Welcome to 2022! It’s a fresh, bright, new year and if you’re like most people, you’ve probably made some New Year’s resolutions. You’ve jotted down your plans to save more money, spend less, lose weight, stop smoking, maybe even master communication styles… But what about in your professional life? Do you have resolutions for your job?

What about your credit union operations, do you have resolutions for those? The new year is a great time to reexamine your credit union’s processes and find areas to improve upon. And if I might offer a suggestion, your document storage would be a fantastic place to start. So how about putting your document imaging system on a “diet” and making sure it starts “eating healthier”?

Start slimming down!

When is the last time you reviewed what’s saved in your imaging system and identified what “fat” is in there? Or in other words, have you identified and removed any documents that can be purged according to your retention schedule but for one reason or another haven’t been? Those documents are simply taking up storage space and cluttering your files, so delete them!

Next, how about a resolution to “lose some weight”? This resolution starts with having a well-defined retention schedule for all the documents in your imaging system. Don’t have one of those? Create one! Then apply it! Lose all the aged documents in your system, then “keep the weight off” by setting a regular schedule to do purges and keeping unnecessary calories out of the system; i.e. documents you’re saving but you don’t really need to be. Ask yourself what the purpose of the document is. Are you clicking save just because you can? Challenge your processes and make sure the documents that are being accumulated are necessary to be retained in the first place.

When it comes to “eating healthier”, I mean reviewing the quality of what you’re putting in your imaging system in the first place. Are you scanning efficiently? Using appropriate resolution and color depth? Are you only saving what’s needed (see above)? Are you keeping documents electronic versus going to paper and back to electronic? All these areas can be like junk food for your document imaging system if you aren’t paying attention. So, lose the “sugary snacks” and “fatty foods” in 2022! Look and see what’s going into your system and see where you can make improvements in file sizes, the number of files, etc. Keep your processes and documents lean!

Get a workout buddy!

When electronic document systems came to be, they quickly became out of sight out of mind, and well-defined retention schedules became the best-kept secret. However, knowing where to start with electronic systems and applying a retention schedule can be confusing. If you’re not sure where to start you may wish to engage an expert to help you lay out a retention schedule and apply it to your document imaging system as well as your paper records.