Why You Should Shred Your Business Documents
All businesses collect a wide variety of information and data. Physical copies of paper documents can begin to stack up quite easily, and even though many companies are transferring information over into digital copies there are still many who house large quantities of physical documents. Some of these documents may not even be useful anymore, and legally you may have to destroy information once you have held it for a certain period of time. Hiring a document shredding service could help you out.
Which Business Documents Should You Shred?
If you are looking to free up some space and be compliant with the legality of holding physical documents holding information relating to employee and customer data, what should you be looking to shred?
Some documents you may consider shredding include:
- Any employee photo IDs
- Old Bank Statements
- Old Tax Returns
- Old Employee Payslips
- Credit Card Information
- Copies of Sales Receipts
- Documents Containing Sensitive Information of Employees and Customers, including name, address, contact details and medical information
- Old Employment Records
Reasons You Need To Shred Business Documents
There are a number of reasons to shred business documents:
Prevention of Identify Theft – All of the documents that you have stored can include information about employees and customers that you have to keep safe. Shredding documents when you no longer need them can help to prevent identify theft.
Protect Customer Information – Everything you do with documents that you have stored at your business premises should be done to protect your customers’ privacy and integrity. Sometimes credit card information and other financial and personal information is written down, and it is vitally important that these kind of documents are shredded to protect your customers.
Stay Legally Compliant – There is legislation related to data that indicates that you are only legally allowed to keep hold of certain types of customer information for a set period of time. As soon as the documents are no longer relevant to your work you have to dispose of them securely and effectively, shredding is the answer.
Protect Your Employees – Your employees have a right to privacy as well as your customers, and any information that you hold of them that is no longer relevant should be disposed of securely. This can include health records, photo IDs that are no longer used and time cards etc. Shredding these documents is a safer bet than throwing them away.
Free Up Space – One of the biggest reasons to shred business documents is that if you don’t you are likely to find that your business premises has to be used as part-storage facility. This can take up huge areas of an office, costing you money in the long-term. Shred unnecessary documents and use that space for something more productive, something that will make the company money.
Always take the time to consider which documents you are storing that have to be disposed of, and then think about how effective shredding documents is for your legal compliance as a business.
