Maintain the order and structure your business needs

Records management is critical to maintaining productivity and efficient functioning within any company. As the company grows, managing records can become harder and harder. Having a scalable records management system in place supports business intelligence and helps managers make decisions. Developing a strategy for cataloguing, storing, and accessing documents and other records is essential.

So how can you streamline records management? Here are some practical steps to consider:

1. Digitize Documents

Managing and storing physical files can be difficult and costly. A single sheet of paper may not take up much space, but hundreds or thousands of physical documents can stack up quickly. A standard four-drawer filing cabinet takes up about 17 square feet when you include the space necessary to open a drawer. An organization with 500 employees can spend an average of $4k annually on file cabinet real estate space.

Physical records don’t just occupy more space; they’re also more vulnerable to getting lost, misfiled, or damaged.

Scanning paper documents solves these problems. Digitizing the documents with products like Exela’s IntelliScan devices transforms the documents into searchable digital assets (more useful than simple scans).

While IntelliScan can digitize both old documents and new ones like incoming mail, Exela’s Digital Mailroom service can distribute the digital versions to remote workers electronically. That means better communication. And it can integrate the mail into digital records management systems that organize other digital documents.

If you need another reason to digitize documents, consider this: Most documents created today start off in digital form. Why put them on paper if you don’t have to?

2. Categorize Information

A study by the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) found that, on average, 62% of the information that an organization must manage is unstructured. In other words, the information is hard to find, let alone quantify or use.

To manage unstructured information, you need to classify and categorize it. Classifying records allows for clear and efficient filing, retrieval, archiving, and even, when necessary, destruction of documents. You can categorize or tag documents based on function, client, project, file type, security level, or other labels.

This can be a daunting and potentially time-consuming process, especially if you have a large backlog of uncategorized documents to organize. However, digitization and automation technology can reduce this burden. Optical character recognition (OCR) and intelligent character recognition (ICR) technology lets a scanner capture data from documents as it scans them, which helps the system automate categorization, aggregation, and routing.

Additionally, you can pair IntelliScan scanners with Exela’s OpenBox data capture, classification, and indexing solution. With OpenBox, you can avoid the laborious, time-consuming, and error-prone manual identification of document types and sorting of documents to create end-to-end document digitization and information extraction.

3. Organize Electronic Storage

Reorganizing your network workspaces can have a huge impact. To manage your documents and records within the workspaces:

• Develop a shared network of folders with a logical hierarchy and structure that follows your business’s workflows.

• Set a company-wide standard for grouping the folders and the files inside them.

You can start by categorizing files based on the year they were created, the department where they originated, or the purpose they served. IT professionals are often great resources for determining which of the various existing directory structures would best suit your business.

For some industries and record types, you’ll also have to consider regulations and compliance requirements.

4. Implement Naming Conventions

Keeping documents organized and easy to find and identify becomes simple when you implement and enforce company-wide document naming conventions.

A document’s chief identifier is its filename, which can include a great deal of information. If you include the date the document was created, the project identification number, and keywords that describe the document’s content, you’ll let people know the document’s purpose and content even before they open it.

Your naming conventions will stipulate what pieces of information to include, as well as each piece’s order and format. You can even include version numbers – though as anyone in creative services will tell you, adding “Final” to a document’s name is just asking for more revisions.

Disorganization and inefficiency are costly for any business. A solid records-management system can help maintain the order and structure your business needs. Thanks to digital technology, you can handle records management with less effort, improved efficiency, and greater peace of mind.