Scan Sys historie
On May 13th, 1991, Maarten Terlingen and his former partner started at a small office in Alphen aan den Rijn. They provided OCR services to small local businesses.
In 1994 OCR technology, which was revolutionary at the time, was presented at a trade fair. The technology made it possible to intelligently recognize texts from documents. This way even complex languages such as Greek or Russian could be recognised. For this reason, the OCR application ProLector was implemented at universities and scientific organisations.
Soon the little office in Alphen aan den Rijn proved to be too small for the ambitions of Maarten and his team. Scan Sys moved to an office building in The Hague.
Starting in 1996, Scan Sys entered the market of government agencies, corporate communications departments, and documentation organisations. Scan Sys sold ProClip and Newsclip software, used to digitally produce clippings, thematic papers, and personal news bulletins and to populate press archive databases. The software was used to make press information quickly digitally accessible to internal employees and to inform organizations about important news articles daily by means of an electronic news feed.
In 1998 Scan Sys expanded its product portfolio with the addition of ReadSoft Forms, used to process written surveys and standard registration forms using OCR, OMR, Barcode and Handwriting Recognition. Market research agencies and research departments were automated in this way by Scan Sys.
In 2001 Scan Sys started to develop its own software. The software was first used in the transport industry to process transport documents, and in the notarial profession to scan files and important document. The processed documents could be retrieved directly from the application. During that time, the first partnerships were formed with suppliers of Transport Management Systems and Notarial Information Systems. Later, the option to scan manually booked invoices and make them available as digital attachments for the booking in ERPs and financial administrative applications.
Due to the rapid expansion of the organisation, Scan Sys relocated again. This time to an office building that was built on our own behalf in Nootdorp. The office offered more space for the anticipated growth of the organisation. We are still located here today.
In 2008 ImageCapture for Forms was added to the product portfolio, for the automated processing of forms. In 2010 ImageCapture for Invoices was introduced, the version that makes it possible to automatically process and match purchase (order) invoices. For the accountancy sector the option was added to automatically process sales invoices and to integrate with accountancy portals. All versions of ImageCapture integrate fully with the underlying financial or ERP application. Because of this, partnerships with suppliers of ERPs and financial systems quickly developed. Even today, these partners strongly contribute to the growth and success of Scan Sys!
In September 2018, a new product was added to the portfolio: ImageCapture Workflow. ImageCapture Workflow was developed to digitally authorize invoices within ImageCapture. In addition, the user had direct access to a digital archive, and it is possible to expand this with a reporting module. The introduction of the ImageCapture Workflow took place during a specially organised beach party where the first live demonstration was given.
In 2020 our purchase management solution became available, the integration of ImageCapture and Shopper provides a full-fledged Purchase 2 Pay solution for users of Exact Globe and Exact Financials. Digitizing the purchasing process from request to receipt creates insight and control over the company’s costs and expenses. Contract and quotation management is also managed from Shopper. The subsequent invoice processing and approval process in ImageCapture helps to save valuable time on the processing process and provides insight into the status of the purchase invoices.
At the start of 2022 we introduced a major release of our software: ImageCapture 9.2. This release revolved around an important new feature: the the ability to submit expense receipts and documents directly from desktop, tablet and mobile devices, which can then be processed into bookings! With the solution for automated expense processing, employees can easily take photos of receipts via the ImageCapture Web Client from their mobile phones, or they can import files. Multiple photos or pages can be merged into a single document. By specifying the payment method, the employee can indicate whether the expenses have been paid in advance by him or by means of a company debit or credit card.
By now Scan Sys has over 40 employees, this number grows every year to optimally support the number of customers, partnerships, and the development of our software.
Since 2002, more than 5000 businesses and institutions in the Netherlands and abroad use our software to digitally process invoices and other documents. About 500 new customers are added every year. As a result, Scan Sys has acquired a very strong market position in the field of automated invoice and document processing. With our own software and product development team, Scan Sys continuously expands on functionalities and integrations of the software.
