Each type of document that you see on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual basis has a shelf life. For some it is longer than others. Tax records should be held for ten years. Applications with personal information that are denied should be destroyed immediately. An attorney or accountant can tell you how long you should hold onto financial and payroll records, and also let you know what you legally have to shred.
Research and development departments have piles upon piles of notes each time they do a new project. These should all be shredded once the project is complete and while the project is going on they should be kept in secure containers. This same philosophy can be used when planning a merger, discussing an initial public offering, or doing market research on paper as part of an internal meeting. Anything that can tell your competitors what you are up to should be destroyed by a shredding service.
How often should you have a mobile shredding service come to your office? You have your trash picked up once a week, so why not have document shredding done once a week? Even small companies accumulate enough paper waste during a seven day period to justify a pickup. We’ll even provide you with a secure container which you can put your paper waste in for safe keeping until our shredding truck arrives. Once you have a system in place there will be no reason to worry or even think about the process. Train your employees to throw it in the shred box instead of the waste basket and we’ll take care of the rest.
[ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink |
( 0 / 0 )Have you ever worked on a project for months and months and hit a wall because you were bogged down in paperwork? Sometimes it’s necessary to condense, draw up a summary of what you’ve learned to that point, and get rid of all that junk paperwork so you can refocus your thinking. Shred it and forget it. Ninety percent of the writing you did was scribbling and nonsense. Get all of the actual facts and knowledge on a few sheets of paper and throw the junk into the junk pile. That’s where it belongs.
The idea probably makes sense to anyone who has worked in research and development for any length of time. You want to be thorough, but there comes a point in every project where you need to take a step back and say, “OK, what do we have so far?” That’s not a point where you’ll want to be thumbing through piles of paper with triangles drawn down the margin or a circle of check marks and smiley faces surrounding one brilliant idea you had six months ago. Transfer the brilliant idea to a master sheet and call in a paper shredding company to get rid of the original.
Do not throw any of your notes into a regular waste container that will be emptied into a dumpster out back unless you want your competitors to get free insight into what you’re doing. Creative people have a tendency to roll up pieces of paper into a ball and toss them about. If one of those sheets has a piece of the puzzle you’re working on as part of the scribble you’re discarding, the cat is out of the bag. If you’re using a waste paper basket in your research area, everything in it should be shredded, not dumped.
The shredding San Diego companies look for is that which comes from reliable and secure mobile shredding services which can come to them. To maintain security for R&D departments, it is best to make sure your paper waste doesn’t leave the building in one piece. We can provide you secure containers to throw that paper waste into while you’re working and we’ll shred it for you on a regular weekly cycle. You can forget all the random thoughts and use the summary notes of those brilliant ideas to come up with finished products that will result in sales for your company.
[ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink |
( 0 / 0 )If you run a business in the State of California, there are instances where the shredding of documents is a necessary part of doing business. Any type of documentation that contains personal information which could be used by identity thieves needs to be destroyed after it has been used. This generally means credit card records, anything with a social security number on it that is not payroll related, and any type of application forms or invoices that include addresses, phone numbers, or credit card numbers.
If your business is one that takes in a heavy flow of the type of paperwork described above then you will want to set up a regular schedule for records destruction. The longer you wait between shredding days, the more likely that some of that personal and sensitive information will fall into the wrong hands. If a storage area starts to overflow and your own employees end up cleaning it out you face the risk of a security breach.
As one of the shredding companies Los Angeles businesses most often turn to, we understand the magnitude of the task facing ownership and management when deciding what to shred and when. The good news is that you only have to make those decisions once. Set up a system and use our secure containers to discard materials that fall into that “shred it” category which you create and define for your employees. It’s not as difficult as you would think. There are very specific tasks and departments that create the type of documentation you’ll want to destroy later on.
For the documentation that doesn’t need to be shredded right away, but at a certain point in the future, create a secure storage system that no one except a select few have access to. Tax paperwork and employee payroll and employment records fall into this category. Much of this is done electronically now, but you will still want to have hard copies available for audits and legal questions if needed. Keep it as long as you need to and then have it destroyed. It will just be taking up space at that point.
[ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink |
( 0 / 0 )Do you get rid of it or do you keep it? The decisions about shredding Irvine businesses have to make each day are more complicated than just simply picking the right company to shred documents for them. Before the shredding company can do its job, the company hiring them needs to sort all documents and decide which need to be destroyed and which should be archived in case they’ll be needed later on.
Tax documents that include sensitive company or personal information should be separated for records destruction, but only after enough time has elapsed that you no longer have to worry about audits. In most cases, that period of time is either seven or ten years, but you’ll want to check with your accountant before making that decision. You’ll also want to make sure that wherever you decide to archive those sensitive tax files is a secure location that cannot be accessed by just anyone.
Employee records should be kept as long as the employee is working with the company. Issues pertaining to benefits and disciplinary actions with employees can come up at any time and those records may need to be referenced back to. Even after termination or retirement you’ll need to hang on to the files for a little while just in case any questions arise about severance or retirement payments. In the case of a disciplinary action there is always the possibility of a lawsuit. You should consult with your attorney about the period of time you hold personnel documentation for.
Hiring a mobile shredding service that comes to your place of business to destroy personnel or tax documents is by far the most secure way to go about doing it. If you send the paperwork out to be destroyed or have your own employees do it you’ll be at risk of a security breach. That’s how identity theft happens, the careless storage or destruction of sensitive and personal information. Employees of a mobile service using secure containers never actually touch the paperwork before shredding it, so there’s no risk of any of them seeing material you don’t want viewed by outsiders.
[ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink |
( 0 / 0 )If you’re looking for benefits and drawbacks of records destruction, you need look no further than your own record keeping system. If you employ a shredding service to destroy records on a regular cycle when they are supposed to be destroyed, that shredding will be a benefit to you. If you destroy records at the wrong time and end up needing them again, then shredding will be a drawback. In other words, shredding is a good idea for any company if you do it right.
The shredding San Diego companies do every year is mainly to get rid of old tax records and any paperwork that contains personal information about either their employees or their customers. The company holding these records has a legal responsibility to keep them confidential. If that personal information gets out, they would be liable for the damage caused by its release. This is reason number one for companies to hire a professional shredding service. In some cases, it’s even required by law.
How does your company keep its records? Are they placed in locked file cabinets and organized according to date? When the time comes to get rid of them, do you shred or do you just dispose of them through regular waste channels? Did you know that dumpsters and waste pick-ups are among the most vulnerable places that personal information can be stolen from? It’s true. Many people have had their identity stolen by throwing away a bank statement or other personal document. Imagine the kind of damage a hacker could do with a whole pile of those thrown out by a company.
Shredding services offer a better alternative for those who need to destroy personal information or sensitive company information that they don’t want getting into the wrong hands. When hiring a service, ask some pointed questions. Make sure that your shredding service is certified by NAID, the National Association for Information Destruction (PRSS is) and ask specifically if they outsource the shredding or do it themselves (PRSS does all shredding in-house). You’ll also want to make sure you get an official certificate of destruction with a date and time the job was completed.
[ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink |
( 0 / 0 )
Random Entry