Running a paperless office

Sometime ago I made up my mind to try running a paperless office. While there maybe many environmental justifications for doing so, my reasons were far more practical: laziness. A modern life collects an awful lot of related documentation. Documentation that needs to be saved for a few years, forgotten, then found again during those rare Spring cleans, and finally shredded. There certainly is a need to record information, I just couldn’t see the point of maintaining it in paper form. First, there is the storage required. Then what do you keep? And how long do you keep it for? Computer storage is cheap, very cheap. So that is when I decided to fire-up the scanner. Taking action straight away reveals problems early: OK, now I’ve scanned a document, what do I name it? Where should I file it? How long should I keep it for? Much the same issues that you have with paper. It is just easier. Over the past two years I worked out a system that works, for me ...

What is recorded?

For the most part it is amazing how little ends up needing to be scanned and recorded digitally once you make the decision to go paperless. Many business now offer that information be delivered by email or as a PDF or spreadsheet download. Many others provide information on their websites that can be forwarded in a variety of formats. What is left can be scanned. This has a number of benefits. For Australian taxation purposes, proof of purchase must be retained for a set number of years. But the paper receipts provided by many retailers fade after just a couple of weeks. Scanning ensures that information is legible for as long as your computer screen remains lit. In the early days I was concerned about such things as quality of image resolution, colour or black and white, as PDF, PostScript or as an image? This is now much simpler by focusing on the only important question: is the scanned image legible? Generally PDF’s are chosen so that multi-page documents can be recorded and stitched together by subject, such as proof of purchases for insurance purposes or annual tax receipts. It is amazing how much documentation has accumulated in relation to taxation! Going paperless has meant more can be recorded, not less. Look out for annual reports or summary statements, as more businesses now provide this information online. While they may be doing this to reduce their costs, it is to our advantage as it reduces the need to scan and improves there usefulness to searching of archives. 

How is it organised?

I maintain a bills directory with an archive sub-directory. Any current bills and associated receipts are recorded in the bills directory. When a new bill arrives, both old documents get archived and the new bill is recorded in a calendar reminder system. This works well in conjunction with daily and monthly backups. The archive directory is useful for looking at last months data, and backups retain the rest.

How long should I keep it?

Current and previous months are retained locally in the directories bills and bills/archive. This covers most queries. The accounting system is really the first point of reference. Archives are really there if proof of payment is required. The monthly backups are on a 12 month cycled, and Taxation records are record to archive CD as an accumlative data archive. So little data storage is consumed by this that for the last four years I’ve been practising this fits snuggly onto a CD without compression. So, the move to a DVD archive will be a while away. I prefer not compressing the files, just as it makes retrieval and receovery from data corruption easier.