Imaging Process

Imaging Documentation Services (IDS) provides enterprise-scale imaging operations for university financial records.  Imaging is a key component of the financial administration of The University of Texas at Austin. All vouchers and support documentation submitted for payment processing are sent to IDS to be imaged as the first step of the Payment Services payment processing workflow. IDS also scans and stores other financial records for university records retention purposes.

Imaging Documents  

IDS plays a vital role in university operations: the financial administration of the university is dependent on the speed and accuracy that IDS maintains in its scanning services. IDS scans hundreds of thousands of pages of documents each month. Each scanned image undergoes two separate quality assurance reviews by IDS imaging technicians to ensure capture of the index information is accurate and image legibility. Each image is then stored in the university's Image Retrieval System (IRS) where it must be verified for accuracy and completeness. If the document is submitted for final approval and payment processing, the verification takes place as part of the Payment Services workflow. If the document is submitted post final approval, the verification is done by the submitter, who must retain a copy of the document until they review the document in the IRS.

The imaging process meets the standards mandated by the State of Texas for converting paper records to electronic images. All images created by IDS are more than a simple flat file: the images IDS creates images for both paper and electronic records use special software (OCR – Optical Character Recognition) to scan the records and extract text from each document for indexing .

Information Retrieval System (IRS)

The IRS is managed by IDS and supported technically by Financial Information Services (FIS). Images are accessed by specific document information. One must know the document type and ID number or other identifying information in order to retrieve an image from the IRS. Access to documents is authorized through *DEFINE routing; document creators and approvers have automatic privileges to view the document in the IRS.

Before implementing the IRS, IDS stored vouchers and documents on microfilm. If the documentation you request on the IRS site is available on microfilm, you will receive a message with an email address for which to request a hard copy.

Imaging Records Retention

All images are stored in the Image Retrieval System (IRS) for at least as long as required by university record retention requirements specified in the University Records Retention Schedule (UTRRS). Due to the complexity and length of the retention requirements for some financial records, Records and Information Management Services strongly recommends that all departmental financial records be submitted for imaging, even for documents for which imaging is optional.

Once a hardcopy or electronic record is imaged, validated, and verified, the original paper or electronic document then can be destroyed as a copy. Departments may opt to store some types of  hardcopy or electronic master records within the department rather than submit them for storage in the IRS. Master records stored in the department must be retained in accordance with all applicable requirements in the University Records Retention Schedule (UTRRS). Departments that scan hardcopy records to be retained as electronic master records within the department must comply with university scanning guidelines. Departments must request authorization to dispose of any master record retained within the department.