Businesses are at risk. Each day they generate sensitive documents that can range from personal information about their employees, credit card information about their customers and internal documents that define their plans for future growth and their current financial information. It all must be safeguarded and when the documents are no longer needed, they must be destroyed – some to the standards of government regulations like HIPAA. The safest way to meet all these standards is my hiring an on-site Paper Shredding Phoenix company.
Limit your exposure and protect your business, its finances and your good reputation. Make sure that all sensitive documents are destroyed when you are finished with them.
Here are 6 Reasons to Consider Hiring a Professional On-site Shredding Company.
It Could Save You Money. You may think that using an employee saves you money, but that is not necessarily the case. A good commercial shredder is expensive and will probably only accept a maximum of 20 pages at a time. A box of paper would then take 2 hours to shred. If you don’t have a continuous shred machine, your machine may overheat and your employee will have to wait for it to cool before it can be used again. Even if the employee only makes $10 an hour, shredding 4 boxes of paper a month with 8 hours of labor, costs you $80. That’s not cheap – and don’t forget to add the price of the shredder.
You Have A Secure Place To Drop Paper Waiting To Be Shredded. Shredding companies will provide you with a locked bin. When an employee is finished with a sensitive document, they drop it in the locked container. It’s safe until it’s shredded.
You Limit The Hands And Eyes On The Document. When sensitive paper goes straight to the bin, it’s not sitting out on someone’s desk waiting to be picked up. It’s not being handed from one employee to another until it gets to the person who is going to shred it. When you limit the number of people handling sensitive information, you protect yourself.
A Professional Understands And Meets Shredding Standards. If your company is bound to shred to a certain standard, such as HIPAA requirements, a professional company will know those standards and meet them by addressing Contingency Planning, Access Controls, Audit Controls, Data Integrity and User Authentication.
Your Waste Will Be Recycled. Putting it in a recycle bin in a plastic bag is no insurance that what you shred will be recycled. Sometimes, the recycling company will decide that it will take too much time to unknot the bag and recycle and they may throw it out. A shredding company knows how to make sure that their shredded paper is recycled. Ask about their policies.
Your Documents Are Shredded Before They Leave Your Company. On-site shredding is just that. A truck with a commercial shredder comes to your location. The contents of the bins are emptied into the shredder while you or a trusted employee watch. Your documents are completely destroyed before the truck leaves. You don’t have to worry about sensitive documents being transported or handled by anyone else. It’s a done deal.
If you’re worried about business identity theft or theft of information, you want to make sure that all confidential and sensitive documents are completely destroyed when they are no longer needed. Consider on-site professional shredding and feel secure.
It has become far too easy to fall prey to a criminal in today’s world. While you may not be a victim of violent crime, identity theft is one of the fastest growing crime categories. Whether you are in charge of your own business or not, you should still consider ways to protect both your business and customers from identity theft. That way you do not have to worry about being sued for a customer’s information getting into the wrong hands. There are minor changes you can make to prevent anything bad from happening.
Why Shredding is Important and Ways to Ensure it Happens
Paper shredding is really important because it is one sure way to destroy personal information that may be on documents. These documents include receipts, medical forms, invoices, and more. Just throwing these documents away leaves them at risk of getting into the hands of the wrong person. If you look up document destruction Phoenix, you can find even more information on why it is so important you shred documents you no longer need.
There are ways you can make sure that your business shred documents it no longer needs. By making a few changes you really will not have to worry about a customer’s personal information getting into the wrong hands.
Keep a Paper Shredder Close at Hand - Keeping a paper shredder at key points in your building will help make sure that documents actually get destroyed. That way a person can see exactly where a paper document they no longer need is supposed to go. There will be no confusion or question as to what is supposed to happen with old receipts and papers.
Hire a Paper Shredding Company - There are also companies that will take care of the paper shredding for you. All you have to do is gather the documents and put them in one place. Than those papers are securely destroyed and recycled.
