Organizations across many industries are tasked with documenting their adherence to various regulatory requirements. From data protection laws like GDPR to industry-specific regulations, the compliance effort can be significant. In this blog post, we highlight some of the challenges and strategies for effectively documenting compliance with regulatory bodies. Read on…
Over the last 28 years, our company has consistently centered its mission on enhancing access to critical documents. Initially, this involved the conversion of paper documents into digital formats. Fast forward to the present, our commitment to facilitating better access remains unwavering. This dedication has manifested through the development and operation of FileStar, our proprietary software solution.
Our evolution has been marked by simplicity and effectiveness. Transitioning from a predominantly service-oriented business to a software-centric model, our core focus on improving document access has remained constant. We’ve navigated the adoption of emerging technologies judiciously, avoiding the lure of hype while maintaining a measured pace of growth.
I’ve been in the working world for long enough to have some credentials – 38 years to be exact. If I was advising my children, I would strongly suggest that they get back into the office as many days a week as possible and especially on Friday. As a father, I believe that is good advice for younger workers.
As a business owner whose company provides a cloud workflow and critical document archive solution, that could be shooting myself in the foot. The more people who work remotely, the more demand there is for businesses to have great solutions for remote workers to be productive. But I think my fatherly advice is the correct advice overall and here’s why.
Continue reading “Fatherly advice. Get back to the office.”
The internet is amazing and it seems will shortly be even more amazing when Bing and Google fully deploy their AI powered search engines. Finding information quickly is already simple and fast, especially if you have a pretty good idea of what it is you are looking for. When AI enters the picture, the picture literally could be significantly better.
Simple and fast search is great. But the degree of trust in the search result is based on the effort you make to get comfortable with the answer. A few clicks to alternative information maybe or just some level of trust in the source website. As the level of sophistication and depth of the questions being asked of AI increase, so too will the degree of trust needed in the result. And hence the need for endnotes.
Continue reading “Endnote, what’s that?”
Everyone does a top ten best or ten most list, especially at the beginning of the year. Top ten this or top ten that. But what about the bottom? What would that look like if we had the bottom five; five lowest played songs of 2022, five business ideas that fizzled by mid-year, five worst investments of 2022. That last one is real.
Can it help us to understand the five worst of something? Yes, absolutely that can be very helpful if for no other reason than to raise awareness. So here is a hypothetical list of five worst business operation decisions of 2022:
Banks and other financial institutions have a requirement that all officers must take two consecutive weeks off work. The reason, which is advocated by the FDIC, is so that the institution has a better chance to uncover fraudulent activity. If the employee is gone for an extended period, strange correspondence and irregular transactions handled by the backup employee could expose the fraud.
However, irregular and strange don’t only relate to fraud. That type of activity can be related to current business processes. Our last post was about how costly exceptions to the standard business process seem to go unnoticed because managing the exception becomes routine for that employee. Therefore, whenever there is employee turnover or extended PTO, plug in a trusted squeaky wheel and take notes.
Continue reading “Go ahead, take two weeks off”
Try to remember the days of all files being on a shared network drive or all data in spreadsheets. Try to remember creating and sharing the responsibility of managing a spreadsheet. What was the largest group of cohorts that you worked with to create a spreadsheet? Is that easier now than before? If you need to go back and find the final version of that file, is it easy to do? Is it easy to share internally and externally? Do you even need to create spreadsheets anymore?
Is your world any better now that you have implemented that all-encompassing, do all solution be it ERP, contract management, collaboration, or document management solution? Is it easier to create, collaborate on, find and share information? Is there better continuity after employee turnover? What is the best solution? Is it one mega app or is it best of breed? Is simpler better or not? Better still, does what we have actually work? Let the debates and exploring continue!
Continue reading “How old are you?”
There was a time when all important company information was on a shelf or in a file cabinet. Well organized companies could be fairly satisfied that people could find legal documents in the legal department and accounting files in the accounting department. And with photocopiers and overnight delivery services, documents could even be shared. When the department appointed a czar to manage their stash of documents, it all seemed to work even better.
But we all know how the story ends. The czar retired, the company bought four other companies, people forgot the alphabet and this new-fangled computer thing arrived. Then people weren’t so happy. Documents weren’t easy to find. However, with email and the internet, documents did become easier to create and share, a bright spot. So no, file rooms are not making a comeback, not really in a physical sense.
Continue reading “Are file rooms making a comeback?”
You or your co-workers have been away from the office for a long time now. What are you missing? That is not a question about certain people or favorite lunch spots. It’s a question about information. Has this experience exposed deficiencies or nurtured already advancing digital processes?
Some companies are finding that there were still some hard copy documents that they needed access to. Maybe it was just random documents that were slow to enter the digital realm. These are the documents that come in to certain people directly, but take a long time to become digital and accessbile to all. Maybe it is a certain type of document like drawings or archived customer files that have been more difficult or costly to convert. It may be time to re-evaluate the cost benefit of getting those documents scanned or implementing a centralized digital mail room.
