The document provides strategies for organizations to reduce offsite storage costs, emphasizing the importance of implementing a records retention schedule, purging active records, conducting box audits, optimizing on-site storage, and negotiating favorable storage contracts. By following these tips, companies can lower their storage expenses and manage their records more efficiently. The guidance includes practical examples and steps to enhance records management practices.

1. Tips for Reducing
Your Offsite
Storage Costs

2. ….are we paying
too much?
Obviously, for many
organizations, the
answer is yes. And
the reality is that
most companies
are typically storing
documents they
don’t need to, and
paying to do it!!

3. There are ways to reduce
what you are paying for
offsite storage including:
• Having a good records retention schedule
• Purging your active collections of non-record
materials
• Performing offsite box audits
• Optimizing your on-site storage potential
• Negotiating and controlling the content of your
storage contract
Let’s take a deeper look at these…

4. Tip #1:
Implement a
Records Retention
Schedule

5. Tip #1: Implement a Records Retention Schedule
Most of us already know that having the right
records retention schedule is a critical part of the
foundation of a good records management
program. This is also important when it comes
to spending less for offsite storage.
In fact, an effective records retention program
could help you reduce offsite storage costs by
up to one-third of what you are currently paying.
So the question is – how?
At its simplest form - a retention schedule
establishes how long an organization needs to
keep its records as they progress through their
life cycle, including whether records are
ultimately destroyed or archived.

6. Tip #1: Implement a Records Retention Schedule
Control the GROWTH of your
records collection
Let’s take a series of accounting records for example. When they
are created and entered into the records management program,
the retention period is applied to those records. During that period,
there are tools within the records management
program (software or manual processes) that will
notify the appropriate personnel within your
organization that it is time for those boxes to be
destroyed, wherever they might reside.
Because your retention schedule
specifies exactly what you need to
keep and for how long, you are in a
position to control the growth of
your records collections. This way
you ensure that you aren’t paying
to store records you don’t need
to keep.

7. Tip #1: Implement a Records Retention Schedule
Here’s an example of how
records retention can help!
After installing a new Electronic
Medical Records (E.M.R.) system,
The Retina Group in Washington DC,
found that they had a larger volume of
legacy charts in offsite storage than
they originally were aware of.
They knew that a good portion of
that chart inventory was due for
destruction, but since different
collections had become interfiled
(adult and pediatric charts filed in the
same box), it was difficult to know
which retention requirements fit
which of the offsite boxes!

8. Tip #1: Implement a Records Retention Schedule
40%
!!!
TAB helped the Retina Group implement a retention and destruction
project and they were able to reduce their volume of inactive patient
charts by 40% - simply by applying the right retention schedule to
their entire collection and determining what was due for destruction.

9. Tip #2:
Purge Active
Records

10. Tip #2: Purge Active Records
For many organizations, a good
portion of their records stored
offsite were once active records
that had been quickly boxed up
and shipped off for a variety of
reasons - ranging from lack of
space and office moves, to
mergers and acquisitions, or
downsizing.
Through personnel changes
over a period of time, newer RM
staff at many companies
continue to send these boxes to
their offsite facilities year after
year, which could result in a
legacy situation where the
current records personnel have
less and less idea of what is
actually in storage! This means
that many of the stored records
probably no longer need to be
maintained!

11. Tip #2: Purge Active Records
So how can you solve
this? We highly
recommend that you
have a plan in place to
purge your active
records before you
even think about
sending them to offsite
storage!

12. Tip #2: Purge Active Records
The key is to purge active documents and files
in a systematic way that takes records
management principles into account. We
suggest the following steps:
•
•
•
•
Be sure to Communicate with your employees so they
have a clear understanding of why you are
implementing this procedure.
Educate your employees on what is considered the
Official Record vs. non-Record material so your
employees know what material should be kept for
compliance purposes.
Set up a specific time (or actually schedule Clean-Up
Days) to have all employees within a department or
division participate in a cleanup of their office space and
central filing areas.
Finally, implement a specific plan with coordinated
areas to accept materials that can be thrown out or
recycled, centralized into a common filing area, or sent
to inactive storage.
When your collection is streamlined this way,
you should be able to…
…reduce document volume by up to
25%!

13. Tip #2: Purge Active Records
A good example is TAB’s
active records purge with
Pengrowth, a North American
energy trust company.
Pengrowth had already been
experiencing significant
company growth, and then
they acquired a billion dollar
company which doubled their
employee base within one
year! Needless to say, this
expansion came with a lot of
record materials that needed
to be audited and purged!

