Companies don’t have to retain paper files

After a company has decided to make the switch over to an electronic means of information documentation, it often tries to do so as soon as possible to make sure no business operations are affected or stalled. To stay safe, many retain paper documents as a physical backup.

However, many experts believe that unless the original is something that should be preserved for historical purposes, it's not completely necessary to keep a hard copy. For many organizations, disposing of the records properly is important, to make sure no data is stolen. 

According to a letter written by the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, different records can be disposed of as long as they're online, Lexology reported. This can be seen in a Russian tax code, for example, because even if auditors request a copy of records, electronic files count.

In fact, some believe that keeping hard copies adds to risk. If an office is broken into, a criminal would need passwords and other codes to tap into a corporation's digitized materials.Hard copies, however, could simply be taken.

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