The 4 Steps of Digital Records Management

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Digital records management refers to the process by which a company can collate, organise and streamline all of their recorded information. It is most commonly employed by companies wishing to transition to a paperless system, and employing an efficient system such as this in the early stages of business can help to ensure the ongoing efficiency of company operations. There are eight distinct steps involved in the process of transitioning to a digital records system, as outlined by TNT Business Solutions, but here we can see that they fit into 4 easy categories.

Identification

Your company’s historic documents are collated before collection. Relevant documents include anything which pertains to business operations, so you will need to go through your records beforehand to ensure nothing important is left out.

Collection & Preparation

Your documents will be collected for safe transport to the processing location where they will be prepared for digital collation. Make sure that your provider offers secure transport, for your peace of mind. A good DRM provider won’t ask you to manually remove all staples and binders before collection. Instead, this service will be carried out after your documents are collected, to save you time and money. Codes will also be inserted, to ensure all documents are scanned.

Scanning, Classification & Quality Control

Your documents may have very different scanning requirements, but this will be assessed and carried out by your provider. Each document will be scanned according to which method would be quickest and most efficient. Perhaps one of the most important parts of this process is classification. Each document will be sorted according to type and data content, and marked for easy identification. For optimal output, you should opt for a provider which employs a rigorous quality control process. Your documents should be wrinkle free and clearly legible after scanning, and blank pages should not be included in the final output.

Conversion & Management

You will most likely need to access your documents for reference purposes, and may even have to send them to different individuals and outside companies – depending on your needs. Because of this, it’s important that your documents are presented in easily accessible and searchable file formats, with relevant metadata.

The benefits of any decent management service continue well past the point of the service itself coming to an end. DRM will allow you to take control over all future data management by providing you with easily accessible digital records and the option of receiving your neatly collated hard records back for safe in-house storage.

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