Lock Up Records Management – Risks & Challenges

Cleardata surveyed 100 UK businesses about their document management practices and uncovered that 44% of businesses are using offsite storage lock ups or self-storage facilities.

This can often be due to companies suddenly needing to move archives offsite e.g. to provide more office space for additional staff, an annual office clear-out of archived documents, or perhaps an office move.   Although lockups may appeal due to low monthly costs, organisations need to review the full risks and challenges.

Risks

  • Security – Shared access means multiple staff having access to different types of confidential documents. Do you keep an audit of who’s accessing your information?
  • Misfiled or lost information – If you don’t keep a record of access or retrievals you’re at risk of losing valuable data.
  • Compliance – Are you meeting GDPR requirements? You may need to access information quickly to respond to a request for information. If documents are not managed efficiently it maybe difficult to respond to requests in a timely manner.
  • Flood Risk – documents stored in lockups can become damp.
  • Higher Costs – If you’re not managing destruction dates efficiently, you’re probably keeping records for longer than necessary which will ultimately mean higher storage costs.

Challenges

  • High staff costs – How much time are your staff spending travelling per week to access and retrieve documents?
  • Physical Access – Doors can be heavy for staff to contend with.
  • Management – It can be difficult to access documents stored at the back of a lock up. Are your archives being managed efficiently?

Lock up storage vs managed archive storage

Managed Archive Storage

Storing documents in a managed archive storage facility can reduce your annual costs, improve compliance and records management. Benefits and features include:-

  • Reduce wasted travelling time through digital file retrieval.  Request archives via our online solution and documents will be retrieved, scanned and returned straight to your desktop.
  • Manage archives online – secure portal providing a statement of your records stored offsite. Manage authorised users, retention periods, request collections, retrieval and destruction, order more archive boxes and provide regular management reports for your archives.
  • Limit document access to authorised staff only for specific boxes/information
  • Receive a full audit trail – any physical access/retrieval recorded by user, date and time
  • Managed destruction dates enabling businesses to only keep information for the required time
  • Secure destruction services available.

For further details about how Cleardata can help with managed archive storage, contact our team on 0800 046 8081.  Try our instant quote tool to calculate your archive costs.