Here at our document scanning company we are very often asked the best way to organize office documents. When you have loads of paper everywhere, organizing them is of course a major concern, but the more important thought is how to file them securely and provide access to those who need it. Document scanning solutions to ensure that everything is converted into electronic files can help, but considerable planning must be done ahead to make this a successful venture. Lack of planning will not bring you the desired results; besides you also stand the risk of wasting considerable time and resources.
This is the digital age, and even with digital files filing can be problematic. In addition to the paper documents stored in file cabinets, you may have electronic documents stashed on cloud services, mobile devices and emails. If you are looking to bring more organization into your life, here are some important points to consider.
- There should be a system for filing your digital documents – by type of document, in chronological order, in alphabetical order, and so on. Everyone in the organization must be consistent so that access and use of the files are made easy and efficient.
- Ensure that your file naming convention is consistent: Decide on a file naming standard that works for everyone and see that everyone consistently makes use of it. When deciding on a standard, it is best to limit the use of characters in file names to letters, numbers, space, dash (-) and the underscore character (_) because other characters could pose problems, especially when you want to share the file with others in the organization who use different computer systems.
- Make use of a reliable document organizer that allows you to create folders and sub-folders that will enable quick and easy access to your files.
- Store each electronic file in its proper folder, as soon as the document is scanned. Take care not to pile up unfiled documents. Even authorized users can access the electronic document only when is properly filed in the document management system.
Organizing business documents definitely needs a lot of planning, resourcefulness and deployment of current technology solutions. Businesses may find it an additional and time-intensive task to be performed in-house, which makes outsourcing a viable alternative. Delegating some of the business processes to outside partners and using outsourced solutions need not be detrimental at all. Moreover, you get to spend valuable time focusing on the things that matter and things your staffs are good at.
