As a lawyer, you provide a valuable service that requires a mountain of paperwork. After determining the best options and developing a sound system for document management and retention, what do you do with the extra documents that need to be stored? A wise, safe, and cost-effective option is to utilize the services of a certified document management company that provides secure locations to house your extra documents. When it is time to destroy records, they can help with that, too.
When someone applies for a loan, they expect to be approved. Unfortunately, some people find that their credit has been marred by someone other than themselves. A stranger managed to open credit cards, charge them up, and fail to pay them. This type of crime is called identity theft, and no one is immune from it. Thieves will root through garbage to find documents with personal identification information. They will use unwiped hard drives to piece together bits of data. These efforts, along with many online scams, are used to steal the identities of hardworking individuals. It is prolific enough that April 13th is known as Identity Theft Day. If you house personal information for clients, you will want to ensure that you have processes to protect them and save your reputation. A dependable and certified data management company is the first place to turn.
Do you have dust collecting on the piles of paperwork surrounding your desk? It’s easy to make a neat stack thinking you will get things filed later. However, when months pass and nothing has moved, you will find your cluttered office hard to bear. Not to mention, you may have a security risk as well, since anyone can come in and take off with a confidential file. Spring cleaning isn’t just for homes. It’s a vital ritual your company should institute, especially if you house personal, legal, or medical records. Records management companies provide the best options for safely and securely housing e-records and paper documents.
Proper Records Keeping Makes Filing Taxes a Breeze
Spring brings many things, including the dreaded ‘Tax Man.’ If you have a poor record keeping process, this time of year will bring you dread. It’s also possible that you are missing out on tax breaks because of a missing piece of paper. Worse, you could face an audit and fail it for lack of document support. The personification of this annual process has both companies and individuals scrambling to pull together all necessary data and paperwork for their accountants. The services of a records management company ensure you have all your data in a secure location with easy access all year round, making next tax season a breeze.
Selecting the Right Destruction Company for Businesses in Melbourne, Florida
How many documents are present where you are right now, that present security risks? Consider things like contact information, account numbers, billing statements, credit card receipts, document ownership, and much more. Getting rid of files, papers, books, ledgers, and other material that puts a company or individual at risk for security breaches makes sense. To do that, turn to a document destruction company.
The investment in new computers, laptops, and other devices allows organizations and individuals to upgrade to new products with better features. Yet, old computers should never get tossed out in the dumpster. Placing them into the trash puts all the potentially sensitive data on those devices at risk – anyone can pull something out of a dumpster and, with a bit of knowledge, access unsecured (and sometimes secured) information.
Many companies use the end of one year and the beginning of another to tidy up records and documents. The year’s paperwork often gets stuffed into filing cabinets or banker’s boxes and shoved into a storage room. Until you run out of storage space, this isn’t a bad plan. Soon, boxes are hanging out at the water cooler along with your team members. What happens when your company grows, and you add new people, but you don’t have room for them? Moving physical records to offsite storage answers these dilemmas and more.
for a clean desk and office. You can do this easily when you develop new habits to regularly clean and purge files and other items. Purging is not a once done, always done, matter. For the most success, it should be done regularly. Utilizing the services of a certified shredding company will have you well on your way to the cleaner, less cluttered office you envision for the New Year.
The 30-second commute took on new meaning when the COVID-19 pandemic came on the scene. Before, employees were hard-pressed to get their boss to agree to let them work from home. This was with good reason. How did employers know that their team would get their work done? There was also the cybersecurity issue. It is harder to manage security with employees spread out across town or worldwide and working from their dining room table. However, it is possible to keep data safe in employees’ homes and records securely when working in a hybrid environment when you enlist the services of an information management company.
Ideas to Keep Information Secure in a Hybrid Work Environment
Limiting exposure to the COVID-19 virus is possible in a hybrid work environment. Your employees may enjoy many benefits such as safety, productivity, and career satisfaction, but you need to mitigate some data security risks. Here are a few strategies to assist you and your team in securing data:
Remind Your Team about Data Security Policies Regularly: We are so used to carrying many types of technology that we can easily forget phones and laptops can be hacked. If your team is carting paper records back and forth between work and home, you have increased risks. It is a great idea to cover their responsibilities to protect information and reinforce steps they can take to protect said sensitive information, such as:
Keep passwords complex and confidential
Regularly change passwords
Share the dangers of phishing, how to recognize it, and what they need to do if they receive a suspicious email
Discuss how to properly dispose of unnecessary paper, mainly when they are of confidential nature
Work with IT to Develop Multiple Layers of Cybersecurity: The more layers of safety you have, the better. Aim for protections such as multi-factor authentication, data encryption, firewalls, and antivirus software. The payoff will be huge when you consider the many different ways to mitigate risk while allowing easier data sharing between home and work.
Establish a Secure Document Disposal System: There is still quite a bit of paper circulating within businesses. Your team needs to know what to do with documents they no longer need. Utilizing professional shredding services is the safest option, offering you peace of mind that your records are thoroughly destroyed according to regulations.
Support Your Team with Help from Crown Information Management
Encourage the hybrid work environment when you consider and plan for different scenarios and hire a qualified documents storage and shredding company like Crown Information Management. We have the credentials to ease your conscience. Not only can we set up shredding bins and shred onsite, but we also offer storage solutions you can depend on. Contact us today to learn more.
For secure, pest-free storage and easy and timely destruction of records, count on a SOC1 Level 2 Report,NAID AAA, and PCI Certified company. Call Crown Information Management at 800-979-9545 or contact us online to learn more about our document storage and shredding services.
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