3 Reasons Not To Store Your Business Records Yourself

Thinking of storing your business records on premises or in a storage unit to save time and money? While the initial convenience and possible cost savings to your operation might seem appealing, the upside may be far smaller than you think. Read on for the top three reasons you should avoid storing your business records yourself.

Legal Compliance

In the ever-shifting sands of today’s legal landscape, your business’s adherence to up to date storage and retention standards may be no more than a momentary mirage. The overhead compliance represents to your organization over time isn’t just knowing the latest requirements for retention for different storage media, for instance - it’s adhering to those requirements and even potentially retroactively adjusting internal policies to comply.

By partnering with a reputable Physical archiving service provider, you gain a bevy of services designed to keep your business on the right side of increasingly rigorous regulation.

Convenient Access

Prior to the advent of record digitization in the modern business world, keeping records in-house was the sound decision from a logistical standpoint. While filing and maintaining order in a burgeoning trove of data are non-trivial exercises for an organization of any size, at least employees would have access to the information if necessary - in theory.

Somewhat paradoxically, that’s no longer the case.

With the ability to access data from anywhere with an Internet connection and the proper credentials, employees can be more productive. Fully digitized records allow text searches and matches that would take a team of employees days to locate and retrieve. Furthermore, once discovered, the pertinent information can be shared in seconds with a matter of clicks rather than minutes of copying and distributing.

Security

In an increasingly competitive marketplace, everything from clearly valuable text and schematic assets of intellectual property to seemingly innocuous internal communications are prime targets for your competitors. Despite the previously discussed advantages of off-site digital and physical archiving for easy access and compliance handling, a circumspect business might still opt to remain in the print realm or attempt an in-house digital archiving solution in light of the “threat from outside”.

Access granularity to an off-site electronic archive is perhaps the most compelling counterargument to this point. By allowing only certain levels of access to your most sensitive data as well as keeping an electronic record of that access, a trusted capable ERM provider enables you to mitigate risk from both external and internal sources. Physical records are stored in secure warehouses and disposed of securely at the end of their respective retention periods.

Letting a business partner with a track record of reliability and honesty manage your information resources is a sound judgment from every angle, allowing you to focus on what your business does best.