As a business professional, it is vital to protect the sensitive business documents and information that your business collects from customers. You need to protect this information so that you do not have issues with identity theft.
Additionally, you will want to protect your research and sales information from rival companies that may want to steal the information to help them get ahead.
Since you likely store information and documents in a number of ways, you need to have a strategy in place to protect all of your information.
A solid strategy and following strict guidelines can protect your business.
Understanding Privacy Laws
As a business, you have the responsibility to protect the private information of your customers. You need to protect any credit card information that you collect from your customers.
If you are a medical office, you need to follow HIPAA law and train your staff to protect the information.
Although this may not be the first aspect of document management that you think of, it is a very important aspect of successfully managing your business.
You do need to keep careful records for tax information and to protect yourself when you sign contracts, but it is just as important that you keep this information secure.
Protecting Paper Documents
When you operate on a paper system, you need to take careful steps to keep the information safe and private. You should have a system that allows you to see who is accessing the files on a regular basis.
The storage area where you keep files on customers should be locked at night. Additionally, it should be in an area where the public cannot accidentally wander into it.
It is important to work to prevent thieves from stealing the information and exposing your customers or employees to identity theft. You should also train your staff to lock all private, sensitive, and confidential files away each day.
Although we have given you several tips to help secure your records at your office, you might want to consider a secure offsite storage solution to help manage your records.
It’s perfect for records that haven’t passed their appropriate retention time, but are no longer useful in your day-to-day activities.
Not only will they be stored in a secure facility, a Records Management Company can give you access to any of your stored records when you need them.
Protecting Digital Documents
It is also important for you to protect the information that you store digitally.
As more and more businesses turn to digital records, it can become easier for thieves to hack into your system and find the information that they need.
One common example is when a business is hacked, and credit card numbers for customers are stolen.
You need to be sure to use a strong encryption system for all of your digital documents. It is worth paying extra for this system because it is protecting your business and your business relationships.
You should also carefully monitor the information that your employees take home to work on or that they take with them for presentations outside of the office.
Digital documents and information can also be stolen from thumb drives and laptops- that’s why it’s critical to encrypt them if you’re travelling.
Proper Disposal of Your Documents
Another important part of protecting sensitive business documents is learning how to dispose of them properly. Many states require you to black out all personal information on documents before you throw them away.
This information includes names, phone numbers, account numbers and social security numbers. Another option to properly dispose of the document is to shred the documents so that the information cannot be pieced back together.
If you are disposing of old computers and hard drives, you need to completely erase the hard drives. You may also consider actually destroying the computer or drives physically if the information on the drives is of a highly sensitive nature.
If you Need Secure Records Management, Let our Experts Help!
At Record Nations, we can help you create a records management program to help manage or store your records, convert to a document management system, and ensure that you’re implementing proper security measures to help protect your critical records and files.
We can help set you up with the proper professional records management company that works best for your business. To get started, fill out the form on the right of this page, or give us a call at (866) 385-3706. Within minutes, you’ll have several companies in your area to choose from.
