Take Your Office Paperless with Intelligent Archiving

Moving Soon?  How a Move Can Move Your Records Management in the Right Direction

A pending office move is a wake-up call when it comes to how you are handling your critical records—if you haven’t been keeping up with your records management, moving time is payback time, and it can be expensive!

Minimizing Your Move Saves Time, Money and Risk

It will cost you more (both in time and money) to pack, move and unpack records that really should be archived or destroyed, and will make an already cumbersome process that much more unwieldy.  And moving files exponentially increases the risk that confidential information could be exposed to prying eyes, which can be enormously expensive if a privacy breach occurs.

The good news is a move can also be a terrific opportunity to put your records management efforts on the right path for efficiency and security, which will save you time, money and aggravation in the long run.  And if you do it right, you’ll never again have to deal with a massive backlog of old records—you’ll know you have only the records you need and that the rest have been securely archived or destroyed according to your records management plan.

4 Simple Steps to Minimizing Your Move and Getting Control of Your Records Forever

To fix your records management issues for good is actually a relatively easy process with four simple steps:

• Purge the records you no longer need according to your retention schedule
• Shred unneeded records to securely and completely destroy them
• Move your stored records off-site, for greater efficiency, lower cost and safer storage
• Manage your records proactively from this point forward

If you need help with any of the following tasks, we recommend you contact a RIM (Records Information Management) professional: More and more a hybrid service provider is emerging part mover and part RIM Pro. (see Admiral Movers or Admiral Records Management.

• setting up an appropriate records retention schedule that will keep your business compliant and efficient
• ensuring your shredding/destruction is handled securely and properly with no risk of privacy breach
• finding a good off-site storage facility that will handle your records correctly so they (and you) are protected
• implementing an end-to-end records management plan covering all stages of your records’ life cycle

A reputable RIM firm will be happy to help you handle each of the four steps to minimize your move and your records management cost and time investment.  To learn more about how we can help with any or all of your records management needs in anticipation of an upcoming move, please contact us today!

4 Ways Records Storage from a Specialist Benefits Your Company’s Bottom Line

Facing a huge multiple-office move, BankTrust knew they would need an experienced mover with the ability and specialized expertise to move approximately 200 employees to a new location securely and with minimal downtime.  They chose Admiral Movers for the job.

Why?  Because Admiral Movers, a Mayflower agent, offers easy solutions to all of their moving challenges.

Challenge #1:  Need Total Coordination of a Large Move Involving Approximately 200 Offices

It is difficult enough to move everything from one location to another, but with about 200 locations, BankTrust knew they needed some expert help.  They needed:

• a comprehensive budget for the entire move
• a plan for the move that ensured everything would come together from all of their locations as quickly as possible in their new location
• a coordinator to make sure the movers and their other vendors could access the space in the order they needed to without conflicting or colliding with each other.  That way, essential services like voice and data connectivity would already be set up in anticipation of their arrival, there would be no parking, loading, unloading or access conflicts, and each stage of the process would be handled in the most efficient order.

For this challenge, Admiral’s Total Office Move Management was the perfect solution.

Challenge #2:  Need to Ensure Delicate, Expensive Computer Equipment is Moved Safely and Securely

BankTrust has a great deal of expensive and specialized computer equipment, and needed to know their most valuable physical assets were in good hands who would properly protect them during the transition.

Admiral’s Air-Glide Computer Move System is part of their IT Relocation Support Services, and ensures all electronics are protected by heavy-gauge, anti-static bubble wrap, securely locked down on computer carts for maximum stability, and then air-glided to their final destination.  No damage, no problem!

Challenge #3:  Need Guaranteed End-to-End Security of Confidential Information During the Move

Customer financial information is among the most highly-protected there is—there is absolutely no room for exposure of confidential information whatsoever.  The penalties are just too high.

Admiral offers Secure Chain-of-Custody Relocation, which ensures total compliance with all security requirements during your entire move, from packing to unpacking and everything in-between.  So BankTrust knows without question they (and their customers) will be fully protected during the move.

Challenge #4:  Need Someone They Can Trust to Handle the Job Right, with Total Accountability

Admiral has a proven track record of service and success in complex, multiple-location moves involving expensive equipment and requiring ultra-tight security—the certainty that the move would be done right is what finally convinced BankTrust that Admiral would be the right choice.

If your firm needs help with a big move, let a true professional sweat the details for you—please contact Admiral today to learn more about our full menu of specialized moving services!

Box-less gondolas save time, money and minimize hassle

Plastic crates for moving misses the mark. Whether or not they are green is a debate for another day ( it takes a ton of petroleum to extrude a crate) cardboard breaks down, plastic will fill a landfill for a long time. But here is the problem with plastic crates, they don’t make the moving process easier for the customer. Quite the contrary they make it tougher.

First let’s get past the “plastic crates are a box-less alternative”, no they are not. They are a box, they are just made of plastic and when you pack them it shuts the office down, lost productivity, lost money and increased hassle. Because they are much bigger than the size recommended for moving files, books and manuals they are hard to handle even for big strong men much less the females of the office. Since you plastic crates must be unpacked before your office can go back to work, you get the moving hangover and it lasts a while.

There is a great deal of confusion about moving valuations and what it all means. Watch this video to learn more.

If you are concerned your mover is a “fly by night” then listen to this video.

