In today’s day and age, it’s essential to keep your important documents safe. One of the best ways to do that is by digitizing them.
Paper documents can be accidentally destroyed, by flood, fire, or human error. It’s not uncommon to lose important documents in a move, an accident (like fire or flood), misfiling, or other circumstances. Converting, digitizing and electronically filing these important things can help reduce the risk and protect you from loss or common disasters.
Often, you can locate digital files faster and easier than paper documents. They can also be converted between formats (such as PDFs and Doc files). File sizes can also be reduced, so you save on hard disk space and reduce your paper usage. TecKnowCare helped a tax office go paperless and they were able to reduce their paper usage by two thirds in one year. Those are impressive results and they are common when you digitize.
Digitizing documents, if done correctly, can provide you with backups and can help you find important information faster. However, according to the Ponemon Institute, data breach costs rose from 3.86 million to 4.24 million average cost in USD in 2021. But don’t let that stop you from considering going digital. The good news is that with the right safety practices, you can prevent these kinds of risks and keep your documents safe. So you see, the benefits do greatly reduce or eliminate the risks.
School Documents
Most schools are required to keep student documents for the life of the school, or indefinitely. For FSA alone, the paper documents are numerous and these types of documents are far too important to have only paper copies.
Here are some FSA docs that should definitely be converted into digital:
- Accrediting and licensing agency reports
- Audit reports and school responses
- Cash requests and quarterly or monthly reports from the G5 payment system
- FSA program reconciliation reports
- Records used to prepare the income grid on the FISAP
- State grant and scholarship award rosters and reports
Human Resources
It is imperative that HR documents are a top priority because of their sensitive information. Digitizing and using the correct data retrieval system can help ensure that HR professionals can put their hands on these important documents at all times.
Some of these documents include:
- Bylaws and policies
- Employee contracts
- Employee handbooks
- Health and safety reports
- Insurance Information
- Job descriptions
- Payroll information
- Retirement plan information
- W-2, W-4, and I-9s
Business Related Documents
Clients rarely want to wait while you find their information. By digitizing their information and storing it well it can lead to making your company more efficient and responsive to their needs.
Client documents can include:
- Business plans
- Client contacts
- Customer contracts
- Financial statements
- Invoices and transactions
- Logos and style guides
- Marketing materials
- Proposals
- Internal collaboration documents
- Sales reports
- Tax documents
Any documents that are critical to your business success or would take a significant amount of time and money to recreate could be added to this list.
For example:
- A tax office would include the client tax returns and supporting documents to calculate those returns.
- A lawyer’s office would include all the clients documents and supporting materials.
Personal & Family Documents
These days families go to the same event and several people take pictures on their phones or other devices. This adds a rich history to family memories, which is wonderful. However, it can also add a layer of frustration as some photos may not be easily seen or shared with everyone.
In addition, there are still the old polaroid and print photos in photo boxes, which have not been digitized. If something were to happen to them, so many wonderful memories would be lost.
Having a smart plan to get these types of items digitized and to share them on the cloud and/or a central storage device would be the best way to ensure they are safe and to make sure everyone can enjoy them. Sentimental documents bring back memories of key points in your life. But these nostalgic items can be lost in the blink of an eye, which makes it essential to save digital copies.
There are plenty of other very important family documents that should absolutely be digitized as well. You never know what could happen and being prepared by having quick and easy access to your most important family records could be a life-saver.
Here is a list of these documents that you should digitize:
- Bank account information and statements
- Birth certificates
- Credit card documentation
- Diplomas and certificates
- Driver’s license and ID cards
- Greeting cards, postcards, and letters
- Immunization records
- Marriage and divorce certificates
- Passports
- Resumes and employment docs
- Sentimental items
- Social Security card
- Vacation souvenirs
- Wedding mementoes
More Documents To Digitize
Legal documents
These can be crucial! A power of attorney document can allow someone else to conduct business for you if something happens to you or you are out of town.
Material items inventory
You never know when you might need a list of the most important items you own. Be sure to include photos, brand, warranties, date of purchase, repair work done, serial numbers and the value of each item. This information would be complicated to store in filing cabinets, but it’s very easy to keep all of this information together if you do it on the cloud. Having this information is essential if anything is ever stolen from you.
And More
- CDs, DVDs,VHS tapes
- Deeds & automobile titles
- Insurance policies (For example: auto, health, home, life, renters, vision)
- Sensitive information documents
- Wills and trust documents
- Warranty documents
Is Going Digital Right for You?
If you don’t know if going digital is right for you, we can help. We created a free checklist you can use to evaluate your needs to see if going digital would be the right decision for you.
Just click here to find out more.
How to Digitize Your Documents
Digitizing important documents can be overwhelming if you’ve never done it before. That is why it’s important to get the right software and hardware working together to make the process fast and easy. You can do this research on your own to find the best fit for you, however it may be time consuming and confusing if you are not an expert when it comes to computer networking.
Get Started
If you don’t know where to start, we’d be happy to help come up with a custom plan for you.
Our plans include:
- Coming up with a plan to digitize everything or doing it in stages
- Working with you to prioritize the most important things to digitize first
- Finding the right software and equipment for your needs
- Helping you with setup and installation
- Digitizing your documents
- Teaching you how to digitize future documents and best practices for keeping them safe
- Providing you with a platform for easy storage, conversion and sharing
Digitizing important documents doesn’t have to be stressful or overwhelming. Let us help you transition to digital and offer you greater peace of mind that your most important documents are safe. We can chat about your needs and customize a solution just for you.
Just click the button below to schedule a chat with us now!
