Every company goes through a lot of paperwork in their daily duties. Every hire and decision often lead to a paper trail that you then need to record. However, it can feel pointless to keep all these documents, especially the ones you never access. But knowing why record storage and retention is so important would change your mind.
Personal Record Keeping
The simplest reason that you should keep your records is for personal record keeping. Some records aren’t that useful and only take up storage, but most records can be useful at some point or another. A common use for older records is ex-employee employment verification requests from other companies. But audits or future plans might need records from years ago, so you shouldn’t scrap your records too quickly.
Legal Requirements
A large reason for record retention and storage comes from the legal requirements. The government requires that you store certain files for a number of years until you can destroy them. Most documents and records you make should follow a retention schedule, so you know when to destroy documents.
Fines
Just storing these documents isn’t just so you can follow the law, as improper record keeping can come with huge fines. If you don’t follow these legal requirements, you could find yourself facing thousands to millions in fines as they make you pay for every mistake.
How Best to Store Records?
Storing these documents isn’t easy because a company makes a lot of documents that need storage every day. Smaller companies can store their paperwork in their office but outsourcing your document storage can save time and money as their storage method, such as rivet racking, is a lot more efficient.
As you can see, it’s vital that you know why record storage and retention is so important. Lacking that information can cost your business a lot of money and cause a whole host of problems with future decision-making.
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