There are many ways to handle paper shredding in your business. If you want to hire a company to take care of it for you contact TNT Paper Shredding Phoenix Company. They can come to you and destroy the documents for you. So set up an appointment today!
The Best Ways to Securely Store Documents with Personal Information
There are some documents that you are supposed to have for your entire lifetime. Documents such as your birth certificate, social security license, marriage license, and more. However keeping track of a few pieces of paper for your lifetime can be a challenge. After all, we often lose items like our cellphone and boxes, both of which are bigger than a piece of paper. That means that you need to find a secure way to store those documents. That way you always know where they are, and they are safe from people who would want to steal them. The best way to start is to keep all of those documents in some kind of folder.
Ways to Secure Those Documents
After you have those documents in a folder, there are a couple of steps you can take. Below are a couple of them.
File Cabinet - A file cabinet is a great way to store those documents. Just make sure that you find a file cabinet that locks and is fireproof.
Safe - A safe is also a great way to store those important documents. It is obviously secure and hard to break into unlike something with only a lock. Plus only you would know the code to open the safe so that makes it that much better.
Safety Deposit Box - This is also an option to store those documents. While it is not as convenient as the other two options, it is definitely secure.
There are many ways you can securely store important documents. That does not help for those documents that you no longer need such as old credit cards and receipts. Those should be shredded at the earliest opportunity. For that you should contact a company like TNT Document Destruction Phoenix Company. They can take all of those old documents and safely and securely destroy them for you. This is especially helpful if your business produces a lot of paperwork. That way you do not have to worry about anyone’s personal information falling into the wrong hands. Just search paper shredding service Phoenix and find a company right for you.
6 Reasons Why Businesses are at Higher Risk for Identity Theft
Business identity theft occurs when a business’s identity is used fraudulently for illicit gain. It’s not a security breach that releases information on customers; it’s when the business itself is targeted. Identity thieves are finding business identify theft may be easier than personal identity theft and more lucrative. Here are 8 reasons why:
1 - Businesses usually Have Larger Bank Balances. This makes them a better target. Even small businesses have bank balances in the thousands while personal accounts may only number in the hundreds.
2 - Opening Accounts and Getting Credit is Easier. Businesses want to do business with other businesses. A business client is going to be a larger account. Because of this opening a new account may be very easy and have a larger credit line.
3 - Businesses often have Favorable Payment Terms. A business may have a more flexible payment terms with 10 to 30 days before they have to pay an invoice. This gives thieves a window of opportunity to receive goods fraudulently and they can avoid the risk of early detection since immediate payment isn’t required.
4 - Businesses have Higher Credit Limits and Linked Credit Cards. Employees may have credit cards linked to the business account and its high limit. Without an expense approval process, transaction limits and other safeguards, these can be easy targets.
5 - Less Scrutiny for Large Purchases. The automated fraud screening programs used by financial institutions detect spending and purchasing patterns. If you ordered 30 new computers, the program might catch it; if they’re ordered under a business’s ID, it might not.
6 - Minimal Security. Many businesses, especially small businesses, do not normally have extensive security and oversight systems in place. Some don’t even realize that business identity theft is a possibility.
It is clear that business identity theft can be profitable for a thief and costly for a business. Technology may make identity theft easier, but it also makes it easier for businesses to review their finances. Most credit card accounts and checking accounts offer online access. It is wise to establish a habit of checking these accounts on a regular basis instead of waiting for a monthly statement. But, when that statement arrives, it should be reconciled quickly to make sure that every transaction is correct and one the business incurred – not a transaction made fraudulently.
Every business should have a safe process for handling documents. This should include having sensitive documents handled by the fewest possible people and safe storage. Documents with important financial information and other identifying information should be shredded when they are no longer needed. Leaving them stacked around waiting to be shredded is another risk. An on-site Paper Shredding Service Phoenix company will offer a business locked bins to hold such documents until they are shredded. With on-site shredding, documents are shredded at the business prior to being transported for recycling. This gives the business the advantage of watching their documents be shredded and limits the number of people handling the documents.
