How do you deal with paper documents?

[dave_evans]

Any and every business has to deal with paper, some more than others, and I was wondering what other small business do.
If it's only the occasional official document (registration, incorporation, insurance, etc.) then it's not so bad: you can file them easily - but if you're the kind of business that gets contracts or agreements from customers, deals a lot with people and so on, there's a good chance you need to be able to locate - quickly - something you've received in the past. In many cases, you'll get something by paper and reply by sending a Word document or other digital content. In this case, how do you tie the paper original back to the email / word file? Scan the document and store it in a folder or directory you've created for that customer or topic?

I know document management systems exist but they tend to be rather pricey and, frequently, way too complex for the smaller business to even consider so I would like to find out what folk are doing to solve this problem themselves.

Anyone? How do you do it?



Disclaimer: I work for a company that converts images to searchable PDF (thus making them dead easy to find!) but I'm not trying to promote it here; I'm simply trying to find out how the average smaller business is dealing with the problem paper creates - assuming they see it as a problem, that is!

 

[S-Marketing]

Have you heard of a new-fangled contraption called a filing cabinet. When used in conjunction with archive boxes they are a cheap and easy solution to storing paper.

 

[dave_evans]

Have you heard of a new-fangled contraption called a filing cabinet. When used in conjunction with archive boxes they are a cheap and easy solution to storing paper.

Just looked them up: what a great idea; I'd never have thought you could store paper in a metal box!
Okay, joking aside, chucking paper into filing cabinets doesn't always make sense: someone needs to 'deep clean' them occasionally to remove the out-of-date files and anyone who needs to reference a paper document has to physically find it, use it and - importantly - re-file it correctly afterwards. Doing this more than a few times a day is grossly inefficient and rather slow.

Also: do you make a copy of each and every document you put into your metal box and store them all in another metal box in a different location? I suspect no one does - which would help explain the rather high rates of failure for any business that suffers a fire, flood and so on: they lose all their core documents and simply can't function. Scanning them and storing in a directory mitigates those risks rather nicely - err, providing someone remembers to run the backup, of course!

 

[S-Marketing]

Just looked them up: what a great idea; I'd never have thought you could store paper in a metal box!
Okay, joking aside, chucking paper into filing cabinets doesn't always make sense: someone needs to 'deep clean' them occasionally to remove the out-of-date files and anyone who needs to reference a paper document has to physically find it, use it and - importantly - re-file it correctly afterwards. Doing this more than a few times a day is grossly inefficient and rather slow.

Also: do you make a copy of each and every document you put into your metal box and store them all in another metal box in a different location? I suspect no one does - which would help explain the rather high rates of failure for any business that suffers a fire, flood and so on: they lose all their core documents and simply can't function. Scanning them and storing in a directory mitigates those risks rather nicely - err, providing someone remembers to run the backup, of course!

They do fire and flood proof metal boxes too. Never managed to find a fireproof cardboard archive box though.

Sorry, I know i'm being no use at all, apart from bumping your post back up the list that is.

 

[Anna Chandley]

The way I deal with this is that I have a folder on the computer for each client which contains subfolders for correspondence and permanent file items amongst others.
Documents created by me are stored in the appropriate folder as well as scanned copies of paper documents.
All individual files are name in the same way with all files names starting with the date in reverse order so any documents dated with todays date would start 130108. Incoming files then have an i next in the name, then initials of person to whom the document is being sent or received from followed by a short description.

So if I received a letter from MR A Nother regarding his 2011/12 tax return and sent him a letter in reply the 2 files would be named

130108 i AN 2011-12 tax return

and

130108 AN 2011-12 tax return.


Anna

 

[stockdam]

I almost exclusively use scanned documents. If I get a paper copy then I tend to scan it and rarely keep it.

I file them in folders on a network drive. The name of the folder is a good indication of what goes in. I will create a new folder for each new "project".

I give any documents that I produce a structured name and I tag the filename with the issue number of the document. I also use the advanced properties feature of Word to tag the document with custom info (customer name etc). I use fields within the document to pick up the data in the custom properties (date of issue etc.).

 

[vvaannmmaann]

Do you keep a back up off site?

 

[stockdam]

Do you keep a back up off site?

For me.......yes. All network drives are backed up off-site.

 

[David Griffiths]

Have you heard of a new-fangled contraption called a filing cabinet.

I remember those. We used to use them once.

 

[Billmccallum]

I use an office, with shelves and filing cabinet....shelves hold documents in lever arch files, one for each client, filing cabinet holds documents for HMRC, etc, all easily accessible and in date order.

At the end of the year the docs go into an cardboard archive box and into the loft (usually 3 for the year for stuff that really needs to be kept) and everything else gets disposed of.

After seven years, three or four boxes get shredded.

The annual process takes up about 3 days in total (spread over the year), not a great burden and usually done on a quiet day, so costs me nothing.

 

[dave_evans]

Thanks for your feedback, everyone!

I'm asking the same question in other places and the feedback I'm getting mirrors that we see here: there's no 'correct' way to do this and it depends on the size of the business and, I suspect, how diligent people really are about it all!

How do I do it (someone who's been at the sharp end of IT since '89)?
Back in the late 90's, I discovered desktop search tools and - after a bit of messing about - I found I could get them to search my archive and active email folders, along with my usual documents.
Since then, I've scanned almost everything, converted it to a searchable PDF and store it in a folder structure. When it comes to looking for it, I very rarely need to use the folders because a few choice words in the 'search for..' box and it usually comes back. It took a while before I really trusted it but I couldn't live without it these days.

Thanks again!
Dave