Dealing with disciplinary records
Saving documents on a shared system is a common and logical way to maximise accessibility to company documents. But it will only work if it’s organised in a way that means everyone can easily sort through them and find relevant files.
That’s why many companies employ a document catalogue system. It’s designed to make sure all documents are stored in the right place and in the right order, for easier location and retrieval.
If you don’t have a proper catalogue system in place, you’ll struggle to locate your documents when you need them, waste time trying to retrieve your records and – if you start working with the wrong documents – make potentially costly errors. Creating an effective system needn’t be difficult, but it does need to be followed strictly by everyone in your company.
Here are the key features of an effective document catalogue system.
Consistency
Consistency is the number one rule for a workable catalogue system. Your rules for labelling and naming files and structuring folders must be consistent across the business, in order to make retrieving and identifying documents easy.
Simplicity
Overly complex rules only cause confusion and chaos, so try to keep it simple. Document catalogue systems need to be accessible for everyone, as you never know who needs to retrieve certain documents at any given time. It’s likely that everyone in the organisation will need to file away a record at some point (even if it’s not something that they do regularly) so it’s important that they can get to grips with the system quickly and easily.
Accuracy
It’s all very well having a robust cataloguing system in place but only if the documents themselves are accurate. You’ll need to make sure that the right documents are being saved in the right folders in order for the catalogue system to be effective.
Categorisation
Any good document catalogue system will need rules for categorisation, whether by date, region, department, or something else entirely. Try and decide on this early on and make sure that your records management efforts can scale alongside your business.
Authorisation
The security and privacy of sensitive records is important to bear in mind when designing your document cataloguesystem. Documents should be catalogued with a note on who can access them, or locked in rooms or cabinets with restricted access.
Technology
Technology can help you streamline the entire process of cataloguing documents. If you’re looking for something really comprehensive, you might be interested in learning more about records management software, such as O’Neil: primarily used by specialist records management companies like Access Records Management, but with a range of solutions to accommodate smaller budgets.
An effective document cataloguesystem is the key to effective records management. However, if you’ve got too many documents to organise and are looking for a records management company that can help, contact us today to learn more about our secure document storage facility. A free quote is available upon request.
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