An efficient office filing system is significant for any business that handles receipts, invoices, and other financial records, whether digitally or on paper. Even for businesses that don’t have much documentation, staying organized and updated will help the companies run smoothly.
For organizations and companies, switching to a digital structure tremendously benefits staying organized, facile, and accessible. Improving documentation efficiency within a business can significantly influence employees’ valuable time handling the paperwork and increase their time on more profitable and productive activities. However, a paperless filing system might seem daunting as many traditional businesses fill journals, metal cabinets, and wooden drawers. To help interested entrepreneurs understand the basics of paperless filing cabinets, we’ve curated an essential guide to representing the digital filing structure below.
Importance of a Paperless Filing System
Filing receipts and invoices is one of the essential things a business can do for its financial health. A non-existent can add excess days of effort at income tax time, and you don’t want to neglect tax deductions because of improper receipts.
Depending on your potential industry, you might need to keep records to repeatedly obey state or federal regulations for years. Tax advisors and accountants must keep tax returns on paper for years.
Many businesses organize their financial documents in peerless filing cabinets by implementing the following pointers.
Selecting a Sound Digital Filing System
The concept of your business will determine whether you’re choosing to file numerically, alphabetically, or some other way. For instance, do you search for clients’ information by name or account number? Do you file the documents by category, including expenses, marketing, and finances? Digital filing cabinets have numerous benefits, including spacing, budget-friendliness, accessibility, etc. In other words, you can opt for any digital system you find the most feasible for your business.
Eradicate the Documents
Once you’ve selected a sound filing system next, you’ll have to remove the needless paperwork to maintain mandatory office files. Documents like magazines and outdated newsletters should be recycled and shredded. You should then organize the remaining files into a labeled digital filing system. If your business is transitioning to paperless systems, paper documents must be scanned and digitalized.
Implement Productive Software
There are numerous modernized applications and software available that will help to boost business productivity. For instance, many accounting tools simplify payment and invoice management. Companies can also invest in inventory management tools for updating inventory counts and tracking. This tool will enhance productivity and reduce the amount of unwanted paperwork in the office.
Organize Your Desktop
Many business owners perform a large volume of functions on their desktops. Therefore, many digital documents and files are saved on desktops. Business owners must regularly declutter their inboxes to prevent the desktop from becoming slow and boost functionality. Opting for a digital filing system will ensure the safety of essential documents.
Training the Employees
Turning digital begins with outsourcing the design of a facile document management system for the company. Transitioning from a manual to a digital filing cabinet requires time and effort initially. For this purpose, a business owner must train his employees regarding the online filing cabinet to get familiar with the technologies and mechanisms.
If your company uses the manual paper filing system, it might be an ideal time to turn towards digitalization. A digital filing system has numerous benefits over the traditional one. It saves valuable time for the employees, recovers the information instantly, and even saves storage.
After finalizing an excellent paperless filing cabinet, you can start categorizing the folders. Later, these folders might contain several sub-folders for all your necessary financial accounts, including accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll taxes, and banking receipts.
Once creating an organized form of the folders, you’ll include all the above-listed files in these folders and start classifying the data.
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