Digitizing or storing administration?

For many organizations, the transition to digital working is in full swing. The question of digitizing the archives arises regularly. After all, would be great to save space. But is digitizing archived documents a good solution?

Most records of companies or other organizations must be kept for tax purposes for 7 years. Sometimes 10 years with international companies or even longer in exceptional cases. This depends on the retention periods of the various parts of the administration.

In newly furnished offices in the digital years from 2010 onwards, cabinets are increasingly an exception. After all, administration is becoming less and less analogue. The storage of paper documents is being phased out. That's why organizations are making space by no longer keeping their records in the office. The choice is to digitise or store.

Document scanning is a relatively costly activity. Not so much the scanning itself, but the preparation of the documents prior to the scanning process. Outsourcing to a digitisation company costs an average of around €500 per m1 of documents. The costs are €40 to €50 per large binder. You can also do it yourself: this often saves you 20%, but the quality is correspondingly lower. It is often not known how complete the scans are. Have all the leaves been scanned? Is any written or printed back included? Is the document searchable? Anyway, every choice has consequences. Apart from that, the question is whether it makes sense to digitize the administration? Do you ever need it again? The answer to this question is almost always "NO".

That is why digitizing the financial administration is almost unheard of. Exceptions are the administration of staff, projects or patients. Then it is often important to (quickly) view the digital files. For all other cases, the choice is often storage.

By default, the documents are stored in archive boxes. These boxes are ideal for storing enough paper archives for the duration of their storage period. They are easy to use, can be lifted and are sufficiently sturdy. These boxes are then stored on shelves or pallets. The costs for the storage of administration are approximately € 100 per pallet per year. This makes it possible to store a binder for just € 0.85 per year.

The stored files can be retrieved at any time. This means that the archive manager can retrieve the relevant files for the customer on request. Per box or even at file level from a box on a pallet. And then deliver these files to the customer physically or even digitized. The costs for this are limited to ten to twenty euros.

At the end of the legal or commercial storage period, the paper archive can be destroyed. The pallet with the administration is then destroyed in accordance with the strictest safety requirements. This is one less thing to worry about for organizations, which are committed to data protection and confidentiality.

If you would like to know what it costs you to save the administration, but still be able to have it delivered digitally, please contact us. We are happy to make an example calculation so that you know where you stand.