With all the other financial pressures facing educational managers, it is easy to walk past a row of filing cabinets or the archive room stuffed with archive boxes and not appreciate just how much that space might be costing.
The quarterly UK Regional Office Report (Cushman and Wakefield) showed that across nine UK city centres, excluding London, the average cost of office rental per square metre was £345pa. With the average four-draw filing cabinet taking up about 1 m2, and holding approximately two linear metres of records, it’s easy to see that even a small archive room housing the retained records of hundreds of students could easily be using the rental equivalent of £5,000 per year – and far more if temporary classroom buildings are additionally deployed.
There is a simple solution to freeing up valuable space and it comes from UTAX (UK), the UK’s largest office equipment partner-only network. Mike Barnard, UTAX (UK)’s Professional Services Manager, explains: “Over the last few years, our partners across the country have been increasingly asked by their customers in the education sector for a simple and speedy way to marry the benefits of the popular Capita SIMS system to the thousands of retained pupils’ files that still remain in paper format.”
In response, UTAX (UK) partner Digital Link Solutions has developed a new archive assistant that integrates with Capita SIMS software. ‘UTAX Assist’ is a simple to operate, expertly developed software package that integrates a UTAX MFP with the Capita SIMS software allowing multiple documents to be quickly and efficiently scanned and uploaded into the SIMS Document Management Server alongside a student’s record. Security is also increased as the electronic records are only accessible to authorised staff.
To update a pupil’s file simply requires a barcoded front sheet allowing a file with, say, ten pages to be electronically stored in under a minute.
‘UTAX Assist’ is just one of a number of cost-effective and practical educational support software modules available from UTAX (UK) Ltd who have been providing document and print management solutions to the education sector for 25 years.
UTAX Assist has been developed by UTAX’s partner Digital Link Solutions. Digital Link Solutions is an Accredited Partner of Capita SIMS. Capita SIMS is a registered trademark of Capita PLC.
Find out more at www.utax.co.uk