Record Keeping

arongunningham

Hi,

In terms of record keeping, different documents need to be kept for different lengths of time etc etc.

If we accept that these records can be kept digitally, does anyone have any evidence of what 'digitally' means?

If on a server, would it need to be ours?

Would IO be acceptable if that was the only location of our client documents?

richallum

IO that's an acceptable 'main' home for them but what about back ups? What if IO went pop? What if you wanted to leave IO, could you get the documents back?

Suse1969

We don't use iO to retain our documents (a bit cumbersome in my opinion) but use Volume Watermark. UK servers, and as per Richard's remark, we can obtain our documents if we decide to leave. Did research on backups and we were content that they met our requirements. If they went belly up - hmm. It's in our business continuity plan the same way as a fire onsite is if that helps. 

StuartBFM

We also use Volume now, but used to store everything on IO using Amazon S3, as the storage IO gives you is very small.  Technically if IO went pop you would still have everything stored on S3, but the web interface for that is just plain horrible and documents aren't easy to identify without viewing them through IO.  I think there are also apps that can be used to make S3 more useable but I never looked into that.  

It was wondering what I would do if I wanted to switch back office that made me want to move the data away from IO to a stand alone product.  Its a lot more expensive - S3 cost was about $0.05 per month and they never actually took the money (I assume we never reached their minimum), whereas Volume is about £60 I think.  I am finding it a far superior way to hold our documents though and it has helped us transition further towards paperless.

benjaminfabi

I agree with positive comments on Volume. If I was setting up an advice business, I'd start with an intention to use that and see if anything could better it.