If your company doesn’t have a records retention and storage protocol, you risk having disorganized business documents that can be easily lost, damaged, or stolen. Scattered or fragmented business records make it hard to find crucial information or documents, and can make your company seem unreliable and untrustworthy to clients. You also have a greater risk of inaccurate recordkeeping, data breaches or fraud, and making poor business decisions – all of which can cost you time and money. Citizens Business Archives makes it easy to obtain reliable, secure document storage in Tucson, AZ. Here is a closer look at the risks associated with poor record retention:
Compliance Issues
Certain industries, like financial, healthcare, and legal sectors, must follow strict regulations regarding record retention and data security. However, no matter what industry you’re in, you must keep specific documents for a set length of time for your own peace of mind as well as recordkeeping and tax purposes. If you aren’t sure where your records are stored, how they are organized, or who has access to them, you are at a much higher risk of compliance issues. This could result in fines, fees, legal problems, damage to your reputation, and the loss of valuable company information and institutional knowledge.
Increased Risk of Data Loss or Breaches
Scattered documents are harder to control, which means there is a chance that they can be lost, damaged, or even intercepted. Should they contain proprietary company information, financial data, or personal identification or health information, your company and clients are at risk of fraud. You could also face a lawsuit or criminal charges if you are found negligent with sensitive data.
Damage to Your Reputation
Your customers, clients, shareholders, and staff rely on you to uphold high standards for security and data protection. If word gets out that your company doesn’t know the whereabouts of crucial records, or that sensitive documents were not properly managed, you’ll experience major damage to your reputation.
Decreased Productivity and Efficiency
When your staff has to spend hours looking for documents or information, that is time wasted. They won’t be able to handle core tasks, and you’ll experience delays and misinformation company-wide. This may result in an inability to take on new projects, or losing key clients due to backlogs.
Potential for Lost Revenue (and Customers)
Productivity and efficiency issues affect the whole company. If clients can’t trust you to protect their files and records, and if staff can’t complete projects due to a lack of crucial information, you’ll eventually face lost revenue. Customer satisfaction will also decrease, and it will be harder to evaluate project timelines, measure growth or success, track finances, follow up with clients, or plan for the future.
Poor Decision Making and Lack of Growth
When you and your staff don’t have reliable access to company documents and records, it will be nearly impossible to make important decisions. You’ll face unanswerable questions, frequent debates and conflicts, and delays that prevent you from progressing and growing.
Interoffice Friction and Dissatisfaction
Staff will feel the burden of problems caused by information breakdowns and loss of important documents. Should they have to spend time looking for or recreating documents, they may feel resentful. Eventually this will affect company culture, causing increased stress and chaos.
Financial Issues
Lost, damaged, and stolen documents can cause huge financial issues. You have wasted labor from employees trying to fix the issue, lost clients who are dissatisfied with your delays, and an inability to grow due to a poor reputation. You’ll have to deal with even more financial problems should you face fees or fines associated with non-compliance or fraud.
Increased Risk of an Audit
Certain documents are crucial in maintaining accurate financial records and filing tax documents. If they are missing or if your returns don’t make sense, you could face an audit. Likewise, if clients, investors, or shareholders don’t understand the information in your financial reports and request documentation that you can’t find, you could face major challenges.
How Citizens Business Archives Can Help
Citizens Business Archives understands the importance of proper document management. We have experience providing shredding services and document storage for companies in all industries. In fact, we are one of the most trusted corporate shredding companies in Arizona. We can provide assistance with indexing, archiving, and storing important business documents, and ensure document and record security in our state-of-the-art storage facility. If you have been Googling, “secure document storage near me in Tucson, AZ,” call us today or contact us online.
