The fast easy way to store and retrieve digital documents
Traditional paper filing can be a losing battle.
For documents that begin with paper, storage and retrieval means indexing, filing, retrieving, then re-filing. It also means boxes or cabinets and the space needed for these.. This all comes with huge costs, not the least of which is wasted employee productivity doing all that time-consuming filing . . . and then later trying to find the documents they need. It can also mean lost documents if they are not continually filed correctly.
And of course, the more your business grows, the worse the problem becomes . . . until the problem starts to actually impede your business’s ability to grow!
And now as digital dentistry grows, the dental offices are creating photographs and CAD/CAM files to be used in the design and development of each prosthetic.
The solution for those with DentaLab for QuickBooks is to add the very affordable Images Supplement along with a scanner or USB camera to revolutionize their entire document storage and retrieval processes.
With this digital document management solution, images and documents are automatically indexed and stored so that you can access them within seconds. You can rapidly respond to queries and provide better customer service while streamlining the lab’s operations and saving costs.
Here are the details.
Overview of the DQB Images Supplement
The Images Supplement to DentaLab for QuickBooks provides for capturing, storing and easy access to images of the prescription, photos, diagrams, and other digital documents associated with a case. The image(s) stored for a case can be easily retrieved whenever needed by the same variety pf criteria as cases. You may store multiple images for each case.
You may also capture and store images and documents for each customer.
This feature can provide great benefits in a number of ways:
time and expense for filing and retrieval
prevent loss of vital documents due to misfiling or catastrophe
greatly reduce physical space requirements
easily make electronic or printed copies for archival or requests
Images in JPEG format can be obtained in one or more of these ways:
WIA or Twain-compatible scanner, flatbedor automatic feed
USB camera or webcam
Electronic transmission sent by the dental offices
Documents can be in a variety of industry-standard electronic formats from a variety of sources.
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Hardware Requirements
Scanner: Installation of a WIA or Twain-compatible scanner capable of capturing JPEG formats with availability to the case entry station. The JPEG graphics format is a widely used format for compressed images for high quality image resolution.
Various scanner types are available from a number of vendors with a variety of speed, image quality, scanning mechanisms and other features. With WIA compatibility, you can preserve your settings to achieve speedy one-click scanning.
Camera: USB camera or webcam, capable of capturing JPEG format. The IPEVO Point 2 View was used in the development of the camera feature due its affordability and features.
Electronic transmission: For communication from and to the dental offices, a broad band internet connection will be needed.
Licensing Requirements
The Images Supplement can be licensed as an addition to the DentaLab for QuickBooks Standard/Enterprise versions. It is not available for the Starter version.
Capture and Retrieval of Case Images and Documents
Once licensed, in Case Entry there will be a separate tab called Images. Click this to enter the screen for the images. Here you will be able to:
Capturing Photographs
Working with a USB camera or webcam, you can select the device and set its resolutions, then click Start Camera. The image in focus will be shown on the screen, you can adjust this as needed, and then when ready, click Save Image.
The naming convention and location will be the same as described above for scanning.
Additional Actions
Once the image is stored and associated with the case, you can click the Images tab to perform additional actions.
To View/Edit, double-click the appropriate thumbnail image to enlarge it. You can also use the toolbar icons to Print, Enlarge +. Decrease -. Fit to Screen, or show the Actual Size. The program will automatically determine whether to print in portrait or landscape mode, based on the width and height of the image.
To Delete, right-click on the image and choose Delete or select the image and click the Delete icon at the top of the screen.
To Crop a selected image, click the Crop button, then use your mouse/pointer to draw a box around the area you want to retain, then click Save. You can choose to retain or delete the original image.
Document Center
If you have additional documents associated with a case that do not meet the formatting requirements of the Image Supplement described above, these can be stored in the Document Center, available from the Documents tab in Case Entry..
This feature can provide great savings in time for filing and retrieval, prevent loss of vital documents due to misfiling or catastrophe, and greatly reduce physical space requirements.
In the Windows/Tools/Folder Options/File Types folder, there are the industry-standard extensions for the more commonly used formats such as .XLS for Excel, .DOC for Word documents. If the document you are adding to the document center has an extension not already in this folder, you may add it with its identification. Access to this folder can be found in the top toolbar of Windows, beginning with Tools.
Customer Images and Documents
In the Customer Center, you can capture, store and access images and documents for each customer in the same manner as for cases. The choices made in Options/Case Settings/Images will also be applied to customers.
Backup and Restoration of Images
In the Backup option, you can specify whether to backup images and/or documents for cases and/or customers. We recommend that you select all that you are using.
The location of the images and documents will be in sub-folders beneath DQBData, which is automatically setup on your server in Program Files (x86)/Mainstreet Systems/DentaLab for QuickBooks. The sub-folders are:
Scans Case images indexed by case number, sequence
Documents/Case Case documents indexed by case number, sequence
Documents/Customer Customer documents, indexed by name
Documents/Scan Customer images, indexed by topic/ name
You can restore either the entire folder or individual images/documents as needed. Manager level authority is required to restore.
Import/Export of Images
The .JPG format is widely used, allowing the images to be used by a variety of graphics software systems. Individual images can also be sent as email attachments or copied to computer media such as zip disks, flash drives, CD's and removable disks.
You can add to each case images received from other sources such as email attachments or CD's provided they use the JPEG (extension .JPG) format. Use the Browse button to locate the image(s) that are stored on your disk or other media and then add these to the set for the case. Note that you can browse and select multiple images at the same time.
When you save these with the case, the system will automatically name them in the same convention used for images captured by a scanner or camera
Government Compliance
Government laws concerning the duration and physical requirements for paper prescriptions with the completed work tickets and store them by date. Should retrieval of the paper document become necessary, the case records can provide the appropriate date.
The number of government bodes accepting electronic facsimiles of paper documents continues to increase.
