Who are potential clients of First Class Services, LLC?

• Any business, medical office, law firm, educational facility, government agency, financial institution and so on that has a need and/or requirement to store, retrieve and report information. Whether its legal filings, employee records, benefit files, loan records, contracts, insurance forms, investment records, corporate records, financial records, accounts payable, accounts receivable, customer service records. . . the list goes on, First Class Services, LLC can help you manage your documents.

• The secured online repository makes it safe and convenient to store every type of document imaginable.  Whether it's scanned paper documents, PC files, multimedia files (including AVI, JPEG, ASF, MPEG and all others as long as it's a PC file), document processing files (WPD, DOC, etc.), Spreadsheets (XLS, XLW, etc.), PDF, and so on, as long as it is an electronic file it can be stored online.

I've heard that document imaging is very expensive.  How much does it cost to scan my documents?

• While it is true that in the past document imaging was a very expensive endeavor, technology improvements have provided tremendous reductions in the cost of imaging.  Actual costs will depend upon how much document preparation is required, size of the documents, resolution, data entry and indexing, volumes and turnaround.  Depending upon the amount of document preparation, resolution of the image and indexing needed the document conversion can be as low as 4¢ and as high as 15¢ or more per image.  Most jobs are in the 6¢ to 8¢ per image range.

Does First Class Services, LLC use off-shore operations to perform data entry?

• Utilizing our own domestic workforce we have realized balance between an excellent work performance AND affordable price structure.   First Class Services, LLC has only used a domestic workforce and has no intention to move any of its operations off-shore.

What's the advantage of images in PDF?

• PDF, today's most widely accepted image format 

  The Adobe Acrobat® PDF file format has become the most widely accepted electronic format for distributing documents of all kinds.  Whether they are word processor or spreadsheet document written to a pdf, a flyer, or published book “printed” to a pdf the electronic pdf, thanks to the constantly updated free Adobe Reader®, is the best form of electronic document to provide universal distribution and readability. 

  What is a PDF?

  There are three types of PDF files.  Each has advantages and disadvantages over the other and is used for different purposes.  First Class Services will help you determine which is best for your needs:

   PDF Formatted Text & Graphics – created direct from applications such as a word processor or scanner application.  Once scanned or imported, the test is kept in an editable state and graphics are kept in zones that can be manipulated.

  It is recommended you use this type of PDF when you need to keep the file-size down for web-based retrieval, however, OCR error require manual correction.

  Searchable PDF – created from scanned pages.  The original look of the original page is maintained but the OCR results are kept hidden in the “background” and used ONLY for searches and CANNOT be edited.

  The file size will be larger than so should only be used where storage requirements are not a concern. There is generally a low cost to OCR these documents unless the quality of the original provides poor readability for the OCR process. 

  PDF Image – Only the image is captured in the pdf, no OCR is executed.  The image will look just like the original page but you will not be able to do any searches on the page or document.  If your imaging application does not require text searches within the document or page then the pdf image may be the best and most cost effective solution for you.

  PDF/A Long-term Archiving Standard

  PDF/A is not a different type of PDF file but is a set of standards approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) working in conjunction with the imaging industry, vendors, academia, federal agencies, Adobe, the US Courts and others.  The PDF Achival (PDF/A) Standard specifies a subset of the PDF file format that is more appropriate for enduring safeguarding than the conventional PDF.

  The PDF/A standard attempts to ensure that archived electronic documents will be useful in the future.  A PDF to be archival in the PDF/A standard, for one “archival” reason or another, will be prohibited to have any, 1. encryption, 2. embedded files, 3. external links, or 4. Java script.  The standard requires documents to be self-contained and independent of other documents.  Fonts must be embedded and the use of metadata is required.