Advice from a Certified Document Destruction & Records Management Company 

Businesses rely on documents to keep their doors open and customers happy. Records consist of financial statements, balance sheets, bank statements, customer information, patient information, legal files, etc. It can get quite overwhelming to manage the organization of all these records. Knowing what to keep and what to purge is very important. A records retention and destruction plan is the perfect solution to keep you compliant and avoid breaches of trust with your customers and clients. Working with a certified and reliable records management company will save you much frustration and give you peace of mind.

4 Reasons to Have a Records Retention and Destruction Plan

It doesn’t matter what size your company is. Each industry is different depending on the type of records you must store. Typically, you want to cover electronic communications, client correspondence, spreadsheets, employee records, contracts, healthcare information of patients, customer records, and financial documents. You need to keep the proper documents for specific periods and then destroy them. A good records retention policy will protect your company from legal problems. 

Here are four reasons to create or revisit your retention policy:

1. Save the company money. Your company can save money by regularly destroying records instead of maintaining storage on unnecessary files. Also, properly organized records will save you time and money in searching for a file you may need for legal or organizational reasons. You also avoid having to recreate documents because they are easily stored and ready for use.
2. Improves company decision-making. Sometimes, reviewing the previous year’s documents is helpful when making decisions for future years. This is especially true when reviewing public relations policies and marketing tactics. 
3. Maintain compliance. Each company is required to retain certain legal and official documents. Your business may face fines and penalties if you fail to do this. Having a retention policy aids your legal team with access to what they need. It also helps you when the tax man or other authorities come in for an audit.
4. Regulate who accesses the documents. Only some people in your office need access to each paper you have. Certain laws stipulate who should access specific information, as is the case for the healthcare industry. When you have well-organized records, you can ensure your departments only have access to what they need to do their jobs.

Protect Your Company with Help from Crown Information Management

Protecting your employees, clients, and your company takes many different forms. Today’s digital world requires a strong records retention and destruction policy. Crown Information Management can help. Our team understands the risks you face from poorly kept records. We are NAID AAA and PCI Certified, knowing what needs to be done and when. We can help with records storage and document destruction solutions to ease your mind and help you remain in compliance. Learn more when you call us today.

For timely destruction of documents, products, and hard drives, and secure, pest-free storage with a SOC1 Report,NAID AAA, and PCI Certified company, call Crown Information Management at 800-979-9545. You can also contact us online to learn more about our document storage and shredding services.