The archiving of documents within a company is a crucial management and organizational point that raises many questions. What papers to keep, what are the laws on document archiving, how to manage archiving with probative value, should we outsource the archiving of business or personal documents and call on an archivist? In this blog, we highlight the challenges of a good archiving of documents in a company.
The challenges of archiving business documents
Archiving documents within a company is a legal obligation. Depending on their importance, corporate documents must legally be kept between 2 and 30 years. It is therefore crucial to adopt effective archive management. Because who says archiving does not mean simple storage in boxes on a shelf. In addition to the legal aspect of the obligation to keep documents, you will be happy to easily get your hands on information or a document during an inspection or following a claim. A good archiving of documents will save you a waste of time and energy. You will also prevent sensitive information from “leaking” outside of your company if you know where each document is filed. It is therefore easy to identify the legal, economic and security issues of effective archiving.
Should we outsource the archiving of corporate documents?
The advantage of physical or digital archiving entrusted in whole or in part to an external service provider specializing in archiving such as Archives Conseil? The guarantee of secure storage of your business documents. Our storage facilities meet all the safety standards in force, and their equipment is at the cutting edge of technology. A professional archiving service like ours will notably be equipped with an anti-intrusion system, fire-fighting devices, humidity, and heat monitors…themselves controlled by an external company whose specialty is this. Your archives are therefore in good hands.
Should physical or digital archiving be preferred?
We generally observe (and recommend) the application of a hybrid model in companies. Electronic archives, now legally recognized in the same way as their paper equivalent, could have meant the beginning of “ zero paper ”. This is not the case, the 2 solutions coexist in companies, although the share of digital is tending to increase. Digital archives no longer suffer from the risk of not having the famous probative value (law of 13 May 2000), essential in the event of a dispute. But the costs of digitization and the governance model that this entails do not place all companies on an equal footing in the face of the challenges of a complete dematerialization of archives. Many will find it beneficial for a long time to come to store their physical archives without digitizing them all.
Benefit from our advice on archiving your business documents
Do you want more advice, tips and tricks on archiving your papers to keep (personal or business) or do you want more information on outsourcing your archiving? We are at your entire disposal to answer all your questions.
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