7 Tips For Good Record Keeping
For many freelancers, records are the last things we think about. There’s a design to finish for a client or an accounting department to call about an invoice — there’s always something more important than handling records. But the fact remains that those records are important at some point. Whether you need to go back to an old version of a project for your client or you need to pull your copy of an invoice, having an organized system is crucial.
The biggest problem we face in getting our records into order (and keeping them that way) is that most of us work on our own. It’s hard to find time for tasks like filing when it’s just you. These tips will give you a few ways to streamline your record keeping.
1. Choose Online Tools
There are some considerations when it comes to relying on web applications for your business: there are security concerns, reliability issues and other questions you have to think about. Just the same, though, using online tools can make it much easier to manage your records. Depending on the tools you choose, you can skip filing altogether and even automate a lot of the processes that go along with filing.
2. Get a Filing Cabinet
No matter how many online tools you use, there will be some documents you need to have in hard copy. Shoe boxes aren’t really a long-term filing solution, so buckle down and get a filing cabinet — even a little one that can slide into your closet will be enough.
3. Keep Your Paper Files Simple
You don’t need a fancy filing system to satisfy accountants or investors. Depending on how paperless your process is, you may only have a few file folders. The most important could include ‘Contracts,’ ‘Taxes,’ and Bills.
4. Rely On Search For Your Computer Files
It’s okay if your computer files aren’t separated out into appropriate directories. As long as you make sure that you have a consistent way of naming files, you can typically rely of searching your computer to find any file you need. It isn’t a best practice, admittedly, but if you don’t have time to devote to managing your online files, it will suffice.
5. Set Aside Time For Filing
Aside from your computer, your files aren’t going to organize themselves. Set the time aside to get your paperwork off your desk and into the filing cabinet, shredder or trash can. If you do so on a regular basis, it may be just fifteen minutes every week or so.
6. If Your Filing is Making You Crazy, Outsource It
While freelancers don’t always have a lot of cash to throw at administrative expenses, it can be worth your while to hand off your filing on a part-time basis. You don’t need a full-time administrative assistant, either — you can get away with bringing anyone who can match names to files or at least understand the basics of your filing system.
7. Back Up Your Files As Much As Possible
There are several options for backing up computer files, including printing off hard copies. Creating a back up system for hard copies can be harder, but if a document is particularly important, perhaps scanning it in is worth the time and effort.
Good article! Nice to see the article take shape so soon, Thursday! I definitely need some work on my organizing skills when it refers to filing. Although I find my system, ‘pretty good’, I can still use some work. I already have a filing cabinet and find it’s a life saver.
I agree with all of these tips, Thursday. The physical filing is the bit I find hardest to do, but it makes sense to keep on top of it. For back up, I have two solutions: an online backup provider and a portable hard drive. I keep meaning to scan other documents so I will have them all on file, but haven’t achieved that yet.
My physical filing system is the simplest yet: one folder for all business related documents such as receipts for business expenses.
Because I get paid through PayPal, all my income documents are online anyway. I make PDF copies in my computer. Should I print them as well?
Lexi
Hey Lexi, something I do for my invoices (as an example) is send the client a copy via email in PDF form. I also print myself a copy and file it in the appropriate folder for a “hard copy” back up (should anything happen to my computer).
Personally, I’d recommend that you print a copy off as an extra back up of any important PDF’s or other online documents (referring to payments, etc.). Having an online, on computer and printed backup could come in handy… you just never know what could happen!
Thursday, great article. I love anything to do with administration and record keeping…but I outsource these things! I try to “outsource” first to my computer and then to my VA, and I manage to save so many billable hours (or, you know, random YouTube video watching time). Since I have a paperless business, the keys for me are consistent file naming, saving in a universal document format and NEVER not filing something in the folder it goes into. But most people already know I’m super-organized — having an assistant helps me make raw data actionable (and the $ docs go to the accountant) and I manage to avoid all filing slog.
I have all my documents digital so I backup all of them on my external hard disk not to loose them in case of a computer crash, but then the files are getting mixed up and some files with lots of copies… I’m thinking to work everything from external hard disk but not sure whether it could harm the hard disk running it for hours!
One thing I’ve found that works really well for me is to have 13 folders. One for each month and one for “need for taxes”. When you get bills/invoices/paper, deal with it and put it in the folder for the month you’re in. When you hit the 1st of a month, open up that month’s folder and go through it.
I find that 90% of it can be thrown a way and the other 10% either gets filed into the yearly file in the big cabinet or “moved back” a couple of months.
This method gives me a rolling one year archive easily reachable, without getting overwhelming…
Great post Thursday.
I have digital, online and physical copies of my files as well as keep multiple backups of them. I couldn’t agree more on the file cabinet; I have to have it or my physical files will be everywhere. The one thing I have to work on is making time for filing. I am working on that one by adding scheduled tasks to my calendar.
Nice article.
What do you suggest for “filing” emails? A folder/label for each client? I use Outlook, which if I leave everything in my inbox (adding up to thousands of mails), the Search takes forever. Yet I never seem to find the time to file the emails. I don’t like gmail for various reasons, but one great thing about it is the fast search.
Why not hook up Gmail to Outook? You get the benefits of both worlds that way.
I forward all accounts through Gmail, pick up via IMAP, and then all labels in Gmails are seens as folders in Outlook.
You can just drag into folders or set rules (in Gmail or Outlook) to file emails from x into folder/label x etc.
e.g. I have a label S/A/P/Clientname for Status, Action, Project, Clientname.
When the project is done I drag to R/A/Clientname for Reference, Archive, Clientname.
Easy semantic filing.
