Why Your Accountants Will Thank You For Hiring a Document Management Service During Tax Season

4/1/2021

Accounting and Document Management

While document management services benefit every department, no matter the industry, your accountants will undoubtedly be some of the most appreciative. In large part, they’re the ones that have to go through the most paperwork, sifting through financial documents and deciding what can stay and what should go -- especially during tax season. Regardless of company size, if your accounting department runs like a well-oiled machine, so do your finances.

Security - Bye Bye, Key Rings!

Your accountants are responsible for keeping safe the documents with some of the company’s most sensitive financial information. Frivolously tossing bank statements into a locked file cabinet simply won’t cut it in the modern age. With an effective data management system, your documents will be scanned, digitized and catalogued so you can limit personnel access to sensitive information.

Not only does the records management system keep your financial statements safe from theft, it also keeps them safe from catastrophic events. Since all of your documents will be scanned and digitized, a fire, flood, or other natural disaster can’t touch your data.

Organization - Simplify Your Process

When it comes time for audits, it will be far less taxing on your employees. Tax season will be a breeze by ensuring you have all your documents in a central location and that they’re easily, yet securely, accessible. Bookkeeping is simplified as your financial statements, audits, and all relevant documents will be scanned into the records management system, allowing for easy indexing and remote retrieval methods.

Accessibility - Can’t Make it To The Office?

One of the major keys to any successful accounting department’s efficiency is consistent accessibility to the documents they need. They need to constantly retrieve and store files, sometimes remotely. With an effective document management system you can access your data remotely and even limit security clearance for certain files. With digital remote access and a good retention schedule, your company will run at a more efficient pace.

R4 Services is dedicated to handling all of your document management needs in a reliable, secure and resourceful manner. We offer vault, scanning, indexing, management and destruction services to help your company run as efficiently as possible. Give us a call today to find out how we can help you.

Managing Crucial Documents When Using Office Packing Services

2/10/2021

Moving? Sift Through Crucial Documents While Packing

Need help moving office documents safely and securely? R4 can help you! We offer office packing services and document management to securely destroy and/or store documents for your business.

Moving is a good opportunity to go through documents and data that you may have accrued over the years. This may sound overwhelming and stressful, so here are some tips on how to prioritize your sensitive data when moving.

What Can Stay

Any documents that aren’t frequently renewed or that have to do with your business’ integrity are important to keep:

Social security cards
Birth certificates
Death certificates
Marriage license
Business license
Property records
Vehicle titles
Passports
Wills, living wills and powers of attorney

What Can Go (Eventually)

What can go (eventually): up-to-date versions of the following documents are necessary to keep.

Insurance policies

Retirement plan documents
Social security statements
Tax documents (about 7 years)
Credit card receipts/statements

Securely destroy your documents

Once you decide which items are necessary to keep and which items can go, R4 can help! We offer effective and secure on- and off-site destruction and can handle all types of media -- whether it be paper, hard drives or even x-rays.

For more information on our confidential and secure document destruction services, click here.

Secure storage capabilities/facilities

For the data/documents you need to keep, R4 can store it for you. If your business is limited on space, we have many secure offsite storage options. There are many benefits to utilizing an offsite storage facility.

Free Up Square Footage: Storing documents offsite in a large warehouse gives you the chance to free up square footage to use for cubicles or conference rooms.
Cost-savings: Explore the option of storing documentation offsite, and you'll see the price differences between office space in a highly sought after urban setting and storage fees for a warehouse in an industrial complex.
Expand Your Mind: At R4, we have efficient systems in place to make retrieval of your files quick and easy. This allows you more time to focus on other aspects of your business.

For more information on our secure storage capabilities and facilities, click here.

Moving can be a hectic and stressful time. By utilizing R4’s services you will be able to focus on other responsibilities within your business and successfully complete your move.

Contact us or call 773-843-3915 today to find out how we can relieve stress and save you time during your company’s move!

