It’s Purge Time for Your Records
Document destruction businesses are often busy at this time of year. Why? It’s because so many companies do a spring-clean type purge of their records. The combination of a change of season and tax filing time, along with the associated record-keeping decisions, means companies are often motivated to do a purge.
There are many benefits to doing a regular document purge. However, it should be planned in advance for optimal success. As part of your planning, remember not to destroy any files that are associated with an ongoing, or reasonably anticipated investigation, legal action, Freedom of Information (FOIA) request, audit or review, regardless of the retention period.
Benefits of a Purge
- Reorganize misfiled documents
- Eliminate duplicates
- Free up space
- Increase work productivity
- Relocate files by frequency of use
- Check retention dates
- Remove dead files
- Regroup as a team
- Help your company remain compliant
Prepare for the Purge
- Meet as a team to review the purge process and make sure everyone is committed to the same result.
- Choose a day for the purge and notify all staff members who will be involved.
- Estimate the number of storage boxes and confidential shred containers that will be needed and order them in advance.
- Contact any suppliers, clients or customers that may be affected by reduced service or closure that day.
- Confirm the retention periods for your type of business, whether it is financial, health, employee, a combination of those or others.
- Arrange with a NAID AAA Certified shredding company for either an onsite shredding event or for the documents to be picked up. When you select a NAID AAA certified company, your purge process will be compliant with all privacy laws.
Execute the Purge
- Meet with the team during the purge planning stage to review the process of the purge, their responsibilities and goals, and who they should report to.
- Ensure that staff members review file drawers, cabinets, files in storage, digital files, personal and shared drives, and email folders.
- Check retention dates on all files, paper and digital, and remove or mark files that have reached or surpassed their retention dates.
- Make a record of all files that are removed for destruction or are either being sent to or brought from storage.
- Discard files that require destruction in a secure shred collection container.
- Have the files destroyed on site, or have them picked up and transported to a secure facility for destruction.
- Celebrate upon completion.
Arranging for the assistance of a reputable shredding company like Shred Boss will greatly simplify your purge.
Shred Boss is NAID AAA Certified, and we can help alleviate the additional work and stress of your document purge event. We’ll help make it a smooth experience and keep your company compliant with destruction requirements. When you’re ready to purge, give us a call at 575-347-4733 or complete the form on this page. We’re in Southeastern New Mexico and offer mobile, off-site shredding as well as drop-off shredding.
