3 Types Of Documents You Should Always Shred After Use, And Why You Should

Corporate identity theft costs businesses in the U.S. $48 billion every year. This can occur as a result of documents not being shredded when they should have been, or of a document having been misplaced. Proper document disposal is very important in the business world, as these seemingly inconsequential pieces of paper may contain information about the business or its clients that are too sensitive to be left alone.

And that’s where paper shredding businesses come into the picture. It might be easier to shred your paper yourself, but if you don’t do it properly, you still run the risk of leaking or losing information. Professional shredding services will purge documents completely, removing the chance that you could be subject to identity theft.

But if you don’t know what documents you should shred or what papers you should leave alone, the entire purging process could become disastrous. To save you some trouble, we’ve compiled a list of the things you should be shredding:

Business Reports

If your business reports are stored somewhere secured and only brought out to have a team discussion, make sure they’re shredded after. It may seem silly to apply paper shredding to a business report, but they can be full of information that you don’t want getting out. If you’re a public company, it could lead to an insider leak about your market results before you’re ready to go public with them. That could have a negative impact on your shares and stocks and is not a good thing to have over your head. Keep the insider trading at bay and shred the paper.

Product Development And Ideas

This is more self-explanatory, but you don’t want your product or service ideas leaking to the public or to a competitor before you have a chance to launch. They might work against you, or create a different product that beats yours to the market. Keep these details under wraps by making sure there are no paper copies floating around, and make sure that only the people that should have them, do.

Client Contracts

Having your clients’ information floating around can be a disaster waiting to happen, especially if your clients learn how you let sensitive information out. Worst case scenario, a competitor gets their hands on your clients’ information and convinces them to convert. Keep these documents contained and shred them after you’re done with them.

Hiring a paper shredding company can help ensure that these documents, and others that are of a sensitive nature, don’t escape your company’s control. They’ll make sure every document you give them is completely destroyed, with no chance of falling into a competitor’s hands. Don’t take the risk, call a shredding company today.