Best Practices to Organize Your Small Business Files & Folders

Whether you are managing your papers physically or digitally, you must organize your filing system so as to get the desired file on time. This will not only help you save your time but will also help you keep the hassles of arduous searching process at bay!

In this article, we will show you how to effectively organize your files so that you can store them safely and retrieve them as early as possible. Now, just make sure to sit tight and go through this article.

How to organize paper files at work

Read the following article thoroughly to know the best practices to organize your files.

Dos while managing files and folders physically

First off, you will have to create different categories for different types of files. According to the file categories, you can include the files into the appropriate drawer of the file cabinets. In the file cabinets, you can then keep the subcategorized folders in which you will store the files.

For instance, you can categorize your papers on:

Human Resource Category

If you do have a very small team, still you need to keep the records of their various aspects. Under this category, you can create sub-categories depending on the industry you are working on. For a web development business, the Human Resource Department’s files may further be divided into the following sub-categories:

• Intelligence team
• Content team
• Design team
• Marketing team
• Business team
• Support team
• Developer team

If you do use a human resource solution, you can create these categories as departments there with ease.

Customer Resource Category

When you are managing your customers, you will have to store every customer’s information on your database. You should create customers’ profile repository where you have to keep field’s like customer name, email, phone, website and so on. You can also divide this department into two more sub-categories like:

• Individual contacts info
• Company info

You can use customer resource tool to keep this information safe and organized at the same time.

Accounting Category

The accounting department has to deal with a series of accounting papers. This is why we suggest you subcategorize the accounting papers into the following:

• Debit Voucher
• Credit Voucher
• Salary and Wages
• Tax Papers
• Invoices
• Recruitment
• Asset Distribution
• Interview and Examination

However, if you do use an accounting software, this documents you will be generated automatically which will be stored in the database.

Project Management Category

Maintaining a separate drawer for the project files in the cabinet will allow you to know the information of the completed projects. In this regard, you can maintain separate folders for each project in the cabinet.

The best idea would be using a project management tool to be organized with documents related to projects.

Managing files and folders with document management software

Using a document management tool will allow you to store the documents in digital format. This way, you can protect your document from being damaged and from getting stolen. With the search option, you can easily retrieve your expected files and share your files very easily with your teammates.

In a full-fledged document management application, you can very easily create nearly unlimited folders and sub-folders. You can use these folders as the category and use the sub-folders as sub-categories and finally store the files in them.

Read more to know the benefits of using document management software.

Wrapping up

Managing your business efficiently requires you to be more organized when it comes to the business papers. As business veterans, we tried to include our own experience and strategies here. We hope these tips will help you become more efficient and increase your business productivity.

Above all, if you want to be an efficient manager then you can not go without a document manager.

Get a Document Manager now!