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Digital archiving

The archiving of important documents and data has been an important part of our society going back several centuries. It ensures that information is stored and preserved, either temporarily or permanently, and made available if necessary. But with growing amounts of information and data, more and more space is required for these archives. Fortunately, in this day and age, digital archiving provides a fantastic solution to an age-old problem.

What is document archiving?

Documents are your organization's fuel and foundation. In order to function effectively, the knowledge and data within your company needs to be readily accessible for those who need it. That's where document archiving comes in. This pertains to both physical documents and digital documents. It also involves data archiving. Data archiving usually pertains to various kinds of data: backup data and archived data.

Ways to archive documents

There are a variety of ways to archive documents -- here are a few:

Paper storage

The standard for many centuries. Invoices, bills, and other paper trails all exist physically on paper and are stored in physical folders, files, and cardboard boxes. This takes up valuable space, documents are susceptible to damage or theft, or difficult to access and maintain.

Scan on demand

This hybrid archiving method involves storing your documents physically, on paper, and requesting for a document to be scanned when you need it digitally. While somewhat more.

Digital archiving / digital storage

As digital transformation progresses, companies are increasingly switching to paperless document archiving systems. Documents are worked on and managed electronically, for instance with document management systems (DMS), while files and documents are stored securely using archiving software. This is the method we'll be focusing on.

Benefits of digital archiving

Electronic (or digital) archiving has many benefits. It's a space-saving long-term solution with a virtually limitless capacity for extension. When it comes to your document management, digital archiving saves you time, money, and even space. So what are the digital files you can store in a virtual archive or online archive? They can be anything your organization requires, from text files to image files, from videos to spreadsheets, and so much more. So what exactly are the most important digital archiving benefits? We've summarized them for you here:

Avoid tax setbacks

By choosing ECM software certified in accordance with domestic audit-proof archiving legal requirements and global standards such as ISO 16175-2, companies can rest assured that all relevant documents are archived in line with audit requirements. Not only can all information be retrieved at any time, but it is stored securely, completely, correctly, immutably, reproducibly, in machine-readable form and loss-free. Companies are able to directly provide internal and external auditors the documents they need, thus avoiding tax setbacks and legal ramifications.

 

Secure company knowledge

A central digital archive is the basis for pooling all of a company's know-how: It is a repository of important experiences and delivers information to employees when and where they need it. Electronic files add further useful functions. They bundle together information in the right business context — for instance on specific business processes and topics — to help employees easily find what they need and expedite work processes. Ideally, the DMS software supplements the archive with electronic files.

Minimize liability risks

With electronic archiving, companies have round-the-clock access to all important documents — e.g. relating to production, testing, inspections, deliveries, occupational health and safety, quality compliance and more. These documents are archived in line with audit requirements, meaning they can be accounted for at all stages of their lifecycle. Everything is logged, from when and how the document was created, to who changed what and how it was archived. This can offer crucial protection against legal and financial consequences in the event of liability issues.

Protect documents

With the right precautions in place, digital archiving (including audit-proof archiving) can protect information against destruction, loss, manipulation and theft. A comprehensive archiving solution tackles this in a number of ways, for example with authorization concepts. Companies can specify who is authorized to view, edit and delete which information.

Meet deadlines

When it comes to legal retention periods, not all business documents are equal: Different document types and forms are subject to different retention rules. Automatic retention periods and deletion deadlines are useful tools that help companies to ensure their archiving is fully compliant. They prevent early or accidental erasure and, when documents do need deleting (such as those containing personal data in accordance with EU GDPR), they provide proof of deletion.

Best practices of digital archiving with Doxis

  • Flexible archiving scenarios: audit-proof, electronic archiving of information, temporarily or permanently, centrally or in separate systems if required — e.g. for HR eFiles (multitenant architecture)
  • Secure: Fulfill compliance requirements, e.g. with access rights, automatic deletion deadlines and retention periods
  • Traceable: Seamless documentation of all actions undertaken in documents and in the process instance
  • Seamless storage across all media: Archive and retrieve images, documents, invoices, multimedia objects, emails, records, data from business applications and much more, regardless of format
  • Information in its context: Archive, manage, search and provide documents, data and process instances in the right business context with eFiles and comprehensive storage and search functions
  • High user acceptance: digital archive function for Windows, web and mobile devices as well as intuitive user interfaces with multilingual capability
  • Modern technology: Supports all common storage systems and functions to prevent system failure, data loss, unauthorized exercising of rights and much more
  • Scalable: Add users, tenants and business applications at any time and work with higher document and data volumes as needed.

Find out more about electronic archiving with Doxis »

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