To keep your business on track with your paperwork you need to be organized. Particularly for bills, you will know where they are when they need to be paid and how to find them if there is a query.
Non Digital Business Organization Essentials
To organise yourself in a nondigital way you will need the following:
a filing unit
hanging files
folders for the files
documents
post-it notes
A shredder is also a good investment , this will enable you to dispose of non-essential data which has your personal data on it.
The first step is to equip yourself with a filing unit. This could be anything from a dedicated floor to ceiling filing cabinet if you have a lot of paperwork to file, or it may be a desk with file drawers, something like a Bush office computer corner desks in wood in harvest cherry finish . Either way your filing unit needs to integrate hanging files, these may be already supplied with your desk or cabinet or you may have to buy them separately. It is important that your hanging files are equipped with tabs which you will then be able to insert headings into.
How To Organize Your Categories
I recommend the following categories , which are in fact your hanging file tabs :
bills to file
bills to pay
automobile park
banking
credit card statements
gas bill
electricity bills
tax
subs
telephone
medical
loan agreements
legal
insurance documents
entertainment
owners manuals
Using the post-it notes we use one heading to one post-it note and we use one colour of the post-it notes, and pen out the headings that apply to you so that the sticky part of the post-it note is on the bottom. Use the post-it notes for a week or two to make sure the titles are right before you replace them with permanent insets and tabs. Some of the title listed above you will be able to use as they are, others will be too general and you will need to break them down further, to be best organized. That’s to say the headings are the more general terms and the subheadings more specific, these are the file folders.
How To Get Organized With Subcategories
So with the main heading “bank ” you might want to use the following subheadings:
monthly statements
investments
payroll information
With the main heading automobile you might want to use the following subheadings:
leasing contracts
acquisition invoices
automobile repair invoices
manuals- owners manual, CD manual
DMV – registration , insurance document
With the main heading telephone, you might need the following subheadings
monthly phone statements
monthly Internet statements
monthly cellphone statements
monthly page statements
agreements
For the heading insurance you might need the following subheadings
automobile- (this can all productively be filed under automobile) agreements , invoices, statements
life- agreements , invoices, statements
health, agreements , invoices, statements
For the heading loans you might want to and following subheadings :
business – agreements , monthly statements, end of year statements
You might want to create a heading “monthly”, in here you will put items that don’t fit in any of the other categories. If you have a large business then it may well be that the majority of your paperwork is your own invoices. It’s best advised to keep a separate filing space if your billable amounts are small, you could well have hundreds of these to file away, so you don’t really want these mixed in with the rest .
In terms of quantity the second most important item will probably be invoices to pay. Strip out any excess paperwork that comes with these invoices and put through the shredder anything that has your name or account number on it.
Organising your time
It is best to set-aside some time every week or every two weeks to organize this paperwork. When you pay an invoice, on the invoice write the check number, the date paid and the amount paid before filing it . File your paid invoices into their appropriate folders putting them in date order. Keep cancelled checks in a folder under “ bank”. Create a monthly subfolder for receipts.
At each year end store away what you can in a large box marked with the the years date, and start a new folder system .
Spend Time Today To Save Time In The Future
It might take you some time to set up and then get used to your new filing system. But this is time well spent because once you are organised you will find that you are so much more efficient.
Lloyd Burrell lives on France’s Atlantic Coast with Emmanuelle, his wife, and his two children . He enjoys speaking French and eating French cuisine . His other hobbies include badminton, cycling, , playing the guitar, and traveling to sunny climes . He currently writes office desk reviews and sells them for Bush Furniture online