Tips To Learn How To Go Paperless | DocumentSnap Paperless Blog

This post is part of the paperless stories feature at DocumentSnap. Some stories are from readers that have successfully gone paperless, some are still going through it. Would you like to share your story too?

Today’s featured DocumentSnap reader is Sherri-Lee Mathers. It is a little different than the normal reader stories as it will be from my perspective, not hers.

Over the past few months, I’ve had the privilege to speak to two chapters of the Institute of Professional Bookkeepers of Canada about going paperless.

In preparation, I spoke to someone who is an awesome combination of IPBC member and DocumentSnap reader, Sherri-Lee Mathers from Balsam Way Bookkeeping over on my old stomping grounds, Vancouver Island.

Sherri-Lee runs her practice as paperless as possible, and told me about a recent payroll audit that she participated in on behalf of a client.

Being the organizational superstar that she is, she used Nitro PDF to organize all the documents that the auditor would need into one searchable PDF.

She went through and, using Nitro’s annotation features, highlighted the important information (check numbers, etc.).

Sherri-Lee told me that when the auditor came in, she was able to search the PDF for everything that he asked for, and was able to bring everything up on the screen right away.

At the end of the audit, the auditor told her that he was done in half the time that he had budgeted, and he said he was extremely impressed at how organized and easy the process was.

One thing the auditor did say: while he was happy to work with the electronic documents during the audit, in Canada the paper copy did need to be produceable if he asked. This matches up with what another awesome IPBC member and DocumentSnap reader, Laura Kenway, also reported at Bookkeeping Essentials when she talked to the CRA[1]. You’ll want to check with your own tax authority on what paper you do/do not need to keep.

Any time you have a happy auditor at the end of the audit (and happy for the right reasons!), I’d call that a win. Nice job Sherri-Lee.

If you have questions for Sherri-Lee, leave a comment and I will try to get them answered.

There is nothing I love more than when DocumentSnap readers share their paperless tips and workflows. I especially love it when the tips come from friends-of-the-blog like Michelle Muto.

Michelle is an author whose most recent book is Don’t Fear The Reaper, but you might remember her from her previous paperless workflow post.[1]

This time, she was kind enough to share how she uses Hazel to automatically file away her paperless bills.

Before I get into the post itself, a quick note. I love reading about and sharing these workflows because I am a productivity nerd and am always trying to make things as efficient as possible.

However, if you read this and your head is spinning or you don’t understand it, just ignore it. None of this is stuff you have to do to go paperless. Just focus on taking action with what you can do now, and worry about the rest later.

With that said, take it away Michelle (there are some minor edits by me to make it more post-y. Any mistakes are almost certainly mine).

Moving Based On The Content of A Bill

There are two things to ensure I’ve got the right file:

• department of water resources
• Current Due Before

These occur exactly as typed on my water bill.

Adjust The Date

Notice the extras in the Do the following. I add the date created, modifying it (Edit Date Pattern) to reflect the YYYY-MM. I’m willing to give up the exact due date because I’m really only getting one bill per month, right?

Then, I modify the date created qualifier some more. THIS IS THE KEY. Click on the down arrow in the qualifier, choose Adjust Date. Since my water bill is usually due the following month, I add 1. See below.

Move Into The Folder

About those other actions? It sorts into folder by year, creating a folder if one doesn’t exist. Now, all bills in 2012 will sort into a 2012 folder while next year, they’ll sort into a folder named 2013.

Records Retention

I’ve also added a keyword in the comments. This is for records retention. It can be whatever your accountant, IRS, State, local or whatever retention method you use. I tend to use only two, although there are several for my situation and location. For instance, I have records I need to keep seven years, and ones I need to keep four years. Since I have extra disk space, I just lump the two in the same pot so to speak. You could essentially only make one search if you prefer.

Now, to use that record retention comment (you don’t want to keep your water bill forever, right?) So, I built some more Hazel rules. Because… well, there’s always room for more Hazel goodness.

I needed Hazel to look inside the Filing Cabinet structure and subfolders, hence the following rule that watches the folder Filing Cabinet. Note that it MUST be the first rule.

Next, I created a rule to color files meeting the record retention of seven years red and add the keyword Possible Deletion in the comments.

