You need to have a plan in place make finding documents easy once you have them scanned on your computer. What you need are Naming Conventions; in other words, strict rules for how you will name you documents. This is really important when it comes to creating the files and will make the time you spend looking for documents minimal.

Here is an example of how I name my documents. I have five bank accounts and each month I receive a statement for each one. I have a money market, a joint account, my husband has his own personal and we have two we set up for our nephews. Each bank statement gets scanned and named:

Money Market: BNK MM 083108 – BNK for Bank, MM for Money Market, 083108 for the date of the statement.

Joint Account: BNK JNT 083108 – BNK for Bank, JNT for Joint Account, 083108 for the date of the statement.

Husband’s Account: BNK RH 083108 – BNK for Bank, RH for my husbands initials, 083108 for the date of the statement.

Nephew 1’s Account: BNK SH 083108

Nephew 2’s Account: BNK BH 083108

If I have a bank deposit receipt for my money market account I would name it BNK MM DEP 082908.

It is a lot of work in the very beginning to get everything named but you will see that it is all worth it. Below is the list of naming conventions I use:

• Bank Statement – BNK XX where the XX stands for the account
• Bank Deposit – BNK XX DEP where the XX stands for the account
• Receipts – RCT XX 083108 – RCT for receipt (I only use RCT for personal), XX name of company receipt is from, 083108 date of receipt
• Invoices – INV XX 083108 – INV for invoice (I only use this for business and I use RCT for personal bills that come in or purchases I make), XX for name of Vendor, 083108 for date of bill
• Bills (if you bill someone else for services or sales) – BILL XX 083108 – BILL for bill, XX for customer, 083108 for date of bill
• Tax Returns – TAXYE07 – TAX for tax returns, YE for year ending and 07 for 2007
• Credit Card Statements – CCXX use the XX to indicate which card – for example Capital One could be CCCO (Credit Card Capital One)
• Child or Pet Vaccination Records – VAC ALF 083108 – VAC for vaccination, Alfie is my dog’s name so I shorten it to three letters, 083108 date of vaccines
• Vehicle Registration – DMV 1985 Ford 083108 – DMV for Dept. of Motor Vehicles, 1985 Ford for vehicle, 083108 date of registration.
• Insurance – INS AUTO 1985 Ford 083108 or INS HOME 083108 or INS BUS 083108 – INS for insurance, followed by type AUTO for automobile, HOME for homeowners or BUS for business followed by the date of the policy
• Warranties – WAR XX 083108 – WAR for warranty, XX for appliance or items warranty is for, 083108 for date warranty started.

If you start all of your naming conventions with the type of document like INV for Invoice or VAC for vaccination then all of your documents can be sorted alphabetically keeping like documents together.

Your Daily 15 – Create a labeling plan or use mine. Write down all of the naming conventions ahead of time so you are consistent with naming your files.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

No related posts.