pooja shah (CA Practice ) (26 Points)
08 November 2014Dear Collegues,
I have my own practice. My experience says that managing office is more difficult than managing clients. Document management is the most difficult aspect. Firstly due to space constraint it is very difficult to store documents in office and secondly it takes a lot of time and efforts to retreive documents from files.
Is there a way out to address both the issues?
rahul arora
(CA Practice )
(22 Points)
Replied 08 November 2014
Hey Hi Pooja,
The point raised by you is very much true. Professional firms need to deal with documents on a large scale and also due to regulatory requirement we cannot discard the documents. I have also faced the same situation as i am also a practicing CA. I got into touch with "Storecage" to whom you can outsource this activity. They will scan our documents and provide us with soft copy for reference. Apart from that, they take care of space constraint issue highlighted by storing physical copies of documents at their warehouse.
Jfyi - i have availed their service and it is really worth. Though they are startups but service provided by them is exceptional. You can contact them on storecage.in
Rgds...
Ankit
(CA, CS)
(3064 Points)
Replied 08 November 2014
Dear Pooja,
Best way is, to create client wise folders and sub-folders and keep scanned copies of the documents
sakshi verma
(partner)
(22 Points)
Replied 08 November 2014
Hi Pooja,
Totally agree with Rahul. The best way is to outsource non critical activities. I am also facing the same issue and will explore possibility to strike a deal with storecage.
Hi Ankit,
Agree with your view as well. What i suggest if we can outsorce some activity then wont it be more productive rather than investing our time and efforts?
CA Arpan Shah
(Chartered Accountant)
(21 Points)
Replied 08 November 2014
Hi Pooja,
Idea given by Rahul and Ankit seems to be great. You can explore both the possibilites i.e inhouse and outsourcing.
Rahul,
Personal thnx to you for introducing us to new vendor to whom we can outsource such activities. Though i am not in practice i can refer Storecage to my other friends and colleuges who are interested.
pooja shah
(CA Practice )
(26 Points)
Replied 08 November 2014
Hi Rahul , Ankit, Pooja and Arpan
Thnx for your feedback. I would explore further on this and will share my views as well.
Ankit
(CA, CS)
(3064 Points)
Replied 08 November 2014
Yes Sakshi...may be...but then, there is always a cost to it...and moreso, you need to also have confidentiality of the documents...if things inadvertently leask out of the storage firms servers, the CA will be held responsible..
And if you go to bigger firms like PN Writer etc, they may charge hefty...
So, if the volumes are not much, inhouse seems to be a better option
pooja shah
(CA Practice )
(26 Points)
Replied 09 November 2014
Hi Ankit,
I had a word with the team over there in the morning. They are currently managing documents of few of the CA and Lawyer firms. They have considered the importance of the legal documents and have adequate facilities for securing them.
Apart from that their costing seems to be quite reaonable. Rather than inhouse piece i would prefer to go with them as it will reduce my burden.
Also i would like to thank Rahul for sharing his thoughts and helped in resolving problem.
Nafis saiyad
(Article)
(118 Points)
Replied 10 November 2014
sakshi verma
(partner)
(22 Points)
Replied 10 November 2014
Hi Ankit,
Agree. Everything comes with the cost but on doing cost benefit analysis it seems outsourcing is better option. Also as corretly pointed out by Nafis, articles are managing most of the documents and they are overburdden with such unproductive activites.
I also had a discussion with Storecage and found them to be quite reaonable and professional. They have dedicated resources maintaining this records. Request you to visit storecage.in to explore further if required.
CA AnKiT BoHrA (AB)
(Manager)
(25955 Points)
Replied 10 November 2014
yes outsourcing is a good concept agreed guys... but its really being strange that guys running office having probs in mainting documents....
client wise folders are best way.. even if u r filing returns of the clients, you can save the doucments like pan card,copy of ITR, acknowledgment in system itself.. you wil need not to make the clients file heavier year by year..
this is just mah personal view.. dont mind...!!!
rahul arora
(CA Practice )
(22 Points)
Replied 11 November 2014
Thnx Guys...I am happy you liked the concept.
Ankit- We can have client wise folder but we need to scann all the relevant documents at client level. This will consume lot of bandwidtth of our articles and office staff.
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