14. Tip #2: Purge Active Records
Toss
Recycle
Information
Management
To do this, we helped them implement a TRIM Project, which is a records
management principle that stands for Toss – Recycle and Information
Management. The TRIM process involves educating your employees to be
able to identify what is an Official Record vs. Non-Record materials. It is the
physical action of going through all documents and purging out all nonrecord materials.

15. Tip #2: Purge Active Records
By auditing their newly acquired materials
and applying the TRIM principles, we were
able to help Pengrowth significantly
reduce the amount of material they needed
to retain! This included:

16. Tip #3:
Conduct a
Box Audit

17. Tip #3: Conduct a Box Audit
For many organizations,
boxes of legacy files that had
been moved to storage
under previous records
management programs and
personnel, are an offsite
storage reality! So no matter
how good your current
program is, you still may not
be fully aware of everything
you are paying to store.

18. Tip #3: Conduct a Box Audit
Conducting a box audit will help
identify what’s in each records
storage box and determine what
action is required. This could include:
• Capturing all of the information at
the BOX level.
• Capturing all detail at the FILE
level.
• Restructuring the box contents
based on current retention
values.
• Destroying or recycling all nonrecord materials.
• Destroying records according to
your retention schedule.
• Or returning active files to your
active file room!

19. Tip #3: Conduct a Box Audit
Box Audits Drive
Real Results!
Let’s go back to our earlier example of
The Retina Group. While undergoing
their E.M.R. implementation, they had
records stored at 10 different offsite
storage locations. When they hit
maximum capacity and began
discussing an 11th storage facility, they
realized they could no longer continue
to manage their offsite storage
environment in this manner.

20. Tip #3: Conduct a Box Audit
So TAB came in and consulted with them further, and as part of a larger solution, we conducted
an offsite storage audit at ALL of their offsite locations. We even discovered 1,000 boxes at one
location they weren’t even aware they had! 50% of those boxes could actually now be
destroyed. This process allowed them to reduce their overall volume of inactive patient charts
by over 40%!

21. Tip #4:
Optimize Your
On-Site Storage
Potential

22. Tip #4: Optimize Your On-Site Storage Potential
Another helpful tip may be to
look at ways to optimize your
on-site storage potential!
Keep in mind the ability do this
will depend where you are
located, the amount of space
you have available and the cost
of that space – when looking at
your on-site storage vs. offsite
cost comparisons. This may not
be feasible for everyone.

23. Tip #4: Optimize Your On-Site Storage Potential
I bet all of us have days where we feel like this? You don’t have to!! If you are able
to get better at storing records at your own facility, then chances are you’ll have to
store less at someone else’s facility!
So how do you get there? The answer is better space planning.

24. Tip #4: Optimize Your On-Site Storage Potential
Comprehensive Space
Planning Solution
A comprehensive space
planning solution should
incorporate smart choices in
file storage, equipment and
supplies. From design
through installation, it’s
important to make the best
possible use of your physical
space while implementing
proper records management
strategies along the way.

25. Tip #4: Optimize Your On-Site Storage Potential
Maximize Capacity
& Efficiency
During the active phase
of your records, their
activity level is at its
highest and offers the
greatest opportunity to
reduce costs and
improve efficiency.
The next few slides
share some tips to help
maximize the capacity
and efficiency of your
physical storage.

26. Tip #4: Optimize Your On-Site Storage Potential
Be sure to implement efficient filing formats (for example,
proper color-coding labels for easy identification)

27. Tip #4: Optimize Your On-Site Storage Potential
Use end-tab file folders vs. top-tab folders
(make your files visible at-a-glance!)

28. Tip #4: Optimize Your On-Site Storage Potential
Using Lateral vs. Vertical filing will help you dramatically
save on the overall footprint of your filing space!

29. Tip #4: Optimize Your On-Site Storage Potential
Instantly increase your space utilization by using highdensity mobile shelving vs. static shelving. This eliminates
aisles and compacts several cabinets or shelving units into
a much smaller amount of space.

30. Tip #4: Optimize Your On-Site Storage Potential
Remember, effective filing
solutions optimize the
storage potential of your
existing office space by
allowing you to store more
files in less space, thereby
helping you to reduce the
need to move files from areas
that are over capacity to offsite
facilities. A great example of
how this can work is the
University of Washington
Library. The university was
looking for a better way to
maximize the capacity of their
own 35,000 square foot
archival storage facility used
for inactive books and
collections.

31. Tip #4: Optimize Your On-Site Storage Potential
TAB ended up working with the project architect to
create a design that met their floor load
requirements and maximized the workflow in their
storage facility. The final design included three
miles of mobile carriages and shelving with shelf
configurations required for both the University’s
books and their special collections.
By combining the right equipment with smart space
planning, the final implementation increased the
storage capacity of their archival facility by 91%!
91% more space!
3 Miles of Mobile
Carriages & Shelving!

