office scanner, or even your smart phone in a pinch, can be used to scan your office documents, but there are a number of reasons that businesses usually consider to outsource;

The cost – It’s cheaper to use a scanning company as these usually have industrial scanners and experienced staff
Time and Resources – Ensuring suitably trained staff, enough equipment, software and space is available to complete the project in timely manner.
Quality – Office scanners are usually suitable for a general scanning use and do not support wide range of quality, sizes and conditions of documents
Compliance – There are a whole host of standards that the people and systems need to have to ensure that the work meets this criteria

UK Nationwide

Our collection service covers the UK and Europe using our own unmarked fully tracked fleet of vehicles for added security.

Fast Turnaround

With the capacity to digitise around 10 million images per month, we can accommodate urgent and demanding requirements.

Onsite scanning

On-premise scanning is available throughout the UK. All our staff are fully vetted, have signed non-disclosure agreements and won’t eat all of your biscuits.

What is document scanning?

Document scanning is a process that converts ordinary paper documents into easily accessible digital files such as PDF, TIFF or JPEGs. Businesses often scan documents as a method to cut costs, as paper documents can produce a barrier to productivity and accessibility due to the inefficient nature of storing physical paper documents.

Whilst the process of scanning documents may appear simple, each stage of the process is completed to the highest quality to ensure that every digital file and image produced are in compliance with the required standards. Our processes follow BIP PD0008 & BIP PD0010 British Archiving Standards and Guidelines to ensure digital data integrity and authenticity.

Once the paper document has been passed through scanning device producing a digital image, allowing for the data extraction of any specified fields, known as file indexing.

After the scans are produced, intricate processes can be applied to “read” the contents of a document, regardless of the language. This is done using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology, which can automatically recognise the text from scans and store it within the PDF to create Searchable PDFs, providing quick access to the required information within scanned files.

The history of document scanning

The first scanner originated in the family of fax machines, where the original goal was to transmit information from newspapers in the form of pixels and lines.

For archiving, scans were photographed and stored on microfilm, which helped with the problem of phyical storage but did little to help documents become searchable.

It wasn’t until the 90’s that the world became familiar with the scanner that we use in our everyday lives – the flatbed scanner, which transformed businesses across the world by scanning any paper documents and images.

Now, in the modern world, scanning is a crucial part of all businesses. It allows us to collate and collect relevant information without the need for extensive onsite document storage facilities, allowing access to the data instantly, from anywhere & anytime. Outsourcing a business’s document scanning needs is where companies like Pearl Scan can help improve the efficiency of a business by enabling freedom away from daunting document archives, piling up everywhere!