How can you create a digital filing system for office administration?

In our times, I used MS-Excel, Word and Powerpoint. Correspondence was with MS-Word, and any Sale/purchase or simple account related tasks (Petty cash, material requsitions, LPOS, and even some kind of Quotes, JobCard recording to payment calculation, Monthly TimeCard and O/T Calculation were automated or managed with MS-Excel. There must be more I missed. That was the use of this tool and I ruled with it.

From all the important points to consider when developing a digital filing system, choosing a proper naming convention is the most significant of all. Choosing a well-planned naming system can improve the overall quality of the digital filing system, it helps to retrieve data more speedily and conveniently and can incorporate key information about the files being stored. Here is a typical name tag in our organization (University): 902-2304001 902 = Code of Academic Program 23 = Year 2023 04 = April (Enrollment Session) 001 = Serial Number (Enrollment wise) So, just from name tag, you can understand the following info about a student: 1. Program 2. Year of admission 3. Season of admission 4. Serial number

I use files that have specific version numbers, like Name_WF_01, Name_WF_02, etc. Make sure you save every 10-15 minutes so you don't loose any files. This will help you also to explore various options. After the project is completed, you can delete all the older/previous versions.

Also, read 'Plan your structure' Filing Systems 01 Google Drive 01.1 Structure 01.1.1 Work Specialisation 24_01.1.1 -Adm_XXX Estimation 01.2 Systems 01.3 People 01.4 Culture 01.5 Resources 02 Operations 02.1 Strategy Management 02.2 Finances and Policy 02.3 Administrative Support 02.4 Products and Services 02.5 Communication 02.6 Human Resource

I'm using a business dropbox service. All my project files are automaticly saved and backupped. They are accessible all over the world with phone, tablet, laptop, and desktop computers. Super easy and flexible for remote work. Ofcourse any other service like google drive, one drive, or apple icloud will do as well.

I’m my experience ( I was a document storage clerk at a bank and have organized hundreds if not thousands of bankers boxes full of paperwork!) it’s also a great idea to have a retention guide. Although digital storage is the wave of the future, sometimes we are left with lots of paper after it’s scanned and aren’t sure what to do with it. I recommend researching retention guidelines for your industry and retaining physical papers by organizing by document types in boxes and documenting shred dates on the boxes. Your future self will thank you!

Since most communication is done either on internet or intranet organisation can ensure a back up of all communication is taken. Then the correspondence is centrally filed and an organised filing system implemented to ensure ease of retrieval. Use of chronological and categorising files by their process or structure is ideal in retrieval. Also other than scanning, documents can also be stored digitally as they are being prepared or during processing.

Never save over the same file when you work. Incase you get a system crash, or a network/wifi dropout, your file will not get corrupted. You can otherwise work local only, and store it on the network-drive when you are done. Always use clear naming conventions, so you can see what was the last version of a file. E.g. 'Proposal_ClientName_WorkFile_V1', 'Proposal_ClientName_WorkFile_V2', etc. And when ready, 'Proposal_ClientName_Final (date)'