Create more efficient and secure processes for your mailroom

Modern collaboration and communication tools let businesses run at the speed of information. Instant updates cut wait times and minimize the need for back-and-forth discussions. Yet many organizations’ information processes still face at least one significant bottleneck: the point of intake. In short, you can only move as fast as your mailroom.

If your mailroom is still dealing with delays from organizing and transferring physical documents, that slowdown will affect the rest of your business. Learning the answer to “what is a digital mailroom” may help you open up that bottleneck and speed up the flow of information at your business.

What is a digital mailroom, and why is it gaining popularity?

A digital mailroom is a single point of intake for all the external information that flows into an organization. Whether the documents it receives are digital or physical, a digital mailroom ensures inbound information is processed, categorized, and sent to the correct recipients. This includes the digitization of physical mail. It also ensures the original, physical counterparts of any digitized documents are securely stored or destroyed according to need and regulations.

Organizations may handle digital mailroom services in-house by converting physical mailroom processes. Mailrooms may also be outsourced to external partners that receive, process, and distribute mail on behalf of their clients.

Digital mailrooms are increasingly common due to the speed, flexibility, and security they can introduce to organizations’ information infrastructure. In fact, the market for digital mailrooms was estimated at just under $1.4 billion in 2024 and is projected to double to $2.8 billion by 2033.

Did You Know?:If your organization has multiple locations, our remote distributed scanning solutions reduce the need for costly shipments while increasing efficiency.

The step-by-step process of digitizing incoming mail

Digital mailrooms are responsible for getting external information where it needs to go. They are also key stakeholders in meeting an organization’s digital transformation goals. They must digitize physical documents — whether an invoice, report, resume, or anything else — before categorizing and distributing them through an organization’s document automation system.

The specific work of any given digital mailroom will depend on its organization, but the following three steps cover much of their typical responsibilities and methods:

1. Sorting and scanning mail

The first step of the process is handling physical mail. While it may make sense for some organizations to digitize and route every single piece of mail that comes in, others may prefer to apply some human judgment at this step. For instance, mailroom employees may be empowered to set aside “junk mail” that is not relevant to business purposes. Similarly, if multiple employees receive a copy of the same brochure from a partner organization, it may not be necessary to digitize each one.

Now, it’s time to scan all the mail that cleared the bar. A high-volume scanner combined with intelligent document processing tools can speed this process up substantially. While digitally native documents will skip the physical scanning process, they must still be sorted and uploaded into your document management system.

2. Converting documents into searchable digital files

Once a digital mailroom scans and uploads documents, the next step is to ensure their contents are as easy to use as possible. That typically means using software with optical character recognition (OCR) to index their contents. Rather than simply creating a machine-readable version of the document, this step can also allow the digital mailroom tools to understand what the document contains and where it should go next.

For instance, PaperStream Capture Pro allows digital mailrooms to consolidate the first and second step of the digital mailroom process. It intelligently identifies up to 100 different document types in a single batch, making it easy to extract and route the information contained in each type automatically.

3. Distributing mail to the right recipients

The most important part of a digital mailroom's job is ensuring each piece of information goes where it’s needed. Fortunately, the preparation work we’ve already covered in sorting, scanning, and classifying files means this step is also the easiest. Intelligent tools can send categorized mail to relevant employees and departments with minimal need for human intervention.

With the bulk of documents handled through automated systems, digital mailrooms can focus on handling edge cases and further streamlining processes. No need to push bulky mail carts across the office floor — unless you have a package to deliver (we’re still working on digitizing those).

Did You Know?:If you’re looking for more ways to share information effectively, check Ricoh’s range of industry-leading projectors.

How digital mailrooms improve efficiency and security

What are a digital mailroom’s primary benefits? Greater efficiency and stronger security. Here are three ways digital mailrooms help organizations become more efficient:

• Hybrid and remote work: The complexities of sharing physical mail can stop remote and hybrid employees in their tracks. With a digital mailroom, getting essential reports, invoices, and other paper documents to an employee on the other side of the country is as simple as delivering something to someone down the hall. Maybe easier.
• Instant access: Processing and sorting physical documents takes time. Delivering them or heading down to pick them up also takes time. Once digital mailroom processing is implemented, each piece of mail is instantly available wherever needed.
• Document collaboration: If multiple people need access to the same document, a traditional mailroom could make physical copies for them. But if those employees make any changes to that document, they’ll have to manually compare notes afterward to ensure they’re on the same page, literally. Digital mailroom solutions can support document collaboration tools for instant sharing and version control.

These are three of the ways digital mailrooms can bolster security at your work:

• Encryption: Digital documents can be encrypted so only users with the right access keys can open them. This could be much more secure than a physical piece of mail, which must be protected under lock and key and is especially vulnerable while in transit.
• Access control: To ensure only authorized parties can open certain pieces of mail, all a digital mailroom must do is assign the correct access privileges. This process can be largely automated based on the sender and contents of the mail.
• Audit logs: Though you can attempt to limit access to a physical piece of mail, it’s difficult to know who has looked at it. Digital mailroom solutions make it easy to require audit logs so you instantly know who has accessed or even modified a given document and when.

Empower your digital mailroom

It’s easy to see why digital mailrooms are growing fast, but you have to know how to make this digitalization trend fit with your goals and resources before you get started. At Ricoh, we’re proud to offer a range of tools and services to help businesses digitalize their processes. Our fast and accurate scanners work with our intelligent and adaptable software to make digitalizing your mailroom easy and effective.

Book an assessment with one of our experts today to see how we can help.

Note: Information and external links are provided for your convenience and for educational purposes only, and shall not be construed, or relied upon, as legal or financial advice. PFU America, Inc. makes no representations about the contents, features, or specifications on such third-party sites, software, and/or offerings (collectively “Third-Party Offerings”) and shall not be responsible for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of such Third-Party Offerings. Please consult with a licensed professional regarding your specific situation as regulations may be subject to change.