Before & After Tour
Before
Does this look like your records storage solution? Are boxes filled but left unlabeled and just put on a shelf? Does the task of finding a file or record making finding a needle in a haystack seem easy? Often, inactive records seem like a burden to a company. You have to keep them; either the law requires it, the IRS requires it, or it just makes good business sense to have those records available if needed. Unfortunately, because they are not a priority, they are often mishandled. You need space in a filing cabinet, so you empty it out into records boxes. The person doing it knows they can't be thrown away, so they stick the box on a shelf somewhere. If 6 months from now you need that record, where is it? Does that person remember what box they put it in and where? Does that person still work for your company? If the box is adequately labeled, how do you track where it is? Maybe that person marked the box, put it on the shelf and made a note of where it went. Then that room got cleared out to make room for a new employee, or someone wanted the "clutter" cleaned up, so it got moved to a basement. So, where is the box now?
After
What do you see when you look at that picture? I see a box that is numbered, bar coded, and placed at a location made for records boxes, with the location also being numbered and bar coded. In addition, look at the strip of paper attached to the box above the bar code. This is the remainder of a new records entry form that came attached to the box. With a Records Management Services program, all boxes coming to our warehouse must be inventoried into our system, which requires the completion of an entry form for each box. The box information is filled out by you, because you know best what is in your box and, more critically, how you will search for it later if needed. After sending the box to us, we place a unique number on the box, with a corresponding bar code. The box is placed at a location, that is also uniquely numbered and bar coded. The box information in then entered into our computer program, including the unique number that we applied when the box came in. A scan of the location and the box bar codes then assigns that location to the box in our system. Need a record? Call us and we can search in our program for the appropriate file. Once located, we do a ticket for that box that includes the unique number along with the unique location. Finding your record becomes a snap!
