Moving to a Paperless Office: What to Do With Physical Archives

Paperless offices promise greater efficiency. Digital documents are easy to search and share, and they take up no office space.

But many businesses still have years of physical records. Filing cabinets are full, archive boxes are piling up, and some documents must be kept for legal or regulatory reasons.

A move to paperless working needs a plan for those existing records. This guide looks at when to digitise, store or securely destroy them.

Understand What Is in Your Archive

Before deciding what to do with your records, find out what you have. You do not need to inspect every page at this stage, but you should identify where documents are kept, how they are organised and roughly how much space they take up.

Sort Documents by Purpose

Grouping records makes the next steps easier:

• Active documents are still used regularly and may be worth digitising.
• Retention documents must be kept for a set period to meet legal or regulatory requirements.
• Historical documents may have future value, even if they are rarely needed.
• Obsolete documents have passed their retention period and have no ongoing use.

Check the retention requirements for each type of record before taking action. Tax records, employment files, contracts and industry-specific documents may all have different requirements.

Decide What to Digitise

Scanning every document may seem like the obvious route to a paperless office. In practice, it can take considerable time and money. Prioritising the files that will benefit most makes the project more manageable.

When Digitisation Makes Sense

Digitisation can be useful for documents that:

• Staff need to find and use frequently
• Must be shared between locations or with external parties
• Could deteriorate in physical storage

Digital files can be quicker to search and easier to share than paper records.

When Physical Storage May Be Better

A rarely used archive may cost more to scan than it does to store. It may also make little sense to digitise documents that are close to the end of their retention period.

Some original documents may need to remain in physical form even after they have been scanned. Check the requirements for each document type before disposing of originals.

Choose a Scanning Approach

You can scan a small number of documents in-house with office equipment. For a large archive, however, the staff time involved can be substantial. A professional digitisation service may be more practical for bulk scanning.

You can also use a mixed approach: digitise the records you need often and keep the rest in secure physical storage.

Plan for Documents That Will Remain Physical

A paperless transition does not mean every paper record must disappear. Documents that still need to be kept have several storage options.

Off-Site Archive Storage

Off-site storage frees up office space while keeping records available for retrieval. It can suit documents that must be retained but are rarely accessed.

Clarks provides document archiving services with secure storage and retrieval when you need a specific box. Our management system tracks stored boxes so we can locate them when requested.

Organised On-Site Storage

If records need to stay on your premises, bring them together in a designated archive area. Label boxes clearly and keep a record of their contents. This makes files easier to find than if they remain spread across desks, cupboards and storage rooms.

Storage During the Transition

You may need somewhere to hold records while you review them. Interim storage can clear working space immediately and give you time to decide which documents to scan, retain or destroy.

Destroy Documents Securely

Documents that are no longer needed should be disposed of securely. This includes obsolete records and, where appropriate, physical copies that are no longer required after digitisation.

Protect Personal Information

Paper records containing personal data should not go into general waste. Secure shredding helps prevent the information from being recovered. A certificate of destruction can also provide a record of how the documents were disposed of.

Clarks provides secure document destruction with certification. The destroyed paper is recycled.

Check Before Destruction

Do not destroy records until you have checked their retention periods and any need to keep the originals. Tracking when each category becomes eligible for destruction helps prevent both premature disposal and unnecessary storage.

Manage the Transition in Stages

Trying to deal with an entire archive at once can overwhelm a business. A phased plan lets you make progress while day-to-day work continues.

Start With the Highest-Priority Records

Focus first on documents that staff use often or that cause the most storage problems. Later phases can cover records that are rarely accessed.

Set aside the staff time, equipment and budget the work will need. If internal teams have limited capacity, external scanning, storage or destruction services may help.

Prepare for a Period of Mixed Working

Most businesses will use both paper and digital records during the transition. Make it clear where staff should look for each type of document and when processes will change.

Training also matters. Staff who are used to physical files need clear guidance on naming, storing and finding digital records.

Check Legal and Compliance Requirements

The right approach depends on the records your business holds. Before scanning or destroying documents, check:

• Whether an original physical document must be retained
• Whether the quality and process used for scanning meet your needs
• How long each record must be kept
• How retention dates will be tracked after digitisation

Scanning a document does not start a new retention period. Your record-keeping system should preserve its original dates and requirements when its format changes.

Avoid Common Transition Mistakes

A clear process can help you avoid problems such as:

• Taking on too much at once: Break the archive into manageable stages.
• Destroying records too soon: Review retention requirements before disposal.
• Leaving old archives untouched: Include existing paper records in the transition plan.
• Skipping scan checks: Confirm that digital copies are complete and legible.
• Forgetting digital backups: Put suitable backups in place before relying on scanned copies.

Start With a Clear Archive Plan

A paperless transition begins with understanding your existing records. Once you know what you have and how long it must be kept, you can decide what to digitise, store or securely destroy.

Clarks supports businesses across Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Berkshire and London with document archiving, business storage and secure document destruction.

Contact us or call 01494 774 186 to discuss your archive requirements.

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