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Nearly every matter a legal firm represents involves receiving or generating some type of confidential information. Lawyers who are provided such sensitive client information have an ethical and commercial obligation to keep their data and the data of their clients safe, secure and confidential. Most practices have a protocol for addressing documents while the case is current, but once the matter is closed, these files need to be properly indexed and stored. Firms must take steps to ensure that confidential files are kept in securely but can be accessed if again needed in a timely manner. Docu...

Today,  news   outlets across Australia have reported that ASIO officers swooped into ABC offices to retrieve thousands of top secret and classified government documents that were bought from a second-hand shop. The two filing cabinets contained a trove of sensitive documents, many of which were classified top secret. They were sold cheaply at a second-hand shop in Canberra, which stocked ex Government furniture. The safety of your records is of paramount importance to us. When you entrust us with your information, you can rest assured that it is being cared for in the right man...

Did you know that 17 January is known as the Ditch New Year’s Resolution Day? Good diet and exercise is replaced by binge watching Netflix and eating pizza. But for your business, starting the year with best practice’s in mind one new year resolution you shouldn’t break. Best practice in records management starts with the question, “Does my business have appropriate plans in place to protect the security of its information?” Professional, accountable and reliable records management can enhance your overall productivity, efficiency and security. Any interruption to your business could cost you ...

Data Privacy Day is on Sunday 28 January, an international effort to empower individuals and encourage businesses to respect privacy, safeguard data and enable trust. Data theft has rapidly become one of the world’s most prevalent crimes with billions of dollars being lost each year through credit card fraud, identity theft and scams. IBM recently announced the average cost of data breach to Australian businesses in the Ponemon Institute’s 2017 Cost of Data Breach Study: Australia 2017 . They reported that while the cost of data breach continues to decline,  it will still cost companies a...

January is the best month for preparing for the new working year. If some businesses have clients that are starting to wind down for the festive season, and work slows, then now is the best time to get the office in order. It’s not hard for staff to accumulate documents throughout the year, ones that could be important in the long-run. And, the last thing a company needs is for vital documents to be carelessly lost. What better time to archive your businesses documents than at the end of the year. Compu-Stor has everything you need in order to arrange the archiving of your documents. From larg...

Effective records management is vital for the transparency and accountability of Government. It enables good decisions to be made and facilitates the development and implementation of sound, evidenced based policy by ensuring the best information is delivered to the right person at the right time. It also enables Governments to be held to account for their actions and decisions. According to Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office advisory, a records management toolkit for Local Government, [1] records contain information that is a valuable resource and an important business asset. “ A systemati...

With 2017 almost gone, we wanted to pause for a moment to look at what Compu-Stor has accomplished as a company, and what the landscape looks like ahead in 2018. First of all, the Director’s want to say a big thank you to all our staff. Without their hard work, diligence and loyalty throughout the year, none of our achievements would have been possible. Our people are the back bone of the business and as a family owned company we enjoy seeing staff grow with us. Compu-Stor is constantly looking forward and evolving as a business. In 2017 we launched DTS Digital Transformation Solutions Is our ...

Last month National Preparedness Month was a timely reminder from US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to plan ahead, creating emergency plans for a time that a disaster may hit. [1] According to the agency, surviving the storm is just the first step. Getting back to business is often a harder challenge. Some disasters, like a hurricane, give you time to collect important items before you flee. Others, like a fire, offer no warning whatsoever. You’ve got enough on your mind when evacuating in the wake of a natural disaster. The last thing you’re thinking about is about what business d...

A timely reminder as to why your business information and customer records need to be held secure and safe has come from US recently with a Doctor’s self-lock storage unit broken into and more than 1,000 media records stolen. These most personal records were subsequently sold by the thieves, undermining patients trust in the Doctor and leaving them feeling vulnerable and exposed. Self-lock storage units are a popular storage solution in Australia, but should not be used for records management due to the real risk of this information being stolen, as in the US example, or destroyed while in sto...

The average office worker uses a staggering 10,000 sheets of copy paper every year. Each four-drawer file cabinet in an office holds up to 12,000 documents, takes up to 9 square feet of floor space and costs $1,500 per year. Every 12 filing cabinets require an additional employee to maintain these records, according to US based association, the Paperless Project . Today’s competitive business environment demands that people have timely access to their most critical files and records that can be essential to business success. Loss of these documents or delays in retrieving them is not an option...

