As business grow and evolve, they accumulate large numbers of records. This is often in the form of paper documents, and usually in amounts not previously anticipated. Now more than ever, businesses seek document management solutions for these records.
Businesses acquire records for many reasons: Some are a natural consequence of a company’s growth. Often, paper records are the vestiges of old document management protocols, long after the company has gone digital. In some cases, the records are the product of a new storage-based service line.
Regardless of their origin, these documents are burdensome for their owners. Good recordkeeping helps companies stay compliant, but excess records held past their retention point have the opposite effect. Insecurely stored records create compliance liability all on their own.
Finally, stored records eat up space and limit business growth. This is especially painful to face in a rapidly digitizing world; paper records can really inhibit growth.
Where Shredding and Scanning Fall Short
The easy fix, at first glance, seems like shredding or scanning. Shredding or scanning either destroys the documents entirely or converts them to a digital format that doesn’t burden the holding business’s storage space.
Of course, it can’t be that easy. While many old business records are stored long past point of retention, it’s unlikely that all of them are. Destroying the entire set of documents might prevent access at a future point, creating problems down the road.
Likewise, wholesale scanning of an entire record set is an unwise choice. It might seem like a modern, effective means of managing old paper records. The problem, however, is expense. Scanning an entire record set when only a small percent will ever need accessing is a recipe for inefficiency.
Document Management: A Creative Alternative
Luckily, there are document management services like those offered by Secure Records Solutions. These services offer companies a way out of their predicament without increased risks or heightened expenses.
This is because while shredding and scanning are important tools in the document management suite, either one taken by itself offers an incomplete approach to managing old sets of paper records.
A more comprehensive approach involves considering diverse options for documents and their management, then creating a plan that allows access to the documents without the expense of scanning the entire set. This in conjunction with secure shredding allows for a plan that saves space and minimizes risk – all for a fraction of the cost of a large-scale scanning project.
An Example of a Document Management Challenge
Imagine your business is holding a large quantity of client records. This means you’re responsible for keeping the records safe and ensuring client access. Costs to achieve this include space dedicated to storing documents, the cost of reproducing requested documents, all destruction-related costs, and the risk and liabilities associated with confidential records.
In this example, we’ll assume that the space lost to storing records is the biggest concern to your business. Your business needs to utilize every square foot as efficiently as possible. Devoting space to records (that incur extra expenses on their own) instead of something productive costs your business money over time.
Scanning seems like an option, until you find that scanning the entire set of documents is remarkably expensive. Neither option – to accept the cost or continue losing money with the status quo – is a good one.
A tailored document management solution can solve this problem. A tailored solution will allow your business to achieve the same end goal (reclaiming space, eliminating risk and cost) for a fraction of the price (often as little as 20% of the cost to scan), with total security throughout.
Your Opportunity for Document Management Solutions
Teaming with document management professionals like the ones at Secure Records Solutions can be an effective solution for businesses struggling with excess documents. The team of document management professionals at SRS can offer tailored solutions that fit your business’s unique needs through a combination of document management tools and processes.
In designing a typical document management plan for a client business, the team at SRS will follow a multi-step process. The first step is analyzing your documents and making decisions about the best way to store them.
Often, a large percentage of stored paper documents is already ready for destruction. Beginning with sorting documents and shredding those eligible for destruction means eliminating some costs up front.
Next, the team creates a management plan based on storing all remaining records, scanning them when they’re needed (but not before), and destroying them as they reach retention is employed to manage records over time. Employing a scan-on-demand protocol reduces the cost of scanning tremendously, while destruction of eligible records over time reduces storage costs incrementally.
Eventually, the team at SRS destroys the last of your records – eliminating costs entirely.
Contact Secure Records Solutions to Learn More
If your business is plagued by excess stored documents and seeking a solution, contact Secure Records Solutions today. Our team is standing by ready to offer a tailored plan that can save your business money while eliminating inefficiency and risk. Contact us today to get started
