Moving Forward: The Audit, Conversion, and Destruction of 14 Million Paper Documents — A Case Study

A leading global investment firm initiated a project called Digital Forward to facilitate relocating their New York City office and in doing so transitioned to a digital-first workplace, where efficient, searchable digital records would replace paper files. A Project Manager (PM) led a records team to digitize, audit, and manage over 14 million paper documents accumulated over 40 years. This article will provide an overview of this project, including resources, strategies used to capture data and track progress, as well as the obstacles encountered.

The investment firm occupied twelve floors in their midtown Manhattan office, almost 440,000 square feet of office space. As workplace activity changed and new locations opened across the country, much of the New York staff relocated or spent more time working remotely. The firm had been working in a hybrid digital environment for the past 10 to 15 years, however, they had retained a significant amount of paper records that were stored in filing cabinets, file rooms, closets, and offices across each floor. The move-out date was scheduled for the summer of 2024, the new location would only occupy four floors, and there would deliberately be minimal space to store paper records at the new office. The goal of the Digital Forward Project was to have all their paper records reviewed, digitized, archived, or destroyed by the end of June 2024. In addition to these tasks, the firm’s Private Client (PC) department required an audit of all their client account files. This department occupied two entire floors of the twelve, and their files made up 70% of the estimated total.

Resources

In order to complete this task, the project required the onboarding of a dedicated PM, formation of an on-site team, development of audit and retention guidelines, establishment of a centralized location, design of integrated workflows, and implementation of KPI/management reporting. The PM was onboarded in April 2023 and the remaining members of the records team were onboarded in May and June. The onsite records team consisted of eight records associates, two of which would operate the scanners.

Each member of the team had a computer workstation with permission to access shared drives and department databases. In addition, each scanner operator had a legacy computer with a CD drive, and a new Kodak i3120 color scanner with CapturePro Scanning software.

Location

A centralized and secure location was designated at the client’s premises to manage the project operations and maintain the physical records. It consisted of the entire southwest corner of a decommissioned floor. This location provided over two dozen empty offices that were used as workstations for the records team and storage spaces for file boxes. This centralized hub facilitated efficient coordination and access to records throughout the project duration and provided ample space for the movement of boxes.

Strategies

Collaborating closely with the client, the PM created comprehensive records retention guidelines that served as a framework for the auditors to asses the disposition of records, determining whether they should be scanned for retention or securely destroyed. This included a comprehensive list of document types (e.g. account agreements, trusts, account applications, asset transfers) and their disposition (e.g. life of account +6 years), as well as some images of these document types. Two integrated workflows were designed, encompassing the entire records lifecycle for each side of the project. These workflows streamlined processes for locating, retrieving, auditing, scanning, and destroying client records, ensuring optimal efficiency, accuracy and quality control.

Key performance indicator (KPI) dashboards were created for the client in order to provide real-time insights into project progress and team utilization. Using data collected by the records associates as they scanned and audited, and from scan request submissions, dashboard reports were submitted weekly to stakeholders. These dashboards enabled proactive monitoring and adjustment of strategies to meet project milestones effectively. The PM also performed regular walkthroughs of each floor every 30 to 45 days to track the progress of records review and disposal.

Fig. 1: Private Client KPI Dashboard, week of Oct. 2, 2023, three months into the file audit.
Fig. 2: Digital Forward KPI Dashboard, snapshot of the 39th floor from June 24, 2024, last week of the project

Regular meetings with the PM and stakeholders were held throughout the project. The initial meetings held during the first three months of the project were used to gather more details about the project and the needs of the client; touring each floor, getting to know department managers, and creating maps of each floor showing all file locations. Recurring meetings during the project were used to provide updates, collaborate on workflows, and manage escalations.

Fig. 3: The floor maps provided locations for all filing cabinets (red), closets (light blue) and file rooms (dark blue). A numbering system was created by the PM to keep track of boxes as they moved between floors and through the project lifecycle.

Project timelines

After the first month of gathering information and creating step by step instructions, we began in May with the physical removal of all PC client account files from the 36th floor to our staging areas on the 13th floor. This task was completed by the first week of July, collecting 1,400 file boxes, or 4.9 million pages. The team began auditing these files the following week.

By November we had roughly 300 file boxes remaining to be audited from the 36th floor. Before the Thanksgiving holiday, the PM had a portion of the records team stop auditing and start collecting the remaining client files from the 40th floor. This task was completed before the end of December, collecting 1,040 file boxes or 3.6 million pages, at which time the entire team resumed auditing.