Continue reading “Yep we need that”
As we kicked off our 25th year in business in September, Millennia Group did not wait around for the New Year to start anew. Here’s what’s new:
New Facility – We’re moving to a new facility on December 1st, 2020 with a configuration to maximize our security, efficiency and office flexibility.
New Employee – Welcome to Kevin Turner our new senior software developer. He comes to Millennia Group with 11 years of experience at a national software solutions provider.
New Equipment – All new high-speed scanning equipment to help you convert those critical paper documents and plans/drawings to mobile friendly digital and a new IP phone system for even better customer support.
New Features – FileStar has new features and benefits (A/P workflow, new integrations, improved notifications and more.)
New Tools – FileStar Agent to keep your network drive in sync with your EDMS. Call us to learn more.
What does this all mean for our customers and future customers? It means we will be more efficient and more effective in providing our customers with workflow and document management solutions, document scanning services and data migration services.
As we start our 25th year in business, we are as dedicated as ever to being the best service provider in the document management industry. If your new flexible workplace rules have resulted in employees struggling to gain access to critical documents or your work processes have bogged down, contact us now!
These 9 suggestions are meant to help your company come out of this pandemic with a fresh, invigorated attitude and a platform ready to take advantage of the opportunities that come your way. And, if your company has a document management system, substitute “network drive” with the name of that document management system. Good luck and can’t wait to see you on the other side of this.
Top 9 Pandemic Pajama Plan Items:
Having clean data is important for running any business. Clean data being defined as accurate, suitable for its use, organized and complete. Clean data means revenue is maximized, the IRS stays at bay and your strategy sessions are effective. However, what once seemed clean can end up looking very dirty when that data is exposed through a different lens.
What worked as good data in the old accounting system may fall short in a new system. A well-organized network drive full of supporting files can look like a spaghetti bowl when trying to migrate the files into a document management system. No big deal if the data isn’t perfectly clean, it’s worked so far. That may be true, but what are you missing out on?
True, the old data might have seemed like it worked just fine. But there is some reason that a new system was chosen, maybe that was part of a merger or the old system was inadequate in other ways like reporting or analysis capabilities. And don’t forget, that data might look clean to a user that has been with the company for 10 years, but a new employee might think otherwise.
Trying to get data clean can be a difficult and costly task. Assigning new codes to data or modifying existing flags to meet new requirements takes time and effort. Be prepared to spend serious time taking a deep dive into your existing data to understand how it may relate to the new solution. Don’t forget that there should be a benefit from this analysis, like creating a better view of customer demand or finding errors that have caused higher costs or lower revenue.
Generally speaking, more granularity in the data is better, but getting there costs more. For instance, maybe your client contracts contain a renewal notice date, but that date was never recorded in your tracking database. The solution is to open each contract, find the data and enter it in the new system. Or possibly all documents that were inherited as part of an acquisition were scanned as one big client PDF and now you want the contract separate from the correspondence and statements. All of this takes time, but it will pay off.
Look at the needs of the company. Look at what additional information and uses can come from better, cleaner data. Understand how your existing or new solutions can utilize this new data. Then make some assumptions about the costs and you will be able to determine if the effort is worth it. Just remember, at some point, a change will most likely be necessary, so start to chip away at what looks like clean data but maybe is not.
Millennia Group provides workflow and document management solutions including data clean up and migration services. For more information go to www.mgdocs.com or contact us at info@mgdocs.com.
To programmatically or systematically delete files that are no longer legally required or relevant to the business (“Records”) means there must be a few things in place first. The company will need a records management policy that describes the document classifications (legal record, business record, junk), specifies generally what files fall under each classification and then states the legal or business retention period. The retention period is the duration (months/years) the file must be retained before it should be destroyed. For instance, retain the customer contract for 3 years after the term expires. So instantly this highlights some basic challenges. All files will need to be classified when the file is created or received, including the date of the file. Secondly, there must be a way to search through all of the company files, where-ever those files reside, to find the ones that meet the criteria for deletion. Then, and here is the most difficult part – someone needs to actually delete the files! The benefits of having a records management program in place, as previously mentioned, include less clutter so good information is easier to find and less space, in this case, less gigabytes of storage, which might save some money. There is also better security over sensitive data and lower exposure to litigation. Even if it is an ethical, well run business, frivolous lawsuits still cost money and therefore, the ability to quickly prove that no smoking gun exists, is a benefit. Many document management systems provide the ability to classify documents when they are added to the system. Many also have the ability to programmatically find and list documents that meet the retention periods and are ready for deletion. But users still don’t always delete those files, despite wanting the benefits of de-cluttering. We have added the ability to hide “retired” information from standard searches into our document management solution. We have also added the ability to highlight information that is old, but maybe not at the point where it has met the retention period. So while we understand the benefits of decluttering, we also understand the fear of wiping out information that could, just maybe, once in a blue moon, possibly, come in handy. Millennia Group provides workflow and document management solutions that are flexible, effective and smart. For more information – www.mgdocs.com, info@mgdocs.com or (630) 279-0577 x122.