Other R4 services include:
Document Management
Shredding Services
Office Packing Services
Destruction Services
Hard Drive Destruction
Electronics Recycling
Vault Services
Indexing
Disaster Recovery
Web Access

Is Your Office Space Shrinking? 3 Ways an Offsite Storage Facility Can Solve the Issue

10/5/2020

As small businesses adapt to COVID-19 and the new corporate landscape due to COVID-19, office space may need to change as well. Allowing for more space between workers to adhere to safety procedures may have your office "shrinking". Suddenly that brand new office space starts to feel small. An offsite storage facility can help solve the problem of your shrinking office space.

Cost-Savings
Office real estate costs can be astronomical, so it doesn't make good business sense to spend money on rows of file cabinets full of papers that are not in rotation very often. Explore the option of storing documentation offsite, and you'll see the price differences between office space in a highly sought after urban setting and storage fees for a warehouse in an industrial complex.

Frees Up Square Footage
As your business grows, you will need additional room for employees to work and to hold meetings. Storing documents offsite in a large warehouse gives you the chance to free up square footage to use for cubicles or conference rooms.

Expand Your Mind
At R4, we store millions of boxed records and active files in our secure warehouse facility, and we've been doing it for nearly two decades. We know exactly what it takes to organize and index files, and we have efficient systems in place to make retrieval of those files quick and easy. This takes one more task off your already full plate and leaves you time to focus on growing your business. The additional peace of mind can lower your stress and free your mind to focus more specifically on your business.

Contact us or call 773-843-3915 today to find out how we can relieve stress and save you time during your company’s move!

Other R4 Services Solutions include:
Document Management
Shredding Services
Destruction Services
Hard Drive Destruction
Electronics Recycling
Vault Services
Indexing
Disaster Recovery
Web Access

R4 Services' Sustainability Report 2019

8/24/2020

The results are in!

The R4 Services Green Initiative has been very effective this past year. By securely destroying your documents with us, who then recycles the materials, you have made a difference in saving our environment. Thank you for your continued business and your support. Together we can make a difference.

But don't just take our word for it, here are the numbers!

Please click on the links below for more information:

To find out more on how to organize important documents at home, contact us at 773-843-3915 or orders@r4services.com

3 Tips on How to Organize Important Documents at Home

6/24/2020

We find ourselves in a new working landscape due to the evolving pandemic, which for many of us means working remotely, even as the country continues to open up. Keeping an organized workspace for yourselves and employees is crucial to maximizing efficiency in a time of such uncertainty. It's all too easy for papers and boxes of files to start piling up, especially in document-heavy professional fields such as the accounting, healthcare, banking and legal industries. Staying on top of your game when it comes to clearing out your office is important -- it's easier to stay organized than it is to reorganize, and R4’s document management & scanning services can help.Here are some helpful tips on how to organize important documents at home.

1. Scan and index your important files
By scanning and indexing your important documents at home, you're not only creating backups of the hard copies, you're digitizing them for maximized accessibility. Gone and forgotten are the days of sifting through boxes and digging through file cabinets. With your digital documents, you can pull up any file from any computer with a web browser. Through a secure connection, you can easily search for files, pull them up, make notes on them and directly print, email and fax. All of our digital scanning, indexing and mobile access software are fully HIPAA-compliant.

2. Get rid of unnecessary files
After scanning and indexing, you might not need hard copies anymore, so there are a few options for you. The first option is to destroy them. We have discussed the importance of maintaining a rigid retention schedule many times in the past, and it still holds true for nearly every industry. Outdated medical records with sensitive patient information, old financial statements and tax info (including SSNs) may be unnecessary to keep around the home office. Here's a list of documents you should destroy, but probably aren't. Keeping hard copies of outdated files doesn't just clutter your physical office space, it opens you up to legal liabilities and tax audits. R4 Services has the state-of-the-art document destruction equipment that can securely and confidentially destroy any media type from paper, film, tapes, monitors, disks, x-rays and hard drives.

