Proper document archiving is essential for any individual or business. If done correctly, you avoid compromising data privacy, misplacing important paperwork, and even putting yourself in legal trouble when you fail to comply with Lithuanian laws on document management.
We will start by discussing why document archiving is important and what challenges you will encounter. Next, we will help you identify your archiving needs. Then, we will discuss how to archive your documents, including preparing them and selecting the right archiving method. Finally, we will discuss how to archive company documents.
Let’s get started.
The Importance of Proper Document Archiving
Benefits of an Organised Archive System
The reasons why we should properly archive documents are just as important as how to archive documents.
- You ensure personal and customer privacy and data security;
- You improve workflow by making document access and retrieval easier and more accurate;
- You simplify space management by splitting documents into what is physically needed and what documents can be digitised.
Three Common Challenges in Document Archiving
When you first tackle how to archive your documents, you will encounter these three main hurdles:
- Adequate Data Security
One of the biggest challenges of document archiving is protecting your or your customer’s privacy and data security. Improper archiving standards could risk unauthorised individuals accessing physical or digital records of privileged information.
- Creating a User-Friendly Archive System
A well-organised archiving system allows you to find the documents you need easily. It also means that a new employee could easily understand and adopt the system successfully. Creating a simple yet effective archiving system gets harder the larger the scope of the archive.
- Managing Your Storage Space
For effective document archiving, you will need to manage both physical and digital spaces. Physical spaces need an environment that is stable and secure, while digital spaces need hardware and software that is stable and secure.
Assess Your Archiving Needs
Identifying Documents That Need Archiving
Before you can ask how to archive documents, you must first pinpoint what documents need archiving. To do this, you need to:
- Consult your company policy on document retention;
- Engage with all stakeholders to establish what documents they consider important day-to-day and which are eligible for archiving;
- Consider the age and relevance of documents;
- Remember the legal requirements for storing certain documents (discussed in detail below).
Legal and Regulatory Requirements for Business Archives
Here are some rules and regulations of document storage you should consider:
- Paragraph 3 of Article 2.4 of the Civil Code of the Republic of Lithuania sets out how every business should properly store documents to remain accessible as people and organisations require;
- Article 18810 of the Law on Administrative Offences sets out fines and sanctions for failing to meet legal document storage requirements;
- The Index of Time Limits for Storage of General Documents, confirmed by order No. V-100 of 2011 sets out how long specific documents need to be stored. The storage limit for documents relating to fields of public administration is 10 years. Documents relating to salary accounting or labour relations must be stored for 50 years. Business files must be ready for archiving within one year of completion. This means that documents for 2024 need to be prepared for archival storage in 2026;
- Article 2 of the Law on Documents and Archives sets out the rules that govern facilities like SPACE24, which offer simple and safe document storage for businesses and individuals.
Preparing Documents for Archiving
Sorting and Categorising Documents
Let’s look at the first steps in preparing documents for archiving.
- Establish the categories needed for archiving purposes, such as personal files, contracts, client files, and financial documentation;
- Label each document within one of these categories. Use a physical sticker on a document storage sleeve or enter this information into a digital document’s metadata;
- Next, categorise documents by date to keep track of the life cycle of a document so you know when it will become a candidate for archiving.
Remove Unnecessary Items
The next step in how to archive company documents is to remove all unnecessary items and paperwork. You will be looking for:
- Duplicate documentation;
- Drafts or early versions of documents that have been superseded;
- Physical items like staples and paperclips;
- Acid-containing materials like tissue paper or non-archival cardboard.
Choosing the Right Archiving Method
Physical vs. Digital Archiving
Physical archiving is best for protecting original documents for legal purposes. It is also a future-proof system that is not limited by current technologies. Physical archiving is vulnerable to environmental risks like dampness or physical degradation and requires a lot of space.
Digital archiving is best suited for documents that need to be easily and quickly accessed. You save an immense amount of space with digital archiving. Digital documents risk cyberattacks if your digital storage mediums are connected to a network in any way.
When deciding how to archive your documents, the best solution is to use a hybrid approach that combines physical and digital storage.
Selecting Appropriate Physical Storage Containers and Materials
The physical storage mediums available to you play a huge role in how to archive your documents.
Cardboard Storage Boxes
Pick archival-quality, acid-free boxes with reinforced corners for safe, stable stacking.
Document Sleeves and Binders
Use Mylar or polyester document sleeves and binders. Sleeves and binders made from PVC can release acidic chemicals that, over time, damage archived documents.
Filing Cabinets
Fireproof metal cabinets are the most secure way to store archived documents. Your filing cabinets must be lockable to prevent the risk of unauthorised access.
Digital Document Archiving Best Practices
Now that we have discussed how to prepare and archive documents for archiving let’s look at recommended guidelines for proper digital storage.
- Consistent file naming conventions used across all departments are a must;
- Include metadata information in your documents, such as the author and date of creation;
- Regular backups of your digital documents will prevent potential data loss through, for example, hard drive failures;
- Use common, non-proprietary file formats to store digital documents, including PDF/A for documents, TIFF for images, and TXT for text-only documents.
SPACE24 Can Help With Document Archiving
This guide has set out how to prepare documents for archiving and how to archive your documents, but we have yet to discuss how to make space for storing your physical documents. That is where SPACE24 comes in.
SPACE24 is a great facility in Lithuania for safely and affordably archiving your business or personal documents. Our document storage services are protected by state-of-the-art security features, and you can easily access your documents whenever you need them.If you need someone to help declutter your home or office so that you have more room for your paperwork, SPACE24 can help you with that, too! We also offer affordable and safe student storage.