5 Facts About In-House vs Outsourced Document Shredding Services

All businesses create documents to record customer and client interactions and maintain employee records. While it’s important to store those documents for some time, both government regulations and personal preferences may make it necessary to destroy them.

When that happens, you have two choices. The first is to shred or otherwise destroy the documents in-house; the second is to outsource the shredding to a provider like Gilmore Services. With that in mind, we’ve put together 5 facts about in-house vs. outsourced document shredding services to help you decide.

#1: Shredding Documents Yourself is More Expensive Than You Might Think

It might surprise you to learn that you can save money by hiring a document shredding service. Business owners sometimes underestimate the worth of their employees’ time. When you shred documents yourself, you must dedicate time to doing it.

If you have a large number of documents to shred, that time can add up. It’s important to calculate how long shredding will take – and how much it will cost you in employee pay and lost time on other projects – before you rule out outsourcing your document shredding to a local provider.

#2: Document Shredding Services Adhere to High Standards

You can buy a shredder at any office supply store or big box store, but will using it to shred your sensitive information ensure that you’re not putting your clients and employees at risk? The answer might be no.

Most shredders cut documents into thin strips or confetti. That may be sufficient to protect you, but with truly sensitive documents that include financial records or health information, you want to be sure.

Gilmore Services is NAID-certified. That means that we voluntarily submit to regular, unannounced audits to ensure that we properly dispose of our clients’ documents. We also adhere to Department of Defense standards for destruction of electronic media.

#3: A Professional Shredding Service Will Ensure FACTA Compliance

If your company retains customer credit card information and other financially-sensitive information, you must be compliant with the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, more commonly known as FACTA. FACTA disposal rules went into effect in 2005 and your company must adhere to them.

In-house document destruction can be risky for companies when it comes to FACTA compliance. By outsourcing your document shredding, you can ensure FACTA compliance and provide your customers with the comfort of knowing that their records will be handled properly and destroyed in accordance with the law.

#4: Professional Shredding Services Can Destroy Paper and Electronic Records

You probably know that a skilled technician (or a determined hacker) can recover electronic files even after you have deleted them. You may store sensitive information electronically, and if you do, it’s essential to destroy it as required by law.

One of the biggest benefits of partnering with a shredding service is that you can be certain that your electronic records have truly been destroyed. You won’t need to worry about someone being able to reconstruct your records because the service you hire will follow FACTA, HIPAA, and DOD standards to make sure that the data is not retrievable.

#5: Outsourced Shredding Services Will Help You Stick to a Document Shredding Schedule

In the busy day-to-day operations of your business, you must prioritize tasks and projects to meet the demands of your clients. For some companies, that means putting off document destruction because it feels less important than other projects that might be on your plate.

However, delaying record destruction can put you in violation of governmental regulations and put your business at risk. Partnering with an outsourced shredding service will ensure that your document shredding happens as scheduled. It will be easy to stick to your schedule when you know that you have a reliable, NAID-certified partner to help you.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that in-house shredding might seem convenient, but it can cost you time, money, and security in the long run. To learn how Gilmore Services can help you destroy sensitive documents safely, please click here.