Another problem with the crate offering is that they are of a size that no office mover, industrial engineer, risk manager should ever let an employee handle. The maximum weight movers and employees should handle is 60 lbs (filled with books, files and charts) which means the container should be no bigger than 1.2 cubic feet. the problem, a plastic crate is 2.7 cubic feet and weighs eight to nine pounds empty and when loaded will be close to 100 lbs.

How on earth are your assistants, clerks, employees going to load and stack these behemoths? Then when comes to unpacking them at the new building your going to need the help of the mover, more expense. We may want to rename these plastic (boxes) crates “workman’s comp boxes”. Ask any mover who even occasionally does office moves if he or she would allow a customer to pack a 2.7 or 3.0 cubic foot box? Our friends at CityMove.ca have got it right in their blog entitled Plastic Moving Boxes In Vancouver? Just Say No!

Gondolas appear just before a move, or the same day as move. Why, because transferring items to gondolas takes just a few minutes per office, allows access right up until the time they are shrink-wrapped for transfer. Best of all you can access all items the moment they are unloaded at the new office. Unloading by the way is accomplished in a fraction of the time as a traditional move, requires fewer folks which means lower costs. We have even had a hospital to need access to files during a move which we accomplished because all files stayed completely in order during the entire process. Gondolas are super mobile, because of the easy roller caster system, plus the wheels are 100% non skid and non marking.

The more I look around I realize that the folks that are pushing the plastic crate notion for and office move is not so much real office movers but the crates makers, sellers and rental companies. They want or need more customers for their plastic crates, which were initially created for retail stores to carry much lighter items than books, files and manuals. This is would be like if you were making cars and the off-road SUV craze came along so you began telling folks your cars were off-road ready because you added different tires.

If a mover wants to get into office moving they should make the full commitment to have the proper equipment, not fake it. Office moving is not something you can just decide to do and do well. It takes years of training, improving it will also take full commitment to buy or build the correct equipment. I realize most household movers have had the their market dry up on them, but they do their customers no favor by introducing a poorly conceived notion. Heck we find that most of these movers are trying to use a household cube sheets to take and inventory and figure up an estimate. This will lead to underestimating badly the time the move will take, the manpower required and the cost of the relocation. Who pays for this, the customer when on Monday instead of returning to work you are trying to finish a move. When the move runs long and the movers get tired damage occurs and whatever plan you had to get things to their destination is sacrificed for just getting the truck unloaded.

If your office needs more space let Admiral bring in secure shred/recycling containers and remove unneeded office paper and waste, shred it and then recycle the paper. Admiral Records Management can take less frequently but needed files to our records center and use our “box-less” system to reorganize your workspace. Because we use a box-less system we save trees, and at that is good for the planet. At the end of the document life-cycle we can automatically shred and recycle them. If you have furnishings that are not being used we can store, recycle them by selling them to someone else, we can do that too.

If your office has metal file cabinets that have outlived their usefulness we can recycle these as well. Recycling the metals, and reusing furniture keeps it out of the landfill. Electronics and computer equipment can be cleansed of data and recycled or E-Cycled. If there is no other alternative we can haul them to the dump. But, sometimes your furniture can go to Goodwill, Catholic Social Services or the Sunshine Center. Enjoy better work-flow and increased productivity while helping the environment. Call us today at 334-396-5430

Intelligent Archiving is the ultimate in scan-on-demand efficiency for clients who need immediate access to records, have multiple locations, have offices in other cities or states, or who are going paperless. Rather than pulling and delivering a file, the file is traced, scanned, and returned to its storage location in Admiral’s protected records center. The file can then be accessed via a secure web connection or delivered to your server, email, or wherever you choose.

Going Paperless
When a business wants to go paperless, the common notion is the need to grab all old files and documents and scan them. This “back-file processing” is just impractical (the cost alone will blind you) when you realize over time you need only 5-10% of the information.

We have the solution. First, implement a paperless system going forward (“day-forward processing”). Second, place your old files in our records center, and, using Intelligent Archiving, Admiral will scan your files when you need them. When you request a file or document we will retrieve, scan and deliver it to you in a digital format. You can then download these files onto your server, document management system, or we can provide you with a disc. Effectively you will be saving money and time by archiving only the documents you need. That’s intelligent.

Benefits
Intelligent Archiving is the ultimate in killing two birds with one stone. You save time and the cost of shipment or delivery, while at the same time digitally archiving the file. We are here to help you manage the task of dealing with today’s information rich world.

Digital archiving at Admiral is scalable – virtually limitless. InfoKeeper, our client on-line records management software, is web-based and backed up to secure data servers, giving you full control over which documents you want and when. And, because the data is web-based, you only pay for the Internet space you need.

To help make the transition to paperless smooth, efficient, and cost-effective, you can set an automatic destruction date for your paper documents. In addition, having your digitized records on a secure server provides protection in the event of a disaster should the unthinkable occur.

Intelligent Archiving gives you peace of mind knowing you are streamlining operations, increasing productivity, and giving your employees more time to focus their attention on customer satisfaction.

It works like this

You request a file using our software or through email, fax, or even a phone call

We locate and pull your record, then digitally scan it

Your document is uploaded to a secure web portal or to your email

You can leave it on the web repository, forward it to email, print it, or archive it to your server