As the trend of digitization in business continues, business leaders must themselves continue to manage paper documents. They must do so with compliance standards and retention strategy in mind. This all makes paper record sets or other physical documents seem like extra weight to carry.
And in many ways, they are. Improperly stored paper records create inefficiencies, like excessive storage costs or resource-sapping inhouse document management processes. Business leaders can see the positive effects of a document scanning or other digitization strategy. Many will seek to engage them and improve the functions of their business.
The Inefficiency of Digitization
Unfortunately, pure digitization doesn’t address the problems of inhouse storage and management efficiently.
On one hand, scanning entire records sets allows businesses to end physical storage expenditures. On the other: the process is costly and inefficient.
Business managers seeking a cost-effective, efficient alternative should invest in a document management service tailored to meet their needs. This means ditching the mass-scanning plans in favor of something designed to complete the task while capturing additional savings.
The Problem with Scanning
First, completing a large-scale scanning project is expensive. The cost to scan a document is several times greater than the cost to store it. Often, the high cost of large-scale scanning is enough to dissuade businesses from engaging with such a project.
Beyond this, digitized records require different management plans than file-level indexed paper records. Document management plans consisting of file-level indexing and secure storage to the point of destruction are easier to manage and less expensive than large-scale scanning or digitizing.
Document Management, Explained
What does a document management plan look like? At Secure Records Solutions, document management plans look different for each client, being tailored to their specific needs. But each document management plan follows a few of the same basic steps.
Document management starts with a team member from Secure Records Solutions taking inventory of your records. This means understanding roughly how many you have, plus how and where they’re stored. This helps the team form a plan for relocating them to a secure storage facility.
It also allows the team to engage in the second step: Creating a tailored document management plan that fits the specific needs of each client.
From there, the indexing team will index each file in preparation for storage. The team at Secure Records Solutions will develop a secure storage and retention management plan for all documents. Indexing represents the first step in executing that plan.
Often, paper record sets contain some records that are already eligible for secure destruction. The team at Secure Records Solutions can destroy these records immediately. The rest are stored in a secure facility, awaiting access or the end of their retention period.
As individual documents reach retention, they can be removed from storage and securely destroyed. This means storage fees associated with managing these records can actually decrease over time.
In the meantime, file-level indexing allows SRS team members to produce an individual record whenever needed. This process usually takes a matter of minutes.
Document Management: A Tailored Alternative to Digitization
If you’re considering options for records management services for your business, consider the real savings and increased efficiency a document management plan from Secure Records Solutions offers your business.
While digitization through scanning offers freedom from physical storage constraints, it creates new inefficiencies and is generally expensive to engage with – especially when compared with a tailored document management plan.
A tailored document management plan provides your business with the best solutions for physical storage, access to records, retention issues and secure destruction.
If you’re considering a scanning, digitizing or document management plan for your business records and documents, a tailored document management plan is the best option for your business. Contact Secure Records Solutions today to learn about a plan built to suit your business’s unique needs.