Michael,
Can you explain what you mean by S/A/P/Clientname? Is that all one folder, or do you have 3 folders: S/Clientname, A/Clientname, and P/Clientname? Or do you label each email either S, A, or P in the subject line? Do you send yourself emails just to report on the status? Probably you are doing something else, but I don’t understand.
Yeah… you only really need one good online tool.
Since switching to Crunch I’ve not lost a single invoice and I just need to look at electronic statements and add to the system and the job is done.
An accountant picks up my data at the other end and I don’t get to see any paper… Why keep anything apart from receipts when you’ve got a digital system to take care of everything?
Some great points here Thursday.
I’m ultra-paranoid when it comes to my bills, invoices, filing, etc. and so I have digital backups, printed backups, etc.
For @George Passwater, you might want to have 1 lump of time, 1 day a week strictly for filing paperwork and cleaning up and organizing files. Both On your physical Desk, and also On your computer’s Desktop. Often it seems like a small priority when compared to paying client work… but I think we can all attest to how good it feels to have all the paperwork off our desks and all of the bills and invoices sorted. I like to use Friday after lunch for that, seeing as it’s usually a low-productivity time anyways.
One last (Great!) option to consider is keeping all of your invoice and billing Digital files in a DropBox folder ( https://www.dropbox.com/ ). It’s automatically synced with an online backup and is accessible anywhere. Plus it works on both PC and Mac, iPhone, and even simply through their website. This one is a no-brainer! ( it’s like using X-Marks for your online Bookmarks.. http://www.xmarks.com/ … sorry couldn’t resist the plug… this little ditty has saved me MANY a headache!)
good luck people!
Eric
Evernote is another good option. You can add PDFs, Scans, even pics you grab with your webcam. On a Macbook with built in camera it’s so easy to take a quick snap of a receipt and have it sync to the cloud.
I tend to use Dropbox for files I’m working on (staying within the free 2gb limit) and then use Evernote to store things I never want to forget, important business receipts, serial numbers for software etc.
Storing serial numbers has saved me A LOT of hassle when setting up a new machine.
Michael,
By the way, I do already pipe most of my incoming mail to folders. It’s the remaining mail that I still have trouble finding the time to drop into folders/give labels…
Michael,
Sorry this is coming in dribs and drabs. Re what you wrote:
“You can just drag into folders or set rules (in Gmail or Outlook) to file emails from x into folder/label x etc.”
I am afraid to set rules for client email because I worry that I won’t notice that the mail came in. If it comes into my Inbox, I notice it. How do you make sure that you notice it?
Hey Aliza… Sounds like you’re having fun wrestling with this!
By S/A/P/Clientname I mean that’s the folder structure. Also… I don’t use S/A/P/Clientname that was a typo, sorry.
I *actually* have S/A/Clientname for actions, S/WF/Clientname for waiting for items for that client. I do also have P/Clientname – P for Project info and reference. I also have R for archive and R/F so I can drag a finished project folder to reference.
In Gmail it looks like S/A/Clientname is one label but in Outlook or Apple Mail it appears as folders and sub-folders.
If I’m in Gmail I can remove labels, and add new ones (L key to quickly label) but more usually I’m in Apple Mail and I drag an item from S/A/Clientname to S/A/WF if I’m waiting for them, or, if no current actions outstanding I can drag contents for S/A/Clientname to P/Clientname so all the reference materials are kept together.
As for rules it depends on the client. I allow the important guys to hit the inbox and I “do, delegate or defer” immediately (applying basic GTD)… for other (usually non-paying!) clients I funnel into a client folder for them and I just see a (1) next to their folder/label and I can see there is something in that “client inbox”.
I use inbox during the day for (twice daily) receive and respond/process and then check the non-urgents at the end of the day, the weekend, or in my weekly review.
As always weekly review helps mop up anything that might fall through the cracks.
Sorry for the long reply, maybe I should blog about my system?
oh… and…
Did you know you can drag labels from the right-hand-side of Gmail? i.e. you can drop the “S/Action” label onto an email in the inbox. Then hit ‘y’ for archive.
Speedy!
Michael,
Thanks for all your answers. It still is not entirely clear to me, so I take seriously your thought of blogging about it!
-Aliza
I know this article is on filing paperwork, but the subsection dedicated to backing up files got me thinking about project files. What are some of the preferred methods for automated backups? I’m on a Mac, so I’ve got Time Machine going. Apple also has an app called Backup that will let me do incremental backups of particular folders to specific network locations or harddrives.
In short, what are some of the systems you guys have in place to backup not just your paperwork, but your graphic design source files, local copies of web site files, etc.
Hey James. I’m on a Mac too. Timemachine is great for those ‘oops, I deleted it!’ moments. But I also think I need two other best practices.
First an Archive: I have an external drive for just this and I file sensibly, into folders that mean something, like “Banking/2009″. The process of sensible, meaningful Archiving means you’re not only able to find stuff easily in future but it means there is a ‘weeding out’ process where you trash old temporary files, drafts, duplicates etc. Although search is often better than searching through a folder structure I find both are useful for different reasons.
Second, a Clone: I use Carbon Copy Cloner (it’s free) and every Saturday night it makes a complete copy of my hard drive (I exclude my Timemachine, Movies, Music and Archive folders as they’re already taken care of). The good thing about CCC is that it takes an exact image of your drive and it’s bootable! If your main drive dies you can boot from the backup in an emergency and worst case scenario is you loose a week’s worth of data. But, with Timemachine, you don’t loose anything.
So…
1) Timemachine for the ‘whoops’
2) Archive for the ‘geek’
3) Clone for the ‘eeek!’