Billions of emails are sent all over the world, daily. Many of those emails are clutter messages sent from businesses trying to advertise services, scammers trying to phish information, and just about everyone in between.
A fraction of those messages contain imperative corporate documents and some of those documents may be yours.
Corporate/business documents encompass a wide range of paper trails. The longer you stay in business, the longer those trails will get.
So then, what should every entrepreneur keep in mind when it comes to managing documents as they start to pile up? Keep reading to find out!
Business Documents Contain Sensitive Information
While this isn’t the case for all business documents, the majority likely contain some sort of sensitive information. That information may be marketing plans, customer data, employee appointments, and more. No matter what the data is, chances are, you don’t want it falling into a bad actor’s hands.
The best way to avoid that fate is to keep your documents secured as hard-copies in locked, on-site storage cabinets. You can also back up documents to encrypted drives and shred anything you no longer physically need.
They Can Clutter Your Office
Every piece of data that gets sent to you does not warrant a hard-copy. Some items can be sent digitally and kept in that state.
To prevent clutter from building up in your office and to avoid heightening the risk of data theft, consider if you can complete the task at hand without a hard copy. If you can think of a way to get by without adding more print jobs to the world, exercise that option.
Signatures Are Par for the Course
Important documents and signatures go together more often than you might think. The trouble is, especially in today’s work from home culture, that getting somebody to sign a document can be cumbersome at best and impossible at worst.
Fortunately, there are software solutions like ApproveMe’s Contract Hub and others that allow for the seamless exchange of signed documents through the World Wide Web.
If you’re managing signed documents often, we recommend exploring what options exist in the software arena. They can reduce your need to commute or use a messenger service to collect signatures.
Backups Are Necessary
There’s an old saying that notes that something is not important unless it’s backed up in two places. Do you have all of your important documents backed up safely in two locations?
Don’t feel bad if you don’t as most people are in your boat.
Still, you can stand to get slightly ahead of the curve. To do so, consider having a single digital backup on a secured drive of important hard-copy business documents.
Successful Management of Business Documents Improves Corporate Culture
You might not think that being mindful of the way you manage your business documents, agreements, settlements, etc., can move the needle for your company.
Believe us when we say, though, that by putting care into the way you manage your paper trail, you’ll start to find attention to detail working its way into other aspects of your business—which can lead to a powerful cultural transformation.
Would you like to learn more about document management, corporate culture, and more? If so, consider browsing more of the content we have available in our digital publication.
Interesting related article: “Storing documents.”