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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...

Compu-Stor is proud to continually implement new and improved systems, policies and procedures, reinforcing our ongoing commitment to health, safety, environment and quality. This commitment is shared across the entire organisation and is deeply embedded in our company’s culture and business processes. We are thrilled to have recently updated our certification ISO 14001 Environmental, ISO 9001 Quality and AS/NZS 4801 OH&S. Compu-Stor achieved this third-party triple certification through Bureau Veritas, a world leader in testing and inspection ad certification services. While ISO certifica...

The development of digital technologies has resulted in the convenience of expanding knowledge. This access to at your fingertips data means businesses owners are able make business decision in almost real time, making a real impact on the business bottom line. It’s a simple formula:  Data = Information = Knowledge The purpose of an information management system is the quick and economical retrieval of files. A robust information management system should offer instant access to all your records in a way that is easy to search and retrieve. Furthermore, a good system will also facilitate w...

A single source of truth is a single point of access and modification for a data element. It requires that all access is for the same copy of data. In records management, it comes down to structuring and modelling the system so that every data element, in this case records, is stored exactly once. Single source of truth is a practice and strategy that helps to ensure that data is reliable, accurate and secured. Recently, public sector directed news site,  The Mandarin , talked about the Government’s move to a digital-first footing and the opportunity digital transformation poses for busin...

With the passing of the Notifiable Data Breaches Bill, all entities will need to now report data breaches to the Australian Information Commissioner. The essential goal of this mandatory reporting legislation is to avoid data breaches and to mitigate and limit the negative impacts when data is lost or stolen. While the laws will give  Australia some of the strictest disclosure rules in the world , this new legislation only covers Australian Government agencies and private organisations with an annual turnover of more than $3 million, the same threshold as the Australian Privacy Act introd...

In February this year, the Australian Senate passed a bill establishing a mandatory requirement to notify the Privacy Commissioner and affected individuals of ‘eligible’ data breaches. The Privacy Amendment (Notifiable Data Breaches) Act 2016, amends Australia’s Privacy Act 1988 and is slated to take effect on February 22, 2018 if no earlier date is proclaimed. The new Notifiable Data Breach Bill covers most Australian Government departments and agencies – except for intelligence agencies, as well as all private sector and not-for-profit organisations with annual revenue of AU$3 million (US$2....