3. Store your documents offsite
Perhaps you're looking at how to organize important documents at home without destroying those mountains of paperwork. Whether it's for sentimental value or to remain legally compliant, you might need to keep those documents -- yet, you don't want it taking up your real estate. In that case, consider storing your documents off site via vault services. It guarantees to keep your records accessible 24/7 for any media type: computer tapes, disks, video/audio recordings, microfilm, microfiche, x-rays. We can also provide climate-controlled storage space for older, sensitive things such as paintings, archival documents, books, photography, and business-critical documents (eg. disaster recovery plans).

Any and all of these methods work for any industry from medical, legal, education and more. These best-practices will help to keep your home office organized to maximize efficiency, while keeping a more breathable and uncluttered office space.

To find out more on how to organize important documents at home, contact us at 773-843-3915 or orders@r4services.com

Other R4 Services Solutions include:
Document Management
Shredding Services
Destruction Services
Hard Drive Destruction
Electronics Recycling
Vault Services
Indexing
Disaster Recovery
Web Access

4 Reasons to Use Document Scanning & Imaging Services

6/11/2020

The Coronavirus pandemic has unfortunately done away with the status quo of the business landscape as we know it. Yes, businesses are beginning to re-open, but the timing and standards are varied by state. Many companies are incorporating remote work on a more permanent level. Your business needs to seriously consider which elements are able to shift to accommodate world events because not only are we still in the fight, but future outbreaks are expected to hit again.

One way you can shift to remote work is online record storage. Scanning & imaging all your documentation can feel like an overwhelming task, but the benefits you will receive outweigh the upfront commitment. Here are 4 reasons to use R4’s Document Scanning and Imaging Services for your business.

1. Quicker Retrieval
If your documents are scanned and available online, they are also easily searchable. Forget about locating the right file cabinet, sifting through folders, and then shuffling papers to find the right one. Once documents are scanned and available online, they are easier to search through. Right from your desk, you can perform a keyword search to instantly bring up the file you need. This gives you more time to spend on other important aspects of your business. For businesses whose workforce relies on home offices or limited office space due to pandemic restrictions, this is a big time saver.
2. Access from Anywhere, Anytime
A physical piece of paper can only exist in one location, but a scanned document is available to you anywhere and at any time. Today's business world no longer revolves around a routine 9 to 5 day with everyone working in the same location. With today's more flexible work schedules, there is a bigger need to access information ‘after hours’. Many employees are also working from a home office or while on the road. When your documents are scanned, you can still retrieve information online no matter where you are located. This is especially crucial for the many businesses whose workers are unable to exchange or make copies in a traditional office setting.
3. Document Mark-ups
Paper documents need to stay in pristine condition, and if they're used by multiple people, you can't make personal notes. But with an imaged file, you can add notes to a document and insert reminders or flags before you print. Scanning allows you to retain the original version of the file, but also have an additional copy that is custom to your specific needs.

4. Backups
Even as workplace restrictions loosen when we move into the next phase of this pandemic, your company will need to adapt to fluid and changing workplace settings, and having digital backups of important documents will be key to moving forward with your business. R4 Services prioritizes the safety of your company’s information, and all of our document management is fully HIPPA compliant.

The way of doing business continues to change, and having a solution like R4’s document scanning and imaging services is just one way to ensure that you’re prepared for the new work landscape and future changes to come.
For more information, contact us at 773-843-3915 or orders@r4services.com

Other R4 Services Solutions include:
Document Management
Shredding Services
Destruction Services
Hard Drive Destruction
Electronics Recycling
Vault Services
Indexing
Disaster Recovery
Web Access

COVID-19 Update From R4 Services

3/17/2020

At this time, our facilities in Chicago remain operational. We are doing everything we can to ensure the safety and security of our staff without impacting our customers, which includes following all CDC recommendations for cleaning and sterilization.

