Keeping Necessary Documentation: A Guide to Record Management
Your staff may have a 21% productivity loss due to poor record management. The way that you're organizing and storing your documents can play a huge role in how your company runs.
Your employees are spending too much time trying to find documents that are missing or recreating documents that are lost. They should be able to find any document in a matter of seconds.
To learn how you can help your employees do this, keep reading. With our explanations and tips, your employees will be working at peak efficiency again.
Steps to Efficient Record Management
Before you start asking your employees to pull up files in seconds, you need to make sure that you've organized and stored everything as it should be. The key here is consistency.
You can't expect your employees to keep up with a jumbled system that has no pattern. So, you have to create a system that's going to keep folders and labels consistent.
Once you know how you want to group your documents, you can jump into getting the work done to organize them properly.
1. Take Advantage of Automation
First, we have to touch on automation. Automation makes everything easier for you and your employees.
And, automating your document organization is going to save a lot of time.
It's not practical for you or someone else to spend hours reading through documents. You should let your automated system handle that. With keyword identification and auto-naming, you'll be able to sort any document in the right place.
The best thing about automation is that you get to set the rules. You can define what you want the system to do and how you want it to do it. You still get all the control, but you don't have to do as much work.
2. Integrate Your Devices
Documents show up everywhere these days. People email them, text them, airdrop them, and more.
That's why you need to integrate your devices.
By integrating all of these devices, you'll be able to organize documents that come in through different phones, printers, and more. And, by automating your system, you'll be able to organize all of your these documents, even if they come from different sources.
So, in the end, you can organize all of your documents in the same system, even if you got them from different devices.
3. Standardize Your Strategies
Having an automated system isn't enough. You won't be able to make that system work effectively unless you implement standardized principles.
First, you should implement a system for naming files. Naming files correctly will make it easier to find what you're looking for. So, you should create a standardized naming process that makes it obvious what the contents of the document are.
You should also have a categorization system. Whether it's color-coding, numbering, alphabetizing, or some other technique, there should be an easy way for you to find files.
For example, all of the accounting files could be red or start with an "A" or "ACCT." This will distinguish them from other files.
With a consistent method, everyone can find the files they need easily.
As you're organizing these files, you should also consider security. Throughout the archives, you should place security points and passwords. And, you should make sure that only authorized users can reach the most sensitive documents.
4. Collaborate With Your Team
Often, your team needs to approve, revise, comment on, or update documents. Rather than sending emails back and forth, you could handle all of these tasks in your document management system.
This results in fewer emails and better management. Within your system, you can flag documents that need attention from other employees. You can also sort documents by importance.
This level of organization will take your collaboration further than it's ever gone. Rather than sifting through hundreds of emails, you can have everything you need in one system.
Plus, as your employees complete tasks, the system will automatically update. This means that the document will go to the right destinations each time an employee does something.
For example, let's say that someone edited a document. Now that they've done the edit, the document needs approval. So, the system will move the document to the location where other documents awaiting approval are.
Thus, it will be out of the way of the remaining documents that need edits. And, your employee didn't have to bounce the document through an email.
5. Dispose of Unneeded Documents Properly
If you're holding too many outdated documents (digitally or physically), things can become cluttered. And, you could be compromising your security.
Even if you're destroying or deleting unneeded documents regularly, they could still be lingering in your system. This is why you should follow a proper technique for disposing of these documents.
First, you should determine which documents you should destroy and which documents you should archive. Then, you should ensure that any trace of the destroyed documents is gone. You don't want sensitive information lurking in your system.
The Importance of Record Management
A strong record management strategy is crucial to any organization. No matter which industry your company lies in, it's important to keep private things private.
Medical facilities need to keep patient records private. Businesses need to keep customer information private. Government organizations need to keep proceedings private.
If you're at risk for a breach, you could destroy trust with your clients, patients, and/or the general community. So, you should create a strong plan now rather than waiting for something to go wrong.
Record Management Software
If you want to have an effective and efficient record management system, you need record management software.
Luckily, we made our intuitive and accessible LogicalDOC Document Management system for organizations just like yours. No matter the industry and no matter the documents, we can help keep everything in order.
With features like document automation, bookmarking, bulk updates, importing, and more, we have everything your business needs to succeed. So, get started with our platform today. You'll be amazed at what it can do.
