How To's: Creating Filing Systems that Work
If you are a small business owner, it is essential for you to operate at your desk quickly and easily. Thus, a filing system would really be of great help. When creating filing system, you are doing your business a big favor.
A filing system will organize and keep all the important documents and information you need for your business. Even if establishing a filing system seems hard at the start, it is simple task that can be prepared easily by some advice on creating filing systems that work.
Determine how much storage you do need. The first thing that you need to remember is you need a lot more space as you think. It doesn't matter if you choose a plastic filing crate, or a dedicated filing cabinet always anticipate extra space so that you will not have problems with filing in the future.
Learn how you normally access information or things. This is a good guideline when you start creating filing systems, and how it will look like. Commonly, if you are someone who classifies things by categories you should use this as a guide for your filing system. Always remember that it is your filing system so you have to arrange your files according to “what works for you”.
Basic approaches in creating filing system. You may choose between category and index based system. If you want to create categories, you may classify items by subject, but if you want an index based system you can identify items numerically. However, you must choose the method that makes the most instinctive sense to you. You might be more adept at categorizing rather than the indexing approach.
The active files must not be filed along with old files. Active files are those files that are almost used everyday. On the other hand,old files are those that have to be kept but must be preserved for document retention purposes.
Gather your supplies. The most practical accessory for organizing files are colored hanging folders and plastic label tabs. These can make filling documents an easy task and make them very accessible and this will also help you easily identify categories and indexes.