We understand that many offices may be closed or working with reduced staff. If you have any changes that impact the pickup or return of documents or you would like to receive documents via Scan on Demand we would be happy to process for you.

Please reach out to our service center with updates or inquiries regarding pricing.

You can contact us here:
orders@R4services.com
773-843-3900

Thank you for your trust in R4 Services. Please stay safe and healthy.

The Dos and Don'ts of Destroying a Hard Drive Properly

3/9/2020

The Dos and Don'ts of Destroying a Hard Drive Properly

In today's digitized world, the vast majority of data is stored on hard drives (HDDs) and servers, otherwise known as the cloud. Some estimates conclude that 2.5 zettabytes of data exist in the world today. That may not sound like much, but 1 zettabyte is the equivalent of over 1 billion terabytes (TB); and today's higher end laptops that tout high storage capacity usually come with 1TB.

With so much digital data flowing around us at all times, it's important to make sure that yours is secure. As technology develops, so too do ways to exploit it. After all, if someone wants your SSN, banking info or other personal data, they aren't breaking into your file cabinets or safe in the dead of night to get it. No, they'd much prefer hacking that info remotely. This is why it's so important to know how to destroy a hard drive properly.

How Common Are Data Breaches?

You may be thinking to yourself, "data breaches only happen to big corporations. I'm a small business, I'm not at risk". But you'd be wrong. In fact, most cyber criminals decide to target small business because of their lacking cybersecurity infrastructure. We only hear about the Yahoo!s and the Targets in the news because of their large scale, but most criminals are lazy and small businesses are low-hanging fruit.

Forbes reported last year that more than 4.1 billion records were exposed in just the first 6 months of 2019. For comparison, around 5 billion records were exposed in all of 2018. Businesses accounted for 84.6% of those exposed records, with the average breach costing a business $3.92 million including potential fines after failure to report the breach and other legal expenses.

How NOT to Destroy a Hard Drive

Clearly, data security is rapidly becoming a serious issue for businesses, governments and individuals alike. One of the best ways you can protect yourself, your business, employees and customers is by having a rigid data retention policy and properly disposing of old hard drives. However, as with any new phenomenon, there are some myths surrounding the topic. Here are some commonly held methods of destruction that don't actually work.

Reformatting. Reformatting your hard drive, in a nutshell, is preparing a drive for everyday use. The process erases all local files and restores your drive to a "blank slate" so to speak. However, because of the way (re)formatting works, the "erased" data is still recoverable on a hard drive after the fact. All that's needed is the right software and some free time.
Magnets. How do they work? Well, they don't. Not to fully destroy hard drive data, at least. You've probably heard the advice before: keep magnets away from hard drives because they can erase data. This advice may have been true in theory, but it never pertained to household magnets. The theory is that the magnetic spinning disk, called a platter, of a HDD is disrupted and therefore unable to write and record data. However, the strength it would take to erase a HDD is simply not found in run-of-the-mill fridge magnets -- it would take MRI levels of magnet strength. There has been some anecdotal evidence of people using neodymium magnets to these ends, but they merely render the HDD unusable and do NOT destroy data, meaning it could still be recoverable by somebody who knows what they're doing. Plus, SSDs (solid state drives) are on the rise to replace HDDs and they don't even have moving parts to disrupt.
Microwave. DO NOT DO THIS! Microwaving a HDD is one of the most ineffective ways to destroy data, but it WILL be effective in starting a house fire. It will also cause irreparable harm...to the microwave oven. And sure, it may render the HDD unusable, but so long as the platter is intact (which a microwave will probably not affect), data can still be recovered from it.
Water. Dunking a HDD under water is, again, a great way to render it unusable. But generally speaking, hard drives are well sealed and prevent water from getting into the main components. Even if water DOES get in, it will not affect the magnetically stored data on the platter and can eventually be recovered.

