Why Keeping Documents in Emails & Folders is Risky | Safer with My eOffice DMS

Introduction

 In our digital-first world, businesses are faced with thousands of files each day, such as invoices, contracts, employee records and client communication. Many organizations still store their important files in emails or in local folders. While this solution may seem easy, it puts your business at risk of losing documents, becoming non-compliant, and being inefficient. 

 The new and smarter way to store your documents is through a Document Management System (DMS), such as My eOffice eDMS, which will ensure your documents are stored in a secure way, organized, and you can access them anywhere and anytime. Let’s discuss the risks of keeping documents in a folder or a computer-generated email and how a DMS will revolutionize the way documents are managed. 

Risks of Storing Documents in Emails or Folders

1. Data Loss Limited Data Backup

Emails and local folders are susceptible to losing valuable data because they can easily be deleted by accident, lost due to hardware failure, or attacked by a cyber-hacker. Once you lose a document in an email or folder, you may not have any way to recover it.

2. Version Confusion

Having multiple people on your team editing a document and sending it via email makes it easy to confuse the version you are working on, which leads to embarrassing errors, duplicating efforts, or miscommunication.  

3. Security Issues

 Emails are the preferred target for hackers and, if you are saving sensitive business documents in your email inbox, they can gain access to them through phishing, weak passwords, or compromised email accounts.  

4. Compliance

 Certain industries such as healthcare, finance, or government require strict regulations for documentation. Emails or folders may not have proper audit trails, tracking capabilities of who accessed your documents, or encryption. 

5. Inadequate Search and Retrieval

 Searching through an overflowing inbox for an old contract, or searching through a document you saved in a folder you made with hundreds of files inside, takes a long time. Employees can spend valuable hours trying to navigate to find the document, which can adversely affect productivity. 

Why a Document Management System (DMS) is Safer 

1. Central and Organized Storage

DMS allows for a cloud-based, central, and organized place to store all your files. There is no need to sift through different inboxes or searching through a personal folder on your PC. 

2. Increased Security

DMS has other security features such as role-based access, encryption, and audit trails, which ensure that only authorized users will have access to sensitive files.  

3. Automatic Versioning

When an edited file is saved in a DMS, you get both the edited version, as well as the original version as a reference. Users won’t have the concerns about whether the file they are viewing is the latest version,

4. Better collaboration

 The team can work in a file, add comments, updates to timelines, or collaborate all in one central and secure place instead of long email chains.  

5. Compliance and Legal Protection

 A document management system provides businesses with built-in compliance tools, document retention policies, and sharing tools to ensure that the business is operating legally and in compliance with government regulations. 

6. Faster Search and Retrieval

Many DMS features include intelligent quick file search features, which enable employees to find a file quicker using keywords, tags, or metadata rather than spending hours searching for files. 

Conclusion 

Though you may have used emails and folders for a long time, they expose your business to security risks and inefficiencies while also inviting compliance issues. There is a far safer, smarter, and more efficient way to manage documents through a Document Management System (DMS), like My eOffice eDMS.  

Stop allowing your business to be unnecessarily reliant on risky storage methods, and embrace My eOffice eDMS to protect your documents with confidence. 

A DMS, like My eOffice eDMS, is a smarter and safer way to store your documents and ensures your documents are stored securely and organized– while also being accessible at any time. I want to walk you through why storing documents in emails or folders is risky and how a DMS will change everything about document management.