Computershare South Africa, a provider of shareholder and employee plan management services to local companies, has rationalised its document management and storage billing requirements with the assistance of document management specialist Metrofile.
With six Metrofile staff based at Computershare`s premises in Johannesburg since February 2004, the company now effectively stores, manages and retrieves documents on behalf of its clients, and correctly bills each client based on their specific document needs.
"Since introducing Metrofile, the company can also more effectively comply with legislative requirements that necessitate the storage of some documents for decades or longer, depending on each document," says Sarie Oosthuizen, team leader: logistics at Computershare.
"We did not have the staff resources or expertise to manage our own filing, sorting and retrieving, or the physical resources to cost-effectively and safely store documents. Outsourcing our document management and storage needs to Metrofile has enabled us to provide an overall better service to our clients."
Computershare administers more than 90 million shareholder accounts for over 14 000 corporations across 15 countries on five continents. Founded in Australia in 1978, today it employs some 8 000 people worldwide.
Its suite of products and services are integrated to deliver full-service solutions for company share registers and employee share and stock option plans, document design and communication, strategic investor relations and market intelligence, and a variety of sophisticated trading technologies for financial markets.
"Originally, Metrofile was called in to sort 30 000 boxes containing client documents when Computershare embarked on a project to improve its internal management of documents by creating account files with unique numbers for each of its customers," says Odette Barkhuizen, customer service executive at Metrofile.
"The documents Computershare has moving through its office are sensitive and important documents such as share certificates, cheques, legal documents and correspondence. Maintaining the safety and security of these documents, and being able to retrieve documents when called upon to do so, is vital for Computershare and its customers."
Now handling in excess of 500 boxes per month, the on-site Metrofile staff maintain Computershare`s client files by collecting boxes that contain documents from all the relevant departments, sorting the new documents into their appropriate files, indexing them, capturing them to MetroNet, and managing the retrieval process. Once the files have been managed on-site, they are shipped to a Metrofile storage site where they can be retrieved as and when necessary, and stored according to legislative requirements.
Prior to introducing Metrofile into its environment, Computershare would maintain its documentation internally. This resulted in disorganisation and the subsequent disappearance of documents.
"If our documents are not managed effectively, there are legal and financial ramifications for our clients and us," Oosthuizen says. "If a client requests a copy of a letter or a cheque, and we cannot produce either, for whatever reason, everyone feels the repercussions. Metrofile prevents documents from disappearing, being misfiled or being untraceable when someone has requested that document. The Metrofile staff ensure that when a document is released to someone on request, they can track the movement of that document from the moment it leaves the shelf."
As a one-stop shop for Computershare, Metrofile also performs confidential record destruction for the company. Fifteen large waste paper bins are located throughout the Computershare building. These are rotated and cleared off-site weekly, and the contents destroyed according to confidential record destruction requirements. A certificate is then returned to Computershare as surety that the documents were indeed destroyed, when this was done and where.
The Metrofile managed system is flexible enough to allow Computershare staff to contact Metrofile and request the retrieval of documents by as little as the company name. No box number or index number is needed. Metrofile also provides Computershare with the capabilities to scan documents such as proxy forms and store these appropriately for easy retrieval.
"Metrofile undertakes ad hoc projects for Computershare as well," Barkhuizen says. "These are quoted for outside of Computershare`s monthly management fee, and performed off-site. The Metrofile staff on premises are solely dedicated to handling the company`s daily document management and storage requirements, and as such are not involved in any additional work done for the company."
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