How to Organize an Office Filing System

Any physical or digital documents can be recognized by law and used in court. However, if the document is created digitally, professionals, such as lawyers, must have technical proficiency in software to create electronic PDFs ethically. Paper filing systems can hold just about any papers you want them to, and can be separated into whatever filing categories work best for you. Once you have made a list of all of your documents, you should mark the documents you need to keep for a more extended period. These can be placed on the top shelf of your filing cabinet, while the rest will be placed on the shorter shelves.

Computerized systems also offer greater options for securing your files and sharing them, making collaboration on shared documents easier for team members. They also make it possible to easily exchange documents with clients — document management statistics even indicate that using e-signatures on digital files can improve close rates. Image scanning and OCR are useful features for businesses that have a lot of paper records they would like to digitize.

Systems for Organizing Your Home Business

For digital systems, you will need to have your folders organized by the category or type of system, like “Bills paid 2023,” which would be one folder. “Client files” organized by client name would be another filing system. The next small business paperwork systems are for old client activities. Pulling these files out and placing them in a different place will allow more new clients to appear and give you room to update your focus or direction with the new clients. Place these files in a less accessible place in your office, like in a back closet. Since each business has different types of documents that need to be sorted, it’s important to customize the system to your own needs.

We also liked that it comes with the option of a remote account wipe, which can help you remove sensitive data from a lost or stolen device before it falls into the wrong hands. Whether your team is often on-the-move or the documents you work with are, Dropbox’s mobility features will help your team stay on-task. Dropbox offers great solutions for those looking for document management software, whether you’re a solopreneur or a large team.

How to Create a Filing System

The best document management system should be easy to use; it should allow for document sharing; and it should have collaboration tools, mobile functionality and version control. The first two features allow your team to work together on critical documents without needing to be in the same office. Version control maintains a log of every change (and who made it) to your company’s documents. Version control, sometimes referred to as “versioning,” is a critical feature of document management software that lets you keep track of changes to a document. The best document management software even maintains an archive of old versions, letting you see how documents have changed over time and revert to an old version if needed.

We liked that Dropbox offers these capabilities with its free version as well, giving small teams and bootstrapped startups an accessible document management solution. DocuPhase offers teams a document management solution that supports productivity and helps team members stay on-task. We found this cloud-based system to be very customizable — your team will be invited to try a curated demo before purchasing the software and pricing is based on factors specific to your team. We liked the level of attention DocuPhase pays to your unique needs since every business is different. By digitizing files, you are essentially building a paperless filing system.

Important Examples of Small Business Paperwork Systems

In this guide, we’ll explain how you can have an organized filing system to help you sort and manage your paperwork and important documents. In this guide, we’ll discuss how to have an organized paper filing system to help you sort and manage your papers. This list is handy for new staff so they can learn your business’s digital filing structure immediately. The Federal, state, and local tax agencies, require a well-organized and private area to keep all these critical documents. A good filing system for all your paper types will make your office run more efficiently. Naming your files is a vital part of the filing organization process.

• Check out my post about Simple Tips to Organize Your Start Up’s Invoice Process.
• Transitioning to a paperless office is a more secure way to conduct business.
• With records in multiple electronic and paper formats, it’s important to simplify and avoid redundancy.
• The best systems apply appropriate metadata and tagging automatically to make finding documents even easier, without much need to classify them on the front end.
• Further, there is so much to track in a home business, such as your financial accounts, marketing strategies, projects, customers, and more.

This area should have everything you need so everyone can access the supplies. Determine the shelving you need by gathering all your items together and sorting them by type. Now that we discussed the administrative things in your business, it’s important to discuss a system that would work well for clients.

Sort All Your Current Documents

Filing by alphabetic order is a method of organizing files based on the names of individuals, corporations, institutions, agencies, subjects, topics, or geographic locations in dictionary order. The index is a list of topic names intended to represent each subject in alphabetical order. To determine what topic name to file the entry under, consult the relative index.

For example, if a folder is labeled as “Important Papers,” you can add more specific labeling such as “Needs Review” or “Unimportant.” It will allow for better organization and accessibility. Now and then, you may need to remove any file that has been filed for more than five years. It is where using archiving software comes in handy because it can help you organize all of these files and retain them permanently without risking damage or destroying them. I recently wrote a post about How to Make a Digital Bookkeeping Binder. Feel free to check it out or fill out the form below and pick up the FREE file structure ebook to help you make up your organized digital system. Get or free book The Best Practices for Digital and Physical Filing Systems for a deep dive into the process of filing systems.

You should ensure that all of your employees know how to use your filing system. Explain to them how it works and what folders will be used for them to maintain their location. This method is effective because it enables you to organize your files easily to access and maintain.

What is a good alternative to paper filing systems?

There are also many optional authentication features that can be used as an added level of security, which we found increasingly important in the age of remote work. DocuWare can integrate with over 500 different applications, ensuring that no matter the industry, you can keep track of your documents automatically while maintaining work output. We found DocuWare’s support for Business filing system different methodologies of integration especially useful, from deep API-based integrations to simple point-and-click integrations. We also liked that DocuWare offers dedicated connectors for SAP, Outlook and other leading software platforms. This may seem like a cheat, but one of the best ways to organize an office filing system is to reduce the files you need to organize.

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It categorizes and registers every document entered into the system based on specific properties that you can customize, such as file size or function. A computerized or electronic filing system organizes and stores your business’s files on a hard drive or network space. This digital system can be software- or internet-based, or a simple folder/file system on a computer. Invest in folders, tabs to label the folders, and boxes or a filing cabinet to store the folders. A document management system also makes it easy to find certain files by assigning keywords and tags to each document. For example, HIPAA and the Sarbanes-Oxley anti-fraud law have strict security and policy regulations regarding documents and records.

• The mobile app allows you to quickly scan receipts while you’re in the office or on the go.
• It has to integrate well with current apps and tools, including email, web navigation, etc.
• Using a well-organized bookshelf by topic works well for these physical references.
• Chances are you’ll need to use more than one system to manage all the data and material you need to store in your business.

Document management is an important, yet time-consuming, process — especially if you’re not using an electronic system to help you. A computerized filing system can assist with creating, storing, managing and sharing documents and files across your organization. These systems also protect your documents from potential breaches and other security risks. For instance, if you group files by project types in one folder, you can further group those files into specific clients.