Cost Savings Of Offsite Document Storage

Cost Savings - Offsite Document Storage

If you've got dusty old documents cluttering up the office or overflowing from filing cabinets and stationary stores then you have probably considered moving them out of the office and into a self-storage unit. There's no doubt these documents are absorbing what could be highly productive operational space. They're an eyesore at best and an occupational health and safety hazard at worst. Yet, whether it be due to good policy, strict need, or purely due to legal obligation we need to retain and maintain our "dead" documents and files.

Renting more office space is an option, but "operational" space like this comes with greater per square metre rental or purchase costs.

Hiring a self-storage unit is also an option - currently some 25% of self-storage customers are commercial businesses. The majority of these businesses use this seemingly flexible option as a means of freeing up office space for more core business activity. However, let's take a look at the costs savings of offsite document storage as opposed to a self-storage solution.

Storage Costs

Cheaper per square metre than office floor space, moving your archive documents into an self-storage unit will deliver an immediate cost efficiency to your business. Take a look however at the amount of usable space that you're paying for versus how much you actually use. Self-storage units generally come in various fixed sizes depending on the size of the facility. Irrespective of the storage space you require you pay for the minimum size required to store your documents.

Self-storage units are not designed with document storage in mind. There's no racking to make use of the vertical space, or to keep your documents off the ground. This means you pay for a lot of air within your storage unit.

Efficient document storage requires optimal use of vertical space to minimise the footprint of the facility - thus giving you more space at a lower cost. This design also means that you pay per box of storage - not an arbitrary amount based on inflexible square metre minimums.

You could potentially realise savings of 50% or more by moving your documents into an offsite document storage facility.

Activity Based Costs

Although difficult to calculate, there are substantial costs associated with packing, labeling, recording, transporting and retrieving your documents from a remote facility. It's not only the time and labour associated with staff visiting the self-storage facility, the greater cost is the opportunity of staff not undertaking their core duties. For each time they are asked to retrieve a document or place some additional files in storage you will be taking them away from their job function at a rate of pay much higher than contracting appropriately priced labour.

The Offsite Document Storage Solution

Using the services of a professional offsite document storage facility means that you benefit from the cost efficiencies they gain from having optimally utilised space, customised technology designed to manage and track your document efficiently, as well as appropriately priced labour for picking, packing, labeling and transporting your documents.

Contact us for a proposal to suit your needs and we'll show you how we can maximise the costs savings of offsite document storage for your business.