Written by Mike Terning, Head of Product
When I travel, I enjoy taking walks in the morning around the hotel. I enjoy taking in the scenery of unfamiliar communities. To me, it is enjoyable and many times educational. One July morning, I was walking downtown in St. Joseph, Missouri, near an office building with the vertical blinds half-way open. There was something that caught my attention and I couldn’t help but take a photo. Here is what I saw:
What do you see?
- Bright Walls
- Stacks and Stacks of Document Boxes
- No room to walk
- Clutter
Do you have any rooms in your office like this photo?
5 Tips for Document Management
Instead of ignoring the boxes, here are 5 tips for document management:
1. Structure your document management process
- Come up with a process that is easy to understand and guides how you file and store documents.
- Share and follow a written document retention policy with your entire organization.
- If using an electronic document management system, make sure to identify how to store documents and index or attach them to the applicable record or transaction.
2. Secure your documents
- Critical documents need to be stored in a place that allows for easy retrieval and protects against disasters such as fires, floods and theft.
- Determine which documents must be physically secure, granting access to documents to select staff members who you authorize.
- If using an electronic document storage system, create user profiles to monitor storage and access to the documents. Also, make sure that electronic backups are performed and test backups on a scheduled basis.
3. Simplify your document retrieval
- If your business stores documents in a warehouse or at an off-site facility, it’s important to do the following to prevent confusion and save time:
- Catalog the exact location of the documents
- example: Location A, Northwest Aisle, 4th row, 2nd box from the bottom
- Write instructions and processes regarding how to (and who can) retrieve the documents
- Catalog the exact location of the documents
- An electronic document storage system should allow those with permission to easily find documents in a logical manner, perhaps relating to a counter-party and/or a transaction
4. Schedule document destruction
- Your written document retention policy should list the retention time of each document.
- Create a schedule of work or calendar reminder to ensure that your team follows the retention policy.
- Assign retention and destruction responsibilities and hold those staff responsible.
- Using a bonded third-party service to destroy and dispose of documents may help compliance efforts.
- Consider having your internal or external auditors review and test compliance according to your policies, especially if using an electronic document management system. As a general rule, don’t assume your team is following the policy — always check to be certain. As Louis Vincent Gerstner Jr., best known for serving as chairman of the board and CEO of IBM in the 1990’s said: “People don’t do what you expect but what you inspect.”
5. Software can help you
- Contact your software provider to see what solutions exist that may help you manage your files.
If you have AGRIS or CINCH or oneWeigh, we have a document management solution that your agribusiness can adopt and will reduce your stress going forward as it relates to document management.