Working with a record management service is a great way to keep your important company records safe, secure, and organized. However, there are also many more benefits – some that may not be as obvious! If you are still unsure if a record management service is right for you, continue reading to see how you and your business could benefit. For more information on records management, document storage, paper shredding, and more, contact the experts at Blue-Pencil now.
What is Records Management?
Records management is the control and supervision of your company’s records, both digital and paper. It includes services such as the storage of records and records maintenance. When working with a professional record management service, you will find the following benefits for you, your employees, and your business as a whole.
What are the Benefits of a Records Management Service?
#1 – Prevents information leakage through secure access to confidential information
Records management is a safe and secure way to store your company’s confidential information. Confidential information can come in many forms, including client information, employee information, company tax records, signatures, and much more.
Storing your information at your workplace where dozens of employees have access can greatly increase your risk of a purposeful or accidental information leak. However, records management companies ensure that your records are stored in a secure location, with only trained workers ever accessing your information. With less access and more security, this means your information will not be vulnerable.
#2 – Effectively organize, track, and manage files
Even small businesses can accumulate a lot of information in short periods of time. How can you keep track of it all? Unfortunately, many businesses, both big and small, have a difficult time tracking and managing their files.
Fortunately, record management services can do all of this for you. They not only store your records and documents, but help to organize them and track them for you. Items that do not need to be regularly accessed can be stored safely away. Active files, documents that you still regularly need, can be stored using services such as Active File Management.
With services such as Active File Management, the documents you still need access to will be stored so that you and your employees can still access them. They will be organized, and safely stored, but still accessible when you need them! Click here to learn more.
#3 – Efficient and compliant management services
When you work with a professional service instead of doing the work yourself, you will have the opportunity to work with an efficient and compliant company. Efficiency means that the work will always get done on time. It also means your records and documents will be stored in the best way possible to make retrieval a simple process.
Working with a professional record management service also means you will work with a compliant company. A compliant company will offer a variety of services and do their very best to work with you. They will help ensure you only use the services you need, and will also follow strict industry standards regarding information security and safety.
#4 – Provides a system to manage inventory and retention schedules
A record management company’s job is to take care of your documents and records throughout their entire life cycle. Part of the document life cycle includes management and retention in case your company gets audited or you end up needing a record you initially archived.
Records management provides an efficient system to manage your current inventory, as well as your retention schedule. Once documents are no longer needed or should be properly destroyed and disposed of, an effective records management company will let you know so you can keep a tight schedule. This helps reduce the potential for disorganization. It also keeps costs down by disposing of unneeded documents that take up your storage space.
#5 – Quickly & cost-effectively locate and retrieve critical information
Imagine yourself in the following scenario. You store all of your records using your own facility. You need to retrieve an important document and ask an employee to grab it for you. Unfortunately, the facility is not as organized as it could be, and your employee takes half an hour to come back with the document. You take a look and realize it is the right document, but not the right version!
These types of scenarios happen all the time all over offices and workplaces in Canada. Most workplaces do not have the knowledge or the resources to set up a highly efficient records management system in their own facility. This often means that large amounts of office space are designated for records storage and that employees must use part of their day to participate in document retrieval and organization.
Working with a records management company allows you to skip over all of this. You won’t have to worry about spending countless hours organizing your documents and ensuring only the most recent is retrievable. Your employees won’t have to use their valuable time to search through hundreds of records. A records management company does all that for you, and will always be able to quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively find and provide you with your critical information.
#6 – Consistent data entry and file retrieval
Related to the point above, working with a record management service allows for consistent data entry and file retrieval at any level. Document management doesn’t just mean storage. In many cases, you can still actively manage your files right from your own computer.
This allows you to consistently add new and updated data, while your documents are still securely stored and managed. As well, many record management companies also use specific codes and labels so everything stays consistent and easy to retrieve. When you store your documents in our secure facilities, Blue-Pencil professionals label and code each box or record with a predetermined indexing scheme. Your business determines the level of detail per box or even per file.
#7 – Training and support for proper execution of records management program
One of the most important parts of data management is proper training. Even if you have the best system in place, it will not matter if you don’t know how to use it! A great record management company will not only provide their own staff with high-quality training, but they will also help you.
At Blue-Pencil, we offer the online Blue-Pencil+ program, which includes the Employee Centre. This gives your organization a central location for all your records management policies, procedures, and training resources you may need in order to make the most out of our record management services!
#8 – Increase employee productivity
Did you know that working with a record management company can actually help increase your employee’s productivity? It can do so in a number of ways. First, when employees don’t have to worry about retrieving, storing, organizing, and labelling hundreds of documents themselves, they have more time to spend on their jobs.
It also provides a better system for employees to work with to retrieve records and documents. Instead of spending time searching endlessly for the most recent document you need, employees can quickly retrieve documents and records with ease.
#9 – Helps save money
Records management services can help you and your company save money. You can make the most out of your office space when you don’t have to worry about storing your documents on-site. This means you can work with a smaller space, or maximize the space you do have!
You will find yourself paying more rent for more square footage in your office space to help accommodate all of your records and documents on-site – a storage system that is less efficient and more expensive than working with the professionals!
In the long-run, working with a records management service helps you save money. At Blue-Pencil, you only pay for each carton that you store with us. In addition, we can help in effectively controlling your storage space cost by managing your document lifecycle.
Our team can help build a retention schedule with you or simply indicate when records can safely be destroyed with our secure shredding services to optimize space usage and ensure cost-effective storage and management. All archived documents do require written authorization for permanent destruction when the retention period is up.
Securely Store Your Records With Blue-Pencil!
Whether you are starting a small business or a large business owner, Blue-Pencil helps empower Canadian organizations to reach new heights with friendly and efficient document management services. Customer service is not only a slogan but something we practice by investing in our strategic partners.
Located in Oakville, we have grown our document security business over the past 10 years, serving more than 15,000 organizations including small and medium-sized companies as well as Fortune 500 businesses.