Your Prep for Busine Grow Starts Now by Ren Grajales

Even while winter was still dark and deep, home improvement stores were trotting out bags of tulip bulbs and mulch and setting out gardening primers in the magazine racks. Why? Because it's never too soon to start planning.

Entrepreneurs need to make similar preparations for sowing the seeds of their growing business-especially when it comes to weeding out the paperwork they need on hand.

Banish Your Paperwork Pests

A 2012 Forbes article calculated that 543,000 U.S. companies were launched monthly in 2011. Sadly, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that about half of those businesses are likely to fold within five years. One major culprit? Unexpected growth, says the Small Business Administration.

Are you surprised? Don't be. Growth drives revenue and expenses, including costs from increasing paperwork. Add more personnel? At 50 employees, the Affordable Care Act kicks in. Add a production facility? Now you face environmental and safety reporting to state and federal agencies. Add overseas sales? Customs, currency tracking and even the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act now apply.

Organizing your records can be overwhelming, but you don't have to go it alone. Like my neighbor who visits the local nursery with plant fungus queries, you can tap into the experience of a trusted partner. Its expert team can help you answer three key questions.

#1: What records do we need to keep?

You already know the basics: contracts, leases, payroll records and so on. Beyond these, however, a growing company requires increasing interaction with various government agencies. A trusted partner can help keep you in compliance with local, state, federal and industry regulations.

#2: Which records do we need to access regularly?

Some need to be at your fingertips; you can store others offsite to free up office space and provide disaster-proof backup. Knowledge of industry best practices also helps here.

#3: How long do we need to store records?

Every form goes through a regulatory lifecycle. A smart shredding strategy destroys obsolete paperwork. You can shred it yourself, but that comes with its own set of perils.

Here's a better idea: Team up with a company offering secure document destruction of paper, CDs, hard drives and other media while providing a verifiable audit trail with certificates of destruction. You save storage space and money while meeting the compliance requirements of privacy and information disposal laws at the federal and state levels.

Once you've established a plan to manage your records, clue in your employees about their role in it-and their role in your master plans to grow the company. Together you can cultivate something beautiful.

LINK:	http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2014/service-lines/small-business/your-p...
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