Record Management Tips: How to Overcome Poor Records Management for Your Business

Poor records management is one of the biggest problems faced by today’s businesses. A large percentage of companies are still using outdated methods for filing, storing, and managing their documents, which leads to a lot of issues that can not only cause inconveniences but can actually put the company’s reputation at risk as well.

If you’re dealing with stacks of paperwork that seem to be getting bigger every month or are struggling to find documents when you need them, it’s likely that your company also suffers from the same issues. The good news is that today, solving record management issues is easier than ever – with the rise of document digitization and the widespread availability of bulk document scanning services, you don’t have to worry about keeping physical copies of documents any longer.

So, to help you get started on upgrading your records management practices, let’s go over some of the biggest reasons why record management is important, and how to approach changing your current practices.

Biggest Problems of Poor Record Management

To really appreciate the positive change that proper records management can offer, we must first examine how poor records management affects your business, both in the day-to-day operations and the long-term prospects.

Lengthy Document Retrieval

No matter what type of business you operate, it’s likely that you often need to look up documents from your records. And how quickly and efficiently you can retrieve those documents can have a massive impact on your employee productivity. If you have a physical document storage space that employees have to go to, that already takes a significant amount of time on its own.

But if you add in the fact that your documents aren’t always neatly organized, the time it takes to locate a specific file can increase exponentially. And if someone has taken out the same document without logging it in, that can cause a set of its own problems.

The worst part about having employees manually retrieve the documents is the fact that it’s taking them away from more productive activities, limiting the amount of work that they can do in a day and stagnating the growth of your company.

Misplaced or Lost Documents

Whether you have a small office or run a mid-sized company, keeping track of all of your physical documents is a hassle. Sure, you might have a record-keeping system, but people won’t always adhere to it, which is when materials can become misplaced or even lost forever.

In some cases, when the documents contain sensitive information or are vital for the functioning of your business, that can cause serious problems that have long-lasting repercussions. Even if the documents aren’t as vital, they still are necessary to perform daily tasks, and losing them is a big issue that causes a lot of inconveniences.

And in the event of an audit, the failure to produce documents can get your business into serious trouble with the law, even if there was no ill-doing from your part besides failing to take care of your records.

Storage Costs

If you’re still dealing with paper documents, you are likely constantly finding yourself needing more space to store them. Filing cabinets take up a lot of space, and as you compile more records, even storage rooms that seemed spacious before can quickly become cramped.

Even if you look past the inconvenience of filing and retrieving paper documents, there are costs considerations that you need to think about as well. You’re paying for the storage facilities month after month, wasting money that could otherwise be used towards more productive projects, helping fund your company’s growth.

How to Improve Records Management

It’s clear that poor records management causes a wide range of problems that can have a detrimental effect on your business. But how can you fix it?

Well, as mentioned before, completely changing your records management practices doesn’t have to be a complicated process, especially since technology has completely reshaped the today’s best practices. Let’s look at the exact process below.

Sort Through Your Documents

The first step you’ll need to overcome is sorting through your entire collection of documents and figuring out what you don’t need. Because it’s such a painstaking task, many companies are understandably hesitant about taking it on. But it will need to be done sooner or later, and if you tackle the challenge head-on, you can be done faster than you might expect.

Just start going through your documents in groups, sorting them by importance, type, and other aspects as you deem fit. The most important part of the process is deciding which documents you’ll need to keep, and which you can discard. After the process is completed, you may find that your document piles get much smaller on their own, making the next steps much easier as well.

Digitize Your Documents

In the age where 80% of the United States population owns a smartphone, still using physical documents is no longer a viable option. It’s not only bad for the environment, but it comes with a range of other disadvantages that cause businesses money and hurt the productivity of their employees.

Because of that, once you have sorted through your documents, you should seek out the help of a bulk document scanning services provider who can help to digitize the entire collection of your documents and offer you the best way to store them.

Once you find just how convenient and easy it is to manage digital documents, you’ll be amazed that you were ever willing to deal with paper documents in the first place, as any document you need will always be just a mouse click away.

After the document digitization process, make sure that you also choose a reliable and convenient digital document management system, as that will help you keep the documents sorted and easy to access from any authorized device used by your employees.