Electronic archiving: why?

The advantages of scanning your documents and storing them electronically:

smaller by volume reduction of 100 times;
fast by lightning-fast access by: date, number, client;
avoids need for long-term physical storage;
safer by storage of copy in Merak’s e-bunker.

< Read part 1 first

Traceable and confidential electronic archiving

There are a good number of companies who provide scanning, archive or back-up storage services. But none of them with the combined activity and capacity of Merak. Everything is in-house, under the ISO 9001:2000 certificate. Your guarantee, and ours, of quality, traceability and confidentiality.

Merak has become a synonym for ‘archiving’ – it is our ‘core business’. So we are obligated to ourselves to set the tone in the archiving world and to keep our finger on the pulse of everything that happens there. In order to advise well in regard to data formats and media carriers. For example, can your computers still read the large floppies? After all, they are already more than a decade old… So think twice before entrusting your digital future to an ‘archivist’.

Electronic archiving demands back-ups

Merak stores back-ups of the digitized documents in its vault for magnetic and optical carriers. Here, they are protected against electromagnetic radiation, espionage and theft. Upon request, they can even be safeguarded in our e-bunker, our Belgian Fort Knox, built to withstand the e-bomb, a fire of 1200 degrees, even a crashing airliner. And paper originals can be safely stored in our climate-controlled archive facilities.

What does electronic archiving cost?

Less than you think. With Merak the costs are always 100% variable. You know the exact price per document, based on the electronic space actually used. Everything included, with no unexpected supplements for bandwidth or number of downloads!

Do I have to keep the paper originals?

The law and electronic archiving

If there is no applicable legal retention requirement, the originals can be destroyed. In most countries they are working feverishly to establish guidelines for good corporate governance, in the wake of the American Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) from 2003. This law obligates the companies to which it applies to maintain complete control of all company processes with financial implications. Electronic archiving can play a vital role here.

In Belgium there is still lot of uncertainty in the regulations on retention requirements for electronic documents. Fortunately, Merak is staying up with the game for you. Ask for the brochure ‘Legal retention requirements’.

Electronic archiving for which documents?

Documents which call for electronic archiving include:

unhandy (blueprints)
valuable (deeds, contracts)
active or registered (invoices, delivery vouchers)
sections (lay-out designs)

> Electronic archiving