Companies Office Electronic Document Register

Plans by the Companies Office to streamline its service were hampered by the sheer volume of its millions of paper records including many historic documents.

The service had nine regional offices, each holding the records of businesses originally registered in that area. If these were requested elsewhere in the country they had to be couriered in a costly and time-consuming process.

Desktop Imaging's digitising of the records was carried out over nine months, partly on and partly off-site, with the successful capture and PDF conversion of over three million images.

The process is ongoing with two Desktop Imaging staff based at the Companies Office's Auckland premises. New documents are now publshed online less than 24 hours after they are received.

Digitisation ensured the COmpanies Office system was in line with modern global standards and enabled the service to focus operations in just three sites - Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch - with all records centralised in the capital.

Round the clock access is also now available via the internet, substantially reducing workloads and turnaround times for people requesting files.

This ease of online access to major company documets contributed to the Companies Office website being named best government sector websitein the 2002 Netguide Web Awards.