Whether you run your own business, work from home, or work in a busy office you will know how important document filing and storage is, and how quickly the problem can get out of control and out of hand.

Having documents all over the place in a disorganized mess will surely lead to chaos, especially when it comes to finding that all the important documents that you urgently need.

Ingenious Solutions That Will Solve Your Document Management Problem

So, before chaos ensues get your documents organized and filed away in such a manner that you and colleagues can quickly and easily access the documents and files they need, as there is nothing worse than struggling to find something that should be quick and easy to find.

Why Document Management and Storage is Important

Productive working environments require efficient and effective systems in place to ensure that work gets completed on time and within budget, this is applicable to any working environment.

If you are working within a team and you all need a shared, safe and secure access to documents it is very important that all documents are well managed and organized. If you are storing customer data and information it needs to be safe and secure.

Not being able to find documents when you need them can be detrimental to any team, especially the teams that are working remotely.

Not ensuring document safety can be detrimental to a business, as it is a legal requirement that any information you hold on or about a customer is safe and secure at any time.

Easy and quick access is necessary to ensure that teams can work productively and efficiently even if they are based all over the country, or world.

Documents may be needed several or more times by different team members and so it is essential that unlimited access is offered to employees.

How to Organize Your Documents

This all comes down to personal and business preferences. The main thing is that whatever system you introduce or implement becomes the standard within your workplace.

If there is no standard or consistent approach, colleagues and other employees will struggle to maintain the system which will lead to sheer chaos. Whether you choose to organize data and documents alphabetically or by date, you need to ensure you are consistent within your approach.

Once your documents are organized you need to maintain the system you have put in place, this is where it is all so easy to slip up, especially if you have several team members constantly accessing and using the storage facility.

To make sure your system stays organized it is wise to encourage good behavior, this may sound trivial but if one team member fails to store documents correctly then the whole system will become unworkable.

So with this in mind, it is wise to encourage every member of your team to spend a few minutes each day ensuring that they file their documents in the correct locations, that they spell check their documents and they ensure that they always follow your new filing guidelines to ensure the system in place stays well maintained and efficient.

Spending a few minutes each day maintaining files and documents is time that is truly well spent, it will ensure you don’t have to spend countless hours of your time sifting and sorting again in the near future.

The Positives of Online Document Management and Storage

Online platforms and storage solutions allow flexibility which is essential within a team, especially if everyone within your team is working remotely.

An online service such as ContractHound allows you to store documents online, organize and edit as you go. Online services allow everyone within a team or company to have access to documents, ensuring that your company and teams are not left behind as a result of an unworkable, unproductive, and non-functioning storage system.

The Downsides of Offline Paper-Based Storage

Paper takes up so much space and realistically, do you have the space to spare?

How long do you need to keep files for and how long should you keep records for?

The answers will probably leave you reaching for online solutions. One year’s worth of documents takes up enough space. Let alone ten years plus worth of paperwork.

Old fashioned paper-based storage certainly does take up space and time and it is more time-consuming to organize and sort through paperwork, initially than when stored online, and of course, online solutions can quickly and easily be shared via an online platform, which paper-based versions cannot.

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