32. Tip #5:
Negotiate a ClientFriendly Contract

33. Tip #5: Negotiate a Client-Friendly Contract
• Read contract in its entirety
before signing.
• Avoid exit fees (hold you
hostage)! If these fees are
already included in an
existing contract, try to
negotiate for reduced exit
fees so purges later are not
cost-prohibitive.
• Itemization of all fees
• Understand all terms or
change them
• Combine storage volume
from all departments for
negotiating power.*
* Tip provided by David McLallen,
Boulder County RM via RECMGMT-L
(records management list serv)

34. Tip #5: Negotiate a Client-Friendly Contract
A client-friendly storage vendor
should:
• Go above and beyond your
expectations!
• Offer ways to save you money,
such as:
•
•
Implementing minimum retention
standards
Disposing of records accordingly
• Offer a site visit of their facility.
•
Assign a specific trained RM
specialist to you.
• Show a degree of flexibility to fit
your needs.
• Offer other RM solutions:
•
Scanning, destruction and
emergency retrieval options,
method for digital storage.
*Source: ARMA Guidelines for Evaluating Offsite Records Storage Facilities

35. Tip #5: Negotiate a Client-Friendly Contract
Be in Control of
Your Contract!
• Negotiate best terms
• Understand all fees
• Surcharges
• Clauses
• Terms
• Restrictions
• Protect yourself in the
long-term also
• Future price increases
• Terms of eventual move-out
• Legal review

36. DON’T be this person…
• Offsite box volume swept up by merger.
• RM failed to note “hostage fees” in new contract.
• Perm out fee $11,000 (1,000 boxes @ $11/box)!
• Found another vendor who absorbed this fee.
• Storage costs went up but service improved.
• Larger storage company bought out that vendor!
• RM failed to read new contract details.
• Higher storage fees PLUS a $15/box hostage fee!
• The
boss did the only thing he could!!!
Story from Hugh Smith, Firelock Fireproof
Modular Vaults, via RECMGMT-L LIST-SERV

37. FIRED
the records
manager who
failed to develop
a protective
storage contract
for their
company!

38. Make Improvements Now!

39. Tip #5: Negotiate a Client-Friendly Contract
• Find & read contract details
•
•
Pay close attention to the date,
roll-over clause and fee schedule
Read any signed amendments to
the contract as well
• Stop adding to your inventory
• Start new inventory with a new
vendor
• Begin destruction program by
evaluating any inventory at your
old center and begin to destroy
records that have reached their
destruction date
• Don’t trigger punitive inventory
reduction clause – you may be
able to destroy up to 10% a year
(check your contract)
• GET OUT OF “STORAGE JAIL”!

40. TAB Can Help
Full suite of records management services

41. TAB’s Records Management Program
Design and Implementation
We can help design and
implement a records
management program that is
right for your organization. By
applying the classification and
retention schedules properly,
we’ll make sure you are only
storing what you need.

42. TAB’s Offsite Box Audits
By properly identifying your offsite records, you can reduce exposure to risk, save operational
costs and be ready for any organizational change. TAB’s Box Audit process verifies what is in
each records storage box and determines what action is required. Each step is managed
closely with established procedures for clients to review progress and approve final destruction
of records. It all starts with knowing what’s in the box!

43. TAB TRIM
Toss Recycle
Information Management
• Keep only essential
documents
• Lower storage costs for onsite and offsite storage
• Improve retrieval time
• Improve access to records

44. TAB’s Offsite Storage Facilities
TAB provides secure offsite storage
facilities that make storing files convenient
and affordable. We won’t hold you or your
documents hostage and there will be no
hidden fees or surcharges. Our records
centers feature secure managed facilities,
professional records management staff
hired and trained as specialists in the
storage industry, and compliance with all
government and industry standards related
to records storage.
We can ensure that your inventory is
always up-to-date, while providing complete
inventories of each box and manage the
storage and retrieval activity with up-to-date
box content listings. We are experts in the
full range of records storage services, from
file creation through destruction.

45. TAB’s Document Imaging Services
Digitizing and imaging
your documents may
also be a way to save
space and cut storage
costs because
depending on your
legal and regulatory
requirements, you can
often destroy the
originals. Best of all, the
imaged and indexed
documents are instantly
available to staff across
your organization, and
can be quickly and easily
accessed when needed.

46. Organize. Access. Manage.
Better organized files
Quicker access to information
Lower operating costs
Reduced exposure to risk
Choose TAB as your RM partner!
www.tab.com