How to Successfully Manage the Records of Your New Business

Starting a new business is an exciting time, but there’s a lot of admin that goes along with it. While this may seem mundane, keeping an organised archive of your records is actually an essential part of running a successful company.

Printing Out or Going Paperless

Keeping physical records is problematic for many companies. It’s estimated that the average office in the UK prints out around forty sheets of paper every day. Even a small business can start producing a lot of physical records so maintaining an archive that is both up-to-date and organised can be a time consuming endeavour. Similarly, office real estate can be a valuable commodity and all of these records will start to take up a lot of room. This space could have been used to accommodate an extra employee, provide you with an additional area for collaborative projects, or any other activity that would improve your company’s productivity.

Because of this, some businesses make the switch to a paperless system. This means converting your physical records into digital e-documents. This will not only save your business from regular expenses, it’s also much more convenient for your employees. The ability to search for what you’re looking for via a keyword or date makes finding a specific document much simpler. However, while this solution has its benefits, it does have added risks. Many companies still print off physical records as a form of backup against potential I.T. disasters. You’ll need to make sure you make back-ups of your files, whether copying them to another hard drive, storing them over cloud storage, or both, in case you have a problem with the original source.

Outsourcing the Problem

Consider outsourcing your records management to a specialist company that gives you the best of both solutions. They’ll be able to keep an off-site archive of your physical records as well as make you digital copies that you can access easily from the office. This means that if your digital records are either lost through a hardware failure, user error, or even malicious intent, you’ll be safe in the knowledge that you still have physical backups in a safe and secure location.

Records management is an important aspect to all successful business, but it certainly isn’t the driving force that gets you up for work every day. If you think you and your employee’s time can be spent more constructively, outsourcing the issue elsewhere may be the best solution to the problem.