Now is always the right time to start your paperlite journey

IPA Insolvency Practitioner newsletter, September 2024

Article by Stefan Chetty, Director, Restore Records Management.

When is the best time to start your ‘paperlite’ journey? There’s only one answer and it’s: right now!

That might sound counter-intuitive if you’re dealing with insolvency and in a hurry to get your inventory in secure storage quickly.

But the good news is that starting the digital journey can happen any time.

At Restore Records Management we work with accountancy firms and specialist practitioners across the UK to ensure corporate recovery and insolvency proceedings go off without a hitch.

But we also like to tell our customers that there are some big opportunities ahead. And with the right planning it might even prove to be the start of their ‘paperlite’ journey.

Not heard of paperlite? Well, think of it as the best possible alternative to going ‘paperless’, which will be far more familiar.

What does paperlite look like?

Paperlite is a fantastic alternative to going fully digital in one go, and the perfect first step on the digital journey.

For many businesses, diving headfirst into a full-scale digital transformation can feel like swimming against the tide.

Especially when dealing with vast archives of paper records spanning decades, or even centuries. 

Digital transformation projects don’t always go smoothly, either.

Why? Many of these failures come down to financial constraints. Often businesses find that scanning every single document simply isn’t financially viable. 

Plus, you’ve got hurdles such as a lack of digital skills, technical issues, management meltdowns, and employees giving the side-eye to culture change.

This is where a hybrid paperlite approach comes in, bridging the gap between the physical and digital realms. 

How the solution works for you

The system sees some of your inventory scanned and digitised – the records that you use or retrieve most often, for instance.

But others remain stored in physical form, but with added technology that makes them easier to find and retrieve when you do need them.

This might include every record being tagged and scan-on-demand services made available, for instance. You’ll also be able to manage those records through an online portal – but without the expense of scanning them all in the first place.

It’s an ideal solution for businesses who are daunted by the digital journey or who don’t have the budget to do it all at once.

It also means you don’t waste money scanning records that you may never actually need in future.

Secure destruction is also part of a ‘paperlite’ solution. Because if you have records that are past their retention date, what is the point of keeping them at all? In fact, just having them in storage could lead to data protection issues.

The good news is that a paperlite solution can be put in place at any time. So why not take the opportunity to do it now? 

Restructuring or insolvency doesn’t have to be the end of a data journey. It could be the start of a new one for your business records.

To find out more visit www.restore.co.uk/records.

Please note that guest content does not necessarily represent the views of the IPA.