With a reduced crew auditing client files, it became apparent before the end of the year that extra resources would be needed to complete the audit by the deadline, so the team began putting in overtime hours in January 2024, and we onboarded two additional records associates in February. The tasks of auditing, scanning, and destroying of all PC client account files were completed on the last day of June 2024. The total number of file boxes collected from the Private Client department came to 2,744, or 9.6 million pages.

The official kick-off of the Digital Forward scanning initiative for the other departments occurred at the end of September 2023. The plan was for all of the remaining departments to audit their own files and determine what needed to be scanned and destroyed. Once their review was complete, they would prepare their own boxes and submit a scan request through a proprietary digital client platform. We received two requests for scanning between October and December, or 366 pages. By the end of January 2024, we began seeing more submissions for scan requests and we continued receiving submissions until the first week of May. A total of 26 scan requests were submitted and completed, totaling 198 boxes or 330,000 scanned pages.

Obstacles

The biggest challenge to this project was the continued addition of client account files to the PC audit throughout the project. The initial scope of client files was underestimated at 1,887 file boxes or 6.6 million pages. The underestimation was because of the difficulty to physically access the entirety of some of the file rooms due to over-storage and the continued discovery of additional PC client account files located on other floors and in within offices. By the end, the total number of client account files had increased 30%, or 2.8 million pages, from the initial estimate. Six months into the project, the data began to show that we would require additional resources if we were going to finish by the deadline. In order to mitigate this, with the permission of the client, our records team was permitted to work overtime hours, we used a temp agency to hire two additional auditors, and the PM helped to audit files.

Another challenge was the addition of the conference room mail to the PC Audit. As offices closed during the pandemic and everyone was sheltering in place, all incoming mail to the PC department was received, scanned to email, put back in their envelopes, placed in mail bins, and stored in an unused conference room. Even after people began returning to the office more regularly, they continued with this method of processing the mail, filling up over 100 mail bins. A separate workflow had to be created and implemented in order to identify new document types and search for all of those that needed to be retained. An added time constraint to this process was separating and disposing of all the envelopes and obvious junk mail (magazines, holiday cards, etc.). For this, we were given assistance from the mailroom staff which helped reduce the bulk and allowed the records associates to focus on auditing.

A final challenge was the inclusion of three additional scanning projects from one of the client’s out-of-state offices, from their Legal and HR departments. They included data entry into Workday and downloading legal documents from CDs in addition to scanning paper documents. We were made aware of two of these projects early on, so the PM assigned them to the scanner operators right away so they could be completed before the end of 2023. For the third project, which came in December 2023, we received scanning assistance from the Reprographics department.

Takeaways

The biggest takeaway from this project was maintaining flexibility. The scope of this project was monumental, it had a short timeline, and it involved dozens of people throughout the firm who had different stakes, so it was imperative that the team be able to easily and quickly pivot to a new task so the wheels could keep moving.

It was also very important to maintain constant, open communication with everyone involved, and to provide regular progress reports, updates, and feedback. This gave the client assurance that their documents were being handled properly and that we were staying on schedule. What’s more, it gave the PM multiple opportunities to meet with employees on every level, to answer their questions about the project, and teach best practices for records management.

Finally, because the processes for auditing, indexing, and scanning needed to be learned and mastered fairly quickly, it was imperative that the records team assembled have prior experience with scanning and document management. The Digital Forward Records team brought decades of experience with digitization projects and file management for large firms. Their skills, accuracy, and quick understanding of these processes allowed the project take off quickly, keep momentum, maintain that flexibility, and finish on time.

Author

  • Karoline Correa is an experienced records management professional with a strong background in project management and archival procedures. For over a decade, she has worked extensively in records retention, digital conversion, and policy development. Ms. Correa has a Masters of Library and Information Science from San Jose State University.

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About the Author

Karoline Correa
Karoline Correa is an experienced records management professional with a strong
background in project management and archival procedures. For over a decade, she has worked extensively in records retention, digital conversion, and policy development. Ms. Correa has a Masters of Library and Information Science from San Jose State University.

Karoline Correa

Karoline Correa is an experienced records management professional with a strong background in project management and archival procedures. For over a decade, she has worked extensively in records retention, digital conversion, and policy development. Ms. Correa has a Masters of Library and Information Science from San Jose State University.

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