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Despite promises of the ‘paperless office’, every business has to file a never-ending flow of paper. Important documents, agreements, contracts, invoices, letters… the list goes on.
Controlling all this information takes time, expertise and an effective system. Without this, the result is inefficiency and stress.

That’s why getting a good system in place that can help manage your paperwork quickly and simply so you can get on with the important stuff is so critical - yet often a task or project that is at the bottom of the list. For most people, filing systems and information retrieval are placed in the “too boring, too hard” basket. However, there are a number of filing solutions in the market place that can be applied to any existing business or used as a start up package for new businesses. This can help a new business owner get on top of their paperwork right from day one.

Broadly speaking, a good filing system should be highly customisable to suit the needs of each individual type of business, allowing  a business to put in place ‘easy to use’ systems for managing the documents and records they are required to keep and  that will save space, time and money!
Smart filing!
The actual classification of files can be one of the major problems with any type of filing system. Where and how do you file documents and once you have filed something do you remember where it is? Taking a basic example, a document on the subject of ‘apples’. Would it be filed under “Apples” or “Fruit” or “Food” or as someone once quipped “or IT”! Can others follow your own logic and find the information?

Well there are a number of intelligent and well proven solutions to hard copy document management that are perfect for small business owners. For instance, establishing your key business functions (or key words) and then grouping files alphabetically under each function or key word is a good structure to use.  Business functions or key words might include such things as Customers, Suppliers, Human Resources and Building and Property etc. In the above simple example, we would suggest that ‘Fruit’ becomes the Key word or Function and then a file on Apples or oranges etc would get placed under that category.

Another time tested feature of a good filing system is the use of colour coding.  By colour coding every folder using colour labels, not only will you be able to file and retrieve documents quickly and accurately but the whole process takes very little time. There are free software programmes available on the internet (to download) that will even allow labels to be printed on desktop colour printers in less than a minute. Adding things like year codes and colour flashes allows for easy file management too, by creating a system that can let the users know when to archive or destroy each file and which category a file might below to..