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Have you considered outsourcing your document archive problems? Not to physically store but to electronically store within your server. Nearly every business in the UK has a document storage problem. Accessing filing cabinets for important information that may have been misfiled or misplaced or just plain missing being one of them. There are an estimated 3 million filing cabinets in the UK taking up an average 6 million square feet! Here is the alternative.

That is great news for manufacturers of filing cabinets but not such good news for those businesses who would rather use the space for more productive purposes i.e. revenue producing staff.

There IS a better way to store documents than this archaic, time honored method however and you are probably already aware of electronic document management and perhaps even using a system. This is where documents are scanned to disc or server giving instant access with no danger of misfiling. Archive scanning is another matter however. Some businesses we talk to will have hundreds of filing cabinets or archive boxes containing historical files going back many years in certain cases. Taking the time to unpack all of these files and scan is a daunting task, taking up valuable labour resource and taking serious chunks of time to get right.

Imagine how much simpler this could all be if you could outsource this. At the same as just scanning your archive you could also improve the way they are referenced or indexed. e.g. A customer file when physically accessed requires the person viewing to find the relevant delivery note, invoice, letter, note or dispatch advice. By indexing these sections electronically when they are scanned, you can pull up many different reference points at the click of a mouse. For example, you may want to see all handwritten notes by a certain manager or author, all relevant technical drawings for a specific building or project. Indexed electronic document management will allow you to do this.

Of secondary but equally important consideration is security. With physical storage you have no protection against unwanted eyes. Perhaps competition or a disgruntled employee. Electronic Document Management can contain layers of varying access to prevent those without a need to know, not to know!

Finally, at the end of the outsourced scanning project you decide whether you want the originals back or, as in most cases, simply destroyed freeing up all of that valuable space that was taken by the ubiquitous filing cabinet(s) A certificate of destruction will be provided to show the audit trail and HMRC no longer require originals but are happy to see scanned copies so in very few cases do you actually need to keep the originals. Exceptions to this are the originals of legal documents such as Wills or EPA’s which must be kept for a minimum 100 years.

If you are keen to move into the paperless world then outsourced scanning is a good start and highly recommended as a massive improvement over conventional filing methods.