Using a storage unit to store archives, documents, and old paperwork is a common practice for businesses looking to free up more space in their office.
While not necessarily valuable on their own, documents can cause a lot of damage to a business if lost or stolen – which is why storing them safely is essential. If you’ve been thinking about using a storage facility to store your documents, we’ve listed a few important considerations below.
Have a good organisational system
If you are using your storage unit to store archives, it may be tempting to just dump the boxes and forget them – but this is a mistake you will seriously regret when you need to locate a specific document!
Set up a good organization system from the start, using labelled boxes that are stacked by date, alphabetically, by use – whatever works best for your business.
Choosing a secure unit
A lot of the archive paperwork and documents you are looking to store will contain sensitive information that could cause a security breach should they be stolen or lost.
For this reason, finding a secure and safe storage facility should be a top priority when looking to store your documents off-site. A good storage facility will have CCTV, a fenced perimeter, fire alarms in place, and possibly additional measures such as manned surveillance and a check-in policy.
Not only will these measures give you the peace of mind that your documents are safe, they will also help you ensure you are compliant with GDPR – more below.
Stay GDPR Compliant
The new General Data Protection Regulations came into force on 25th May 2018, and failing to comply with these regulations can result in fines up to 20 million Euros or 4% of your turnover.
GDPR mainly applies to the ways your business processes data and security, but they also apply to businesses that process information via physical documents.
An important consideration when making sure you are GDPR compliant is to be able to get rid of paperwork if an individual requests you destroy the information you hold on them – so having an efficient system to organize your documents and be able to find paperwork easily is important when storing your documents in a unit. In addition, it’s a good idea to have the means to destroy documents – for example, using a secure shredding facility.
Finally, when storing your documents off-site in a storage unit, you need to be confident that you can keep the sensitive information you are responsible for safe. Using a high-quality facility with several security measures in place should be a top priority for any business.
Preventing damage to your documents
Any business storing important documents should rent a storage unit that is temperature-controlled. This will reduce the likelihood of damp or high humidity causing irreparable damage to your paperwork.
Likewise, using the correct storage boxes for your paperwork is important – double-walled archive boxes are our recommendation for keeping your documents secure, and these are also sturdy enough to be stacked.
Insurance
Covering the financial value of the items you have stored in your unit is vital to ensure your business is covered should something happen to your unit (such as a flood, fire, theft etc).
Find out more about our storage insurance and how we can help you.