No matter the size of your business or the industry you’re in, you generate documents every day. These documents might include emails, letters, files, forms, personnel documents, financial receipts, and more. Some may contain crucial sensitive or private data that must be safeguarded. In order to institute an effective document retention and destruction policy, it’s important to understand the lifecycle of a business record. At Citizens Business Archives, we can help you protect your documents from creation to secure destruction through the use of this helpful guide.
Document Creation or Receipt
Before creating a document retention policy, consider all of the ways your company receives, generates, and uses documents of all types. A document can be generated when it is drafted, printed, or received from an outside source. This may be via email, hand delivery, or standard mail. To maintain the security of these documents from their first inception or receipt, you must work closely with the employees who are involved from the very beginning of the process. Make sure they understand what to do when generating or receiving a document, how it should be printed, scanned, or copied, where it should be safely stored, and who should have access to it.
Use and Dissemination
The next stage of the document’s journey is its future use and dissemination. Work with your staff to ensure everyone knows who should have access to each type of document, how it will be used and distributed both internally and externally, and how safety and security will be prioritized. This is especially important for documents with original signatures or that contain private, personal, or sensitive data or information.
Storage and Review
When a document is no longer actively needed, it will be stored either in physical, hard copy form or as an electronic record. No matter what type of document it is, it must be retained according to industry regulations and your internal office document retention policy. It may be stored onsite or at an off-site document storage facility. Either way, storage should be secure and should align with recommended protection strategies to maintain its condition, security, and value. It should also be properly archived so that it is easy to retrieve for later review or destruction.
Document Destruction
At the end of the document’s lifespan, when it is no longer needed and can be destroyed according to your company’s document retention and document destruction policies, you can contract with an external shredding company like Citizens Business Archives. We can provide secure shredding services, guaranteeing complete destruction of physical and electronic records. This is done to protect sensitive and personal information and records and reduce the risk of fraud, theft, or misuse.
Citizens Business Archive offers a wide range of customizable business records services. We provide secure document storage solutions, indexing, shredding services, and document destruction in Tucson, AZ. To learn more or request an estimate, call us today at (520) 882-4434 or contact us online.
