Printing and scanning documents are two of the most important components of any business, big or small. And in the last ten years, they have gone through a significant process of digitization. This is what a customized solution for today’s and tomorrow’s digitalization looks like.

For years, printers were stand-alone devices with minimal Internet connectivity, poor security, and no options for tracking printing costs.

All this is changing, and today we are talking about clear accounting of these costs, integration with cloud services and security at the highest level.

Before doing that, think a little about the law firm. Most likely, among the first thoughts that come to your mind are dozens and hundreds of documents, hundreds and thousands of pages that are printed and scanned every year.

Rarely have you thought of law as a digital field. But this is also changing.

That is why the case of PCAATTORNEYS is special, with an early adopter approach in the digital sphere and a desire to optimize the workflow both within the company and for clients.

The company specializes in matters of intellectual property, data protection, technology transfer, copyright, patents, trademark protection, etc.

PCAATTORNEYS is noted for providing quality services to its clients according to the standards applicable in any other European country, as well as for solving their needs, regardless of the complexity or technical nature of the problems in question.

At the same time, the main direction of activity is to provide clients with the most suitable solution for their needs, while synchronizing our activities with changes in the legislative landscape.

Record of cost and activity

In the legal environment, you probably rarely hear about technology and how legal firms are using digitization to make their work as efficient as possible, even though they need productivity solutions just like other companies in other industries.

Since March 2023, PCAATTORNEYS has switched to a solution to manage printing and scanning needs adapted to today’s digital environment. “The expectations of the colleagues were very diverse, from the efficiency of some costs for certain customer accounts to the possibility of re-invoicing for services,” summed up Oleksandr Popa, manager of PCAATTORNEYS, switching to the uniFLOW solution.

He added that it is impossible to compare with the previous way of working, because there are no similar elements. “The so-called ‘old methods’ involved rudimentary management of print flows that often contained errors or omissions,” he added. “Implementation of the uniFLOW solution has increased productivity and control over the flow of documents produced in the consulting business, and don’t forget the control over this printing activity from the point of view of the carbon footprint.”

For PCAATTORNEYS, the main advantage of the platform was the ability to have overview of costs assigned to each customer cost center. Popa also emphasized that the printing and scanning of documents, as well as the assignment of activities to cost centers, are very important aspects in consulting activities.

Lower costs, higher security

The uniFLOW solution is provided in Romania by Canon through its local partners and is a type of Software as a Service (SaaS). By switching to a SaaS solution, costs are reduced from the first stage. And this is a common request, which Oleksandr Popa also spoke about. “Employees’ demands had one common denominator: to avoid uncontrolled prints and all that entails.”

When we talk about costs, we mean both those related to the administration of servers and the use of resources and time. The uniFLOW solution provides all of this while providing enhanced security through the security infrastructure provided by Microsoft through the Azure cloud service.

In other words, security at a higher level than anything you could provide on an on-premise server for a small to medium business that cares about additional hardware. And authentication on the equipment for printing and scanning is carried out using a PIN code, PIN code + access card or by phone.

The print network is encrypted, so no activity can be intercepted, and the storage is also encrypted, avoiding the risk of losing sensitive documents and highly sensitive information. On top of all that, it’s also worth mentioning that uniFLOW has a 99.99% uptime, which is not the case with many local scan and print implementations.

Canon’s solution is this easy to install and configure, and printing and scanning equipment can be accessed from any device, from a phone to a laptop. It is also very flexible in terms of the needs of any company, as different functionalities can be added.

Regarding the use of uniFLOW in the work of PCAATTORNEYS, Oleksandr Popa noted that the period of adaptation to the new system was short, and the system was quickly put into operation. “Feedback was received both gradually, after the training, and through its daily use. We can certainly characterize the response as positive, at least in terms of the problems that the implementation of the system solves.”

We are talking about costs, and we were talking about those that are necessary to maintain such own infrastructure. However, there are also other costs recorded with customer activities. For PCAATTORNEYS and other companies, uniFLOW provides cost accounting directly in the application with direct distribution for each client.

When you send a document for printing, a window appears in the platform’s special program where you can allocate the cost of this printing operation. Either these are internal costs or for a specific project. At the end of the month, a detailed report is provided, from the number of pages printed to scanned and account activity.

In this context, Oleksandr Popa also emphasized that the impact here was immediate and noticeable. “This was found in both resource consumption and cost recovery without losses,” he added.

A solution created by integrating cloud services

Both the way we work and the technologies we use for this have changed. Although you use a cloud service every day in your personal life, whether you realize it or not, it can also make things much easier in a professional environment.

For PCAATTORNEY printing and scanning needs, the uniFLOW platform has a collaboration component. In other words, you can scan a document on your device and send it directly to Microsoft Teams, for example, where a team is discussing a specific project. All participants are notified of changes. Or you can send the document to any other cloud storage service available, from OneDrive and Microsoft Drive to Evernote and Dropbox. You sign in to that account and then share directly there.

The cloud component also shows its usefulness when it comes to printing. You’ve probably tried wireless printing a few times by using a printer connected to the same Wi-Fi network as the laptop or phone you’re sending the document from. However, it should be noted that this method is not very secure, it depends on Wi-Fi performance and does not always work without problems.

What Canon offers with uniFLOW is to print from anywhere, from any device, regardless of the type of network you are connected to. So even if you work from home, you can print in the office, and in the app you can tell a colleague to pick up your documents.

uniFLOW integrates very easily with all equipment, and a dedicated phone app also helps you scan documents on the go. You just take a photo, the program interprets it as a scan, and you can send it directly to print, to the cloud or to a group where the project is discussed.

And this “smart client” on the laptop is both a center for managing print operations and related costs, as well as a notification center so you don’t lose sight of what operations are being performed.

At the same time, it also keeps an archive of printing actions for a certain time that you can set. That way, if you need to reprint certain documents two days or a week later, you can grab them right from there. And if you sent a set of documents for printing, but noticed an error, you can easily cancel and correct it.

The good thing about such a cloud-integrated solution is that the on-premise alternative is limited to storage on a local server. In the cloud, this problem no longer exists.

The integration of uniFLOW into the workflow of PCAATTORNEYS, a small company with specific requirements and a critical need for security, also shows that advanced printing and scanning services are not just for large corporations.

The needs of every business are different, but there is no doubt that everyone needs productivity, efficiency, integration with digital services that employees already use, and very good cost control.

When asked whether this system increased business efficiency, Oleksandr Popa answered “unequivocally”. “It would sound like a few simple wordsand so: printing activity is no longer carried out without control and without a defined cost center. Which is extremely important, because this activity means “recovering lost funds and avoiding losses.”

For any business, uniFLOW can be an essential component of a safe, efficient, highly secure and connected workflow. Such integration significantly reduces time and related costs, while simultaneously increasing the possibilities of cooperation between people.

Technology is essentially a factor that helps you do your job better and safer, even remotely, which is a critical factor in any modern work environment. Technology shows its true potential when you forget that it is part of your job, but see its benefits directly in what you do.

Article supported by Canon