The ultimate question many of our clients ask themselves is, should I scan my documents or just store them? When it comes to the security of your important business records, scanning them is your safest bet. Here are the top five reasons scanned documents are more secure than storing them:

1. Electronic documents are safe from natural disasters

Documents that are digitized and uploaded to a document management system, like Recordsforce Cloud, mitigate the risk in the event of a natural disaster. We all know someone, if not ourselves, who has dealt with a flooded basement from too much rain or a burst pipe in the winter. Imagine if your important and necessary files were destroyed. Whether it be a fire, flooding, a hurricane or another catastrophe, digital documents are the only way to ensure your documents are safe. Digital documents can be backed up and/or chased in the cloud, making the recovery process a breeze. Don’t leave your valuable documents open to risks; A mistake that can prove costly. 

2. Documents are password protected and encrypted

When documents are scanned and then delivered to our clients, either into our document management system or theirs, the documents are encrypted and then password protected. Document management systems also offer other key security features like the ability to remove admin users, multi-factor authentication (MFA), password expirations, inactivity timeouts and even IP limits. These security measures coupled together prevent the compromise of data. Can you say the same for your documents just sitting in storage? 

3. Document access can be completely controlled

Once your documents are scanned and on a document management system, your team is provided secure access to their sensitive documents with complete control over who can view or edit them. Each “portal” has its own rules and is customized to fit any need. Each user can have a specific level of controls on which documents they can access. Not to mention, every change, edit or access is fully trackable. You can view any revisions made to your documents and who made those changes. Users who make changes or add/delete new items are all authenticated and logged and available for reporting. You never have to worry if your valuable and classified business information and data is at risk sitting in a warehouse or storage room that can be easily accessed, and possibly stolen. 

4. Built in Auditing

How quickly and efficiently can you get an audit done when you have stacks and boxes of paper to sift through to find what is required?  Wouldn’t it be nice knowing that you have a system in place that practically audits itself? With digitized documents, auditors can quickly and easily view your processes and who has access to your organization’s documents. This includes logs of system activity, document edits, login attempts and user permission changes. You can also ensure that auditors are only seeing what they need to, mitigating your organization’s risks. 

5. Automatic Record Disposition

When your records are stored on the cloud in a document management system, like Recordsforce Cloud, you no longer have to worry about how long to keep your files. You can easily set a retention schedule and then not give it another thought. This way, you’re holding onto documents as long as they are being required to, but also not holding onto unnecessary documents, both of which can cause risks. You can mitigate your organization’s risk with a fully-automated set of intelligent retention triggers that can be configured to identify, archive and dispose of documents based on easy-to-define business rules. 

It may be nerve wracking to hand over those paper documents, but as long as you are choosing a highly qualified provider, like Recordsforce, your documents are completely secure. Recordsforce is  SSAE-18 SOC II Type II certified, which means we passed an audit that includes a complete review of a data center’s controls, processes and design, operational controls and policies, and the management’s description of system or service to a professional standard conducted by a third-party auditor. When you’re ready to get rid of your paper documents, Recordsforce can help.