Easistore’s top five tips for keeping business paperwork at bay

As a small business grows, paperwork can start to take over. When your business premises are used as office space or as a front of house location, necessary admin can start to interfere with working life. Determining how to manage a build-up of invoices and receipts, sales records, contracts, employee information, accounts information and legal paperwork not only requires plenty of time, but can also consume a lot of your business space. Follow our top five tips to keep business paperwork at bay:

1. Know what to keep

When business growth causes paperwork to pile up, the first step is to find out which documents you need to keep and which can be resigned to the shredder. Ask your accountant and legal advisor for guidance on which records should be retained, often financial paperwork needs to be stored for a certain time period; for example VAT records should be kept on file for six years and payroll for the current year plus three previous tax years . Having this knowledge will allow you to organise your records accurately and determine how much space will be needed over time to store this information.

2. Create a system tailored to your business needs

Allocate time to re-evaluate your current system and organise file storage into a structure with longevity. Be sure to consider the volume of space you will eventually need to store each document type and create a system around this projection. Business growth can also mean hiring new employees, with many business documents containing important financial and legal information you may decide to remove these from the main office to a secure location. Some business storage specialists provide secure document storage with swipe card access; so designated members of staff can access documents needed.

3. Label everything and plan ahead

Organise records methodically and label boxes and files clearly by document type. Arranging records chronologically will allow you to find information relating to a particular date easily. When dealing with a large volume of paperwork which has been moved to a storage location, keep files which need to be retrieved in an accessible place. Labelling sealed boxes and filing cabinets with a ‘store until’ date so that files due for the shredder can be quickly identified will allow for an efficient turnover of records. Choose a storage company which is able to provide specialist secure document storage with 24hr CCTV and smoke and heat sensitive alarms for peace of mind.

4. File working documents and closed documents separately

Once documents have been permanently consigned to the filing cabinet they can take up valuable space needed for working papers. Removing old paperwork from a working-document filing system ensures current paperwork is kept to hand and older records are archived safely. Create a schedule to move older documents into storage, work out how frequently you’ll need to do this: whether it’s weekly, monthly or yearly; moving important but non-current paperwork into storage frees up working space for business operations.

5. Know when to say goodbye: shredding documents

Go through old paperwork each year and evaluate the relevance of documents you have. For security, always make sure old financial and legal documents are shredded before disposal. Setting aside time for thorough storage admin each year will keep records up to date; this way you will never use more space than is needed.