Guide
Records management
for Irish business.
Business records are kept for years, called for at short notice and destroyed when your auditors say their time is up. Cyclone Archive collects, stores, catalogues, scans and shreds them for Irish businesses from a secure facility in Finglas, Dublin, all on 1 account.
What records management covers for an Irish business
Records management is how a business looks after the records it has to keep, from the day a file is closed to the day it is destroyed. For a business with boxes of paper, it comes down to 5 decisions:
- Where the records are kept, and how secure that place is
- How a single file is found and brought back when someone asks for it
- Which records are worth digitising
- Who sets how long each record is kept
- How records are destroyed, and what proves it was done
Cyclone Archive handles every one of them for Irish businesses, on the same account.
Storing business records off-site
Off-site storage moves the boxes out of your office and into a secure warehouse, and gives you back the room they filled. With Cyclone Archive it works like this:
- Call before 12 and we collect the next working day, Monday to Friday.
- Every box has its own barcode before it is collected, on labels we print and post to you.
- Your boxes are scanned on collection and managed securely from your door to the shelf.
- Each box goes to a numbered shelf position in our security-controlled warehouse in Finglas, with a movement history for every box and file.
- Any box, or a single file from inside one, comes back the next working day, and same-day delivery is also available on request.
Loose files go into our double-walled archive boxes, built for years on a shelf, and the A4 sub-archive box replaces the lever arch folder in pure recyclable cardboard.
Finding a file in off-site storage
When someone asks for a file, the question is which box it is in. There are 2 ways to answer it:
- Your own list. We print and post the barcode labels, one goes on each box, and the inventory of what is inside can stay with you.
- Cataloguing. We list every folder inside every box in an index against its barcode and return the finished index to you. The name on each folder is recorded and the contents stay closed.
Cataloguing is done at folder level or box level, and the schedule is agreed when the work is quoted.
Which business records to scan
Start with the records people open often, where several people need the same file, or where somebody needs it while working away from the office. Once a file is digitised, everyone who needs it opens it at the same time, from wherever they are, and the box it came from stays on the shelf.
- Documents from A3 down to A6, prepared here, with staples, clips and bindings handled on our side
- Searchable PDF as standard, with PDF/A, TIFF and JPEG on request, over secure file transfer
- Scanning on a daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly schedule for paperwork that keeps arriving
- Originals returned to you, kept in storage or shredded with a certificate, as you decide
Boxes in storage can be scanned later, one box at a time, whenever that changes.
Keeping stored records secure and confidential
Stored records are protected by the building they are kept in, by the people who handle them and by a record of every time they move:
- Monitored intruder and fire alarms, with a licensed security company responding out of hours
- Recorded CCTV inside and outside the building
- Swipe-card access control under a dedicated facility manager, with alarm reports reviewed daily
- Quarterly fire inspections and yearly fire drills
- Trained, security-screened staff working under chain-of-custody controls
- Records released to you, or to the people you have authorised in writing
ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and EN 15713 cover every service you buy, and the barcode history gives you the movement record a regulator or auditor asks for.
Who decides how long business records are kept
Your own auditors or advisors set retention for your industry and your record types, because the periods depend on both. Check with them before deciding anything is finished with.
Cyclone Archive stores your records for as long as you need and destroys them with a certificate when you tell us the time is up.
Destroying business records at the end of retention
Records are shredded on your instruction, against a list you have confirmed, and nothing is destroyed until you have confirmed it:
- On site at your premises, in a GPS-tracked mobile shredding unit under CCTV, with your team able to watch
- Collected in sealed sacks and shredded at a licensed facility, where access or volume suits that better
- A certificate of destruction on completion, recording the date, time, method and quantity
- Shredded paper recycled into new paper-based products, with nothing going to landfill
- Hard drives and media, branded product, uniforms and prototypes destroyed under the same certification
Clearing a backlog of old business records
Where boxes have built up over years and nobody is sure what is in them, open a sample and sort them into 3 piles: records people still ask for, records you must keep and rarely open, and records that have served their time. Each pile then has its own answer in scanning, storage or shredding.
Records management by industry
Each sector keeps different records for different reasons. Cyclone Archive works with:
- Legal: Case files and conveyancing records, stored securely and retrieved to deadline.
- Medical & healthcare: Patient files handled in confidence from collection through to document shredding.
- HR & employee files: Sensitive employee records, stored securely and scanned on demand.
- Accountants & advisors: Client files and working papers stored securely, and destroyed with a certificate on your instruction.
- Facilities management: Records managed for your own clients, fitted to your process and your reporting.
- Construction & engineering: Project files kept for the life of the building, retrievable at file level.
- Film & production: Production paperwork archived securely between projects, back the next working day.
- Liquidators: Records held for as long as the appointment requires, and destroyed with a certificate on your instruction.
Proof
Why you can trust Cyclone Archive
Facility security
Boxes are held in a security-controlled Dublin warehouse protected by intruder and fire alarms and CCTV, under swipe-card access and a dedicated facility manager.
Confidentiality
Security-screened staff, EN 15713 certification from first collection to final shredding, and files returned in secure bags.
Traceability
Barcode tracking follows every box from your office to its exact shelf position, with a movement history for every box and every file that leaves one.
Irish owned
Irish owned and operated, run from Dublin, with the people who handle your account working in the same building as your boxes.
Waste facility and collection permits NWCPO-08-01122 and WFG-FG-15-0006.
Questions
Records management questions, answered
How many boxes?
Tell us how many boxes of documents you have, and collection can be as soon as the next working day.
Prefer to talk? Call 01 814 0734.