How to Destroy a Hard Drive Properly

One of the only truefire ways to destroy a hard drive and all the data contained on it is to have it shredded by professionals. Since a hard drive (read: hard disk drive, NOT SSD) functions via the platter, a spinning magnetic disk, the most important part of decommissioning it is to destroy that platter and ensure the data on it is unrecoverable. As we pointed out above, there are quite a few rumors floating around the internet on how to destroy hard drives -- from muriatic acid to microwaves and more. But you shouldn't have to expose yourself to harmful chemicals; and do you really want to undertake a process that requires safety goggles?

If you want to have peace of mind knowing your data is fully wiped and scrubbed permanently from the face of the earth, then call in professionals like R4 Services. We are discreet, secure and professional. We'll either come to you to collect and transport the materials or you can stop by our facility. We confidentially shred all hard drives under the supervision of insured employees and issue a certificate of destruction upon completion. Our brand-new, state-of-the-art hard drive shredder can handle any number of drives you throw at it and will instantly reduce any drive to unrecognizable, metal bits. We're able to work with you in order to assist your organization in its compliance requirements.

For discreet and proper hard drive destruction, get in touch today.

Document Purging Season: The New Year Means Clearing Out Old Records

1/1/2020

Developing a retention schedule is critical to enhancing your company's security, profitability and regulatory compliance. But it’s also important to review your records annually and decide what can stay, and what can be purged. Just be sure to invest in secure, confidential document shredding services to protect your company’s critical information.

As we turn the calendar to a new year, now is a good time to review old documents and decide which records can be purged.

Before you begin sorting through old documents, make sure you have a retention schedule in place. Without a retention schedule, a company leaves itself exposed to potential legal issues, regulatory non-compliance and unnecessary storage costs.

When reviewing your retention program, consider the risks of keeping records past their legally-required time frame. Depending on your industry, you may be required to keep certain documents for a specified time period, and you may also be legally required to purge the documents after a certain date.

Every organization will come to their own conclusion on the timing of document destruction. It’s important to weigh the risk factors and your litigation strategy, and make the right decision on the timing of purging your company’s records.

Need help with securely destroying your confidential information this year? Let R4 Services help you achieve compliance and reduce costs.

Out With the Old, In With the New: Keys to Having a Document Retention Schedule

12/20/2019

Why You Need a Records Retention Policy

Document Retention Schedule

A major part of good record keeping is creating a functional records retention policy. With the amount of data companies collect these days, it’s not financially feasible to keep every bit of information indefinitely. A data retention schedule will help your company decide how long sensitive documents need to be kept and when they can eventually be destroyed. It consistently purges unnecessary data to make room for incoming information -- or to simplify, out with the old, in with the new. This will protect you from potential legal issues and unnecessary storage costs.

Since different types of documents need to be kept for different amounts of time, (see our previous blog post about what can stay and what can go) it’s important to consult with your legal team to figure out when document destruction can be green lit. For example, the medical community needs to abide by HIPAA laws when it comes to patient records, but not for their tax documents.

If You Lack A Records Retention Policy...

Lack of a retention schedule opens you up to all kinds of issues:

Efficiency plummets because it will take longer to sift through old data to find what you need.
Your office space can be better put to use. Do you want to use the office down the hall for storage space or another team member that can help you grow?
Storage is costly. Do you really need to have mountains of 20 year old paperwork lying around? (Assuming you don’t legally need them.)
Speaking of legal, old documents can be used against you in legal disputes. If you’re able to destroy them in compliance with the law, you should.

Your company’s data retention schedule will vary by industry and local laws, so consult your legal team.

R4 Services is able to store your documents for you, indexing them properly to save you time and money. And when the time finally comes for your documents to be destroyed, we ensure secure and proper destruction of any type of media -- from paper, to film, to x-rays. Contact us today to find out how we can save you time, money and space.