Record keeping is an important prerequisite for successful business operations in Canada. There are several record retention requirements for businesses in the country that all organizations should adhere to. These requirements are set by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).

Choosing the right document management system for seamless integration and enhanced productivity isn’t the easiest task out there. With so many possibilities to pick among, company owners and data managers may find it difficult to come up with an adequate selection.

New technologies have changed nearly every aspect of life. Indexing documents is no exception. Digital document management and indexing programs have simplified such processes and resulted in a higher level of safety and usability.

The age of big data isn’t all moonlight and roses. The sheer number of gigabytes being produced every day presents a problem that filters all the way down to your IT department. There are 2.5 billion GB of data generated daily. Content clutter is expensive. Searches cost an average of $14, 252 per employee annually, so storage solutions are a critical issue, not only for your budget, but your efficiency, too.

Any company or organization still sitting on a storage space packed full of microfiche or microfilm no doubt has heard about microfiche scanning. For many, it seems easier to stick with what is familiar and wait to invest in scanning until some point down the line. The longer you wait to scan your documents, the more money you’ll have wasted and the more risk you’ll have exposed your documents to. Here are just a few reasons to invest in your microfiche scanning now instead of later.

File management software has been around for at least a decade. In its earliest forms it was concerned mostly with keeping things organized and saving space, today it includes support for multi-national companies and large scale operations that share data globally.

If you’re planning to go paperless, it’s important to have a timeframe for making the leap. “Paperless in 90 days” is a great achievable goal for many organizations and provides a rallying cry to get your team on the same page. Setting a goal of achieving the paperless office in less than 90 days also gives you a quarterly target to address and hit while helping to maintain momentum. And the sooner you reach that deadline, the sooner you start enjoying the benefits of going paperless.

How you store your documents matters. Storing your company’s documents in a centralized document repository is a smart idea. It ensures that all of your documents are stored in a secured location, and that you won’t have to worry about any stray data ending up in the wrong place. It will also increase the overall efficiency of your document storage by making it easier to find documents and reducing the storage space needed to save everything (multiple storage solutions waste space, because many of them won’t be filled up).

When you think about microfilm or microfiche, you may not think of a modern method of keeping and storing information. But, more companies and industries that you likely consider still have information stored on microfiche to this day. Problematically as this material ages it begins to decay and ruin the images and information within it, which is why so many industries are now considering microfiche scanning as a method to save documentation.

If you work in an office, you have some kind of record management. Even if it is simply filing cabinets, you’ve got a process in place to make sure that you find crucial documents when you need them. But not all record management systems are created equal. Many paper-based systems and inefficient shared drives cause delays in processes and create a lack of visibility in your overall system.