Convert your fax into a scanner

Elecronic conveyancing doesn’t have a fixed definition.

NECS decribes it as an efficient and convenient way of completing property based transactions and lodging land title dealings for registration. In others word conducting a financial settlement electronically and registering land registry instruments electronically rather than with paper forms lodged over the counter.

247Legal has attempted to define electronic conveyancing - the system of exchanging sales & mortgage documentation and property data electronically between vendor & buyer, agent & lawyer, brokers & banks, government & land registry from point of sale to contract to settlement without (or with minimal) printed documentation.

Or perhaps electronic conveyancing can be as simple as being able to exchange documents electronically.

To be able to exchange documents electronically, by email for example, you have to be able to convert a paper document into an electronic document. The most common method is to use a scanner and the most common format is a PDF.

For the past 30 years, the fax has been the most common method for exchanging documents. If it has not yet happened, soon scanned to email documents will overtake the fax, which is common sense. But fax technology continues to dominate the industry, particularly with the 4 major banks. This is despite headlines for example that the approval times blow out at one major bank because its fax machines are being clogged (Herald Sun March 10, 2009). The banks' back office operations must be drowning in faxes, as testimony by the conveyancing industry provides in legions of stories of lost faxes.

 

 

Fax technology is redundant. Or it should be

If your office still does not own or use a scanner, 247Legal has done some bench testing on scanners and scanning options that might help you to cross over.

The bench test is a 15 page contract of sale using an enterprise and desktop scanner as well as a fax to email service. The scan test was timed from placing the document into the scanner or the fax

Toshiba Estudio 4511	37 seconds	$14,315
Fujitsu duplex fi-4120C	1 minute 55 seconds	$1,400
Mbox fax to email	57 seconds** being the time spent to send the fax ** the Brother MFC fax scans to memory, then sends and it may be several minutes before you receive the email with PDF attachment	$10 per month plus cost of local call

The Toshiba I would describe as the mothership won hands down. But for the price of a small car, you want to be pumping out volume. But then again this is a true multi function device, for a fully networked print, copy, scan solution.

The Fujistu is a great compact desktop scanner capable of scanning duplex. Having used this model for several years, the author can attest to its usefulness and reliability. The current model is the 6120, is faster than the 4120 and comes bundled with a full version of Adobe Acrobat which is a significant cost saving in itself.

If you are not ready to make the investment in a scanner of your own, there is an alternative that can transform your existing fax machine into a scanner. By subscribing to a fax to email service likembox.com.au, any business can convert their current fax machine to a scanner. Take any document, feed it into your fax, dial your mbox fax number, and voila a minute or two later, the sent fax will be back in your inbox as a "scanned" PDF. And the bonus is, because mbox is a fax to email service, all your inbound faxes can be delivered to you as email as well. Mbox provides an effective low cost alternative to buying a dedicated scanner. Its not quite retiring the fax, but its giving it a new lease of life. The basic mbox service costs $9.95 per month

Conveyancers and lawyers are in the paper business. Today, the scanner is a basic tool of trade. If you are not ready to buy, consider subscribing to a fax to email service to gain the benefits of the paper saving. Or if you can buy, buy the best your can afford. It will pay for itself many times over and it is part of the matrix that we call electronic conveyancing.