Many businesses will utilize an off-site storage facility to store all their past and even present hard copy files. Understandably, this is often the solution when you are running out of office space. There are a few things that you should focus on before you enter into a contract to store these files. It will save you a major headache later on, both in dollars and convenience. There is the issue of “perm out” fees, when you are ready to shred these files. You will want to negotiate these rates, as they are often debated when pricing storage facilities. The big one however, the one that customers often don’t realize, is that they lock themselves in to using that facility to shred these materials. Often, somewhere in the T’s and C’s of the agreement, they will specify that you cannot bring in an outside shredding company to do this work. They want to hit you over the head for the perm out fees and then charge you outlandish fees to have them shredded. Do not fall victim to this, specify that you want to be able to choose a provider when this happens. In most cases, they will give in, they want your storage business. At ShredHelp we recently had an issue of this with a potential client in our Queens market. They attempted to bring our service in when they quickly realized that the storage facility would not allow it. They were locked in to paying almost double the amount to have this work done. The time will come, do your due diligence before you enter into a storage agreement.