Every so often, the average person looks around their home office and notices that things have gotten a little disorganized. Perhaps the "to file" pile has grown too large, or the filing cabinet drawers are too full to get more documents into them. It is at times like these, were some time spent with a quality scanner can help bring order back to the expanding entropy of the home office.
In order to efficiently use the scanner for after the fact organization, versus as you go organization, it is critical that the scanner have a paper feeder. Opening and closing the scanner to scan numerous documents will waste more time than it is worth resulting in perhaps more organization, but many hours lost.
Assuming the paper feeder is in place, there are two useful methods for tackling the scanning and organization project. The first method is to triage all the papers in the home office. With this method, all papers are fed into the scanner without regard to what they are. As the papers are scanned, they must be removed from the home office or they will eventually become confused with other documents and the home office user will be left wondering if a certain document has already been scanned or if it still needs to be scanned. Placing papers into a box after scanning will help keep it straight.
The advantage to this method is that it is the quickest and the electronic copies of the papers can be organized later. The downside to this method is that it is much easier to ignore an unorganized electronic pile than a paper pile, so this method should only be used by home office inhabitants who will be certain to return to the electronic organization quickly.
The second method is to organize the physical papers at the time of scanning. With this method, all receipts might be scanned first, then all bills, and so on. The advantage of this method is that the electronic copies will already be somewhat organized upon entering the computer. The disadvantage is that this method requires doing the whole home office at once in order to get all of each category completed.
Once the piles of paper have been scanned, it will be necessary to organize the electronic copies. For this, the folders and directories of the standard file system are priceless. Generally, a useful organization will revolve around major folders such as, Business, Personal, Medical, Taxable, and so on, followed by sub-folders which begin to break down each document into its proper place.
In this manner, when the need arises for a certain document, finding it will be much easier. Additionally, if the computer is backed up regularly, there will also be an archive of documents should there be some sort of problem in the home office like a high-speed cat, or grape juice spill.
Either way, your accountant, your expense reimbursement coordinator, and your boss will all thank you.
