It is the end of the year and a great time to evaluate the records management strategies. It is important to look at all the records that company maintains and not just the official records in the storage room. Most documents are stored in employees desks and on their computers. These can contain information that can be very valuable or potentially damaging. To qualify for protection for the espionage act the records must be treated as confidential.

It might be time to move your documents to an off site records storage service. They will help you index all the files and store them securely. The advantage is a having a climate controlled storage solution. They also offer security over what is available in the typical office. But the reason most companies choose to move their records off-site is to save space. Office space can be very expensive and it doesn't make a great deal of sense to use up offices to hold records. This is even more acute if they are not needed on a regular basis.

Perhaps it is time to move to a paperless solution for your records. A document scanning service is a great option to reduce all of the paper. This is an optimal solution if you access the documents regularly. They are now available to every office regardless of geography. It seems ironic but they are available to more people but also more secure. That is because access can be set by the user and document. Accounting only sees the accounting records while sales people only have access to their clients.

Consider how you are planning on storing your electronic records. Electronic records have the advantage of being easier to backup. Keep a copy at an offsite location. This can be done with a cloud based storage service or a tape rotation service. A CD sitting next to the server is not a sufficient backup.

Based on the articles in "Inside Self Storage," a trade publication for the self storage industry, there are going to be a significant increase in the number of competitors in the records storage space. It is clear that they can make more selling their space by the space by the cubic foot instead of the square foot. They will rent their space cheaper than a traditional records storage operator.

So what are the main differences? It really is a level of service. A self-storage option will be less expensive but they don't offer all the same services. Generally they will not have fire suppression systems much less water-less ones. The security standards can not be the same with public foot traffic in the building. They don't offer courier service to retrieve documents. They also lack the management systems to track the disposition of records. Additional services like document scanning or media tape vaulting are less likely to be offered.

If you are business that doesn't need the additional services then the self service option will be a good choice to save you money. This is most likely small business storing records that are rarely -- if ever -- needed.

Some records storage jobs are more interesting than others. Joe Bell is luck to have one of them. Joe is part of the Canyon County Historic Records Retention Team in Idaho. He works with historical records for the county. Some date back to before there was even a state of Idaho. Overall it is over 750,000 documents they maintain.

While they are scanning many of the modern documents to computer files, there is historical significance in maintaining historical ones. To help them manage better they have a new space that used to be part of the jail.

In an effort to save money on records storage, The Regional Municipality of Niagra is outsourcing their records management. The move is expected to save $563,000 over the next five years. The Region currently stores 12,000 boxes internally. The number of positions that could be eliminated was not disclosed. The deal is with Safe Stor for the next five years. There is also an option for an addition 5 years for the contract.

If your organization is looking to save money on their records storage we can help. Our document management experts can not only maintain your existing records but show you how to keep them secure and organized.

A Tampa medical transcription company is looking to expand their services into medical records scanning. eDocs Conversion Solutions has gotten a new name, hired 11 new employees and purchased scanning equipment to help doctors convert to EMRs. Co-owner Victoria Kaczynski believes there is a demand to help doctors convert ahead of the requirements in the economic stimulus package of 2009.

There is a tremendous amount of backlog of scanning to be done. And the amount is growing everyday. Most practices are happy after the conversion but it remains a great deal of work for the entire office staff. It takes the average practice six months to a year to complete the process. It can also run up to $100,000 considering the costs of software, services, and employees time.

To offset the costs the economic stimulus package provided for grants to doctors to convert. The law also has a stick that will reduce medicare payouts to offices that have not converted.