When it comes to working out what kind of digital records management is best for your business, is it really fair to compare the Cloud to Information Management? What are the differences between the two? The Cloud, amongst other things, provides an internet based storage solution. It enables businesses and users to upload, and download, documents and files to a Cloud account, which can be accessed from anywhere, so long as you have an internet connection. An added advantage of the Cloud is the ability to collaborate. Cloud based apps like Google Docs, enables employees to work on a single docu...

When it comes to document storage, it’s not uncommon for Australian businesses to want to manage it in-house, believing this is the best way to save time and money. However, it has been proven that outsourcing your document storage is actually more cost effective, and efficient than keeping it in-house. How? Efficiency Every single person has their own way of filing, and if you have several different people responsible for handling and organising files, you will very quickly find there are several different filing methods being used in the one work place. With an external document storage comp...

Regardless of size, for many businesses and government entities it can be quite difficult to manage large volumes of paperwork in an organised and planned way to enable security and ease of access. If you are in an office that relies heavily on physical paperwork, you will find it is quite easy to misfile or misplace documents, which can be a costly problem to have. According to Price waterhouse Coopers, finding a lost document can potentially cost a company $122 per document in terms of downtime and lost billings. With that, they have also estimated that 7.5% of all company documents are...

The paperless office is a goal for many Australian businesses who want to streamline efficiencies, reduce environmental impact involved in creating paper, and hopefully gain some cost savings along the way. However, while Australian businesses are certainly becoming less reliant on physical documents, the coming of the ‘paperless office age’ has certainly not been achieved by most. A 2016  survey into Australian customer preferences of print and digital  found some results which demonstrate that it’s not just business processes that need to change to achieve a paperless office, but c...

Good medical records management is not only a very important aspect of running a medical practice or hospital records department, but it is also an integral measure to ensuring adherence to the compliance of various state and federal governance’s relating to the storage, management and retrieval of medical records. Records management should be a priority for all health departments and medical departments. Across all states, medical businesses that hold health information must take reasonable steps to protect medical records from misuse and loss through unauthorised access, modification or disc...

Digital transformation has often been placed in the court of IT due to its digital nature. However, as these digital changes are more about operational improvement rather than IT implementation, it should be the function of Operations to be the most important influencer for a truly successful digital transformation; with Operations working in partnership with a skilled IT team. Amongst the many tasks that an Operations Manager or Operations Team are charged with is efficiency and productivity; driving best practice throughout all areas of the business. The goal of digital transformation is to ...

Last month, Compu-Stor celebrated 30 years in business as a family owned business, transforming from a WA based document storage business and growing into a national information management company. Compu-Stor is proud of our heritage and our longevity in the business and the fluidity we have to continually innovate to remain relevant and continue to deliver products and services to help our customers. Before document management was an official business function, most businesses kept all their files in filing cabinets, and depending on the size of the business, rooms would be dedicated to keepi...

What price would you put on the information your business creates, saves and shares? Information about proprietary products and services – that’s valuable – after all, it’s your IP. What about information on your customers? It certainly helps to know your customers and what their purchasing habits are. What about day to day work product, emails, word docs, spreadsheets? These are your everyday work activities that would be frustrating to have to recreate if you lost them. When placing a price on preserving your organisation’s data integrity, it’s important to recognise that the true cost to yo...

Setting up the right record keeping system for your business will help you work efficiently, meet legal requirements and strengthen customer and staff relationships. Good record keeping can help you protect your business, measure your performance and maximise profits. There are certain record keeping requirements for businesses across all states of Australia, and depending on your industry, there may be specific laws and requirements related to your sector. Here we look at the three different types of ways businesses hold and store documents. The Hoarder At work, hoarders tend to hold on to pr...

Family continues to drive growth of Compu-Stor products and services Australia’s largest family owned document storage and information management business, Compu-Stor, is celebrating 30 years in business this month. The same year the West Coast Eagles made their debut, and Scott married Charlene in Neighbours, Compu-Stor was first realised by Peter Manford, who had gained his experience working at Brambles Manford. Brambles Manford was the result of a buyout of the original Manford family business by Brambles, who for a time operated under the Brambles Manford name. Today, Peter’s sons, Jeremy...