Hazel doesn’t delete anything, so far, so good. Now, all that’s needed is to create a Smart Search in Finder to look inside the Documents folder for PDF files that are colored Red AND contains Possible Deletion in the comments. I save it to my side bar and that’s it. I can now either delete any files, or use Quick Look to verify I really do want to delete them.

Now, the last rule would be to have Hazel delete empty nested subfolders inside the folder named Filing Cabinet.

And last but not least, I can now get back to finishing my new manuscript.

Editorial comment by Brooks: The retention part is really going above and beyond. Very nice, Michelle!

This post is part of the paperless stories feature at DocumentSnap. Some stories are from readers that have successfully gone paperless, some are still going through it. Would you like to share your story too?

Today’s featured DocumentSnap reader is Sue Campbell, and it is an amazing one.

Here’s my story about going paperless. Actually, the paper in my life was only a small
part of my problem in the beginning. My biggest hurdle to start out with was a truly
limiting belief that “I can’t do this”. But, thanks to persistence and a guiding hand in the form of DocumentSnap.com, I now see myself as totally competent in managing our finances. I’ve been married for 50 years, and my husband has been handling all that for the majority of that time. Over the course of the 50 years, somehow I got it into my mind that it was beyond my capability. Nuts? Sure, but that’s what I used to think.

My path to competency and a paperless world all started with my husband getting a
diagnosis of lung cancer at the beginning of January. He immediately started going
downhill, having little time or energy to pay bills, track investments, etc. Then he had
surgery, which unfortunately was unsuccessful. And before he had recovered from that, they started six weeks of radiation treatments on him, rendering him totally depleted in energy, and sleeping most of the day.

In the middle of all that, our income taxes were due. OMG! I knew, that because of
his health, my husband couldn’t even start putting that together. He had used Turbotax for years, but the idea of digging into that myself brought on total panic.

However, one day the thought occurred to me that you don’t have to be smart to use Turbotax. In fact, I bet that some pretty stupid people use Turbotax just fine. So I said to myself, “One step at a time, girl. If it doesn’t work, you can always hire it out.” So I dug in, and before I knew it our taxes were filed. Eureka! I also learned that this kind of thing was fun.

Now here’s where the paperless part comes in. After filing the taxes, the big question
was “where do I put the paper documentation?” My husband’s system had him
amassing huge files and boxes of paper, some going back 15 years. If it was going
to fall to me to keep our finances from here on, I knew that wasn’t going to be the way I was going to handle it.

It was right about that time I ‘happened’ upon the DocumentSnap.com website
(amazing how the angels manage things, isn’t it?) I read everything I could on the
site, bought the Paperless Document Organization Guide, and started studying. I felt like I had jumped into really deep water, but I was determined to learn how to swim.

Throwing caution to the wind, I bought a Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 scanner, and started gathering all the tax documentation for my first scanning session. The FileCenter software I bought to accompany the scanner made everything SO easy. I also loved the fact that (with FileCenter) my files weren’t tucked away in some propriety software, and I could find
them easily.

I was giddy with accomplishment! I then tackled all the investment reports, and the
bill-paying papers from the beginning of the year. The scanner couldn’t have been
easier to work, and FileCenter became my best friend. Then I bought the final piece
in my paperless setup…a Fellows W11C cross-cut shredder. What fun that gizmo is!
Loose paper doesn’t have a chance around here any more. I bag it up in clear plastic
bags, and the recycling people love me.

Excel spreadsheets completed my paperless journey. My husband kept track of our
investments for years on multiple huge sheets of ledger paper. No more! Now that I’m the one overseeing that duty, I’ve set up Excel spreadsheets for everything. Even for the monthly bill-paying. (And they’re color-coded! Heck, why not have fun with this?)

And that’s what has surprised me about this whole story– I found out it’s FUN. From panic to fun….who’d’ve thought it?

So, that’s my story. I owe you a huge THANK YOU. You came along at the perfect
time in my life. Keep up the good work. And keep reminding the scaredy-cats out
there that they can do it.

Thanks so much Sue! I almost don’t know what to say about this story. It is amazing what we can do when we are thrown into a situation, isn’t it? You are my new hero.

If you have questions for Sue, leave a comment and I will try to get them answered.

(Photo by stevendepolo)

This post is part of the paperless stories feature at DocumentSnap. Some stories are from readers that have successfully gone paperless, some are still going through it. Would you like to share your story too?

Today’s featured DocumentSnap reader is Lee Chinshue Coello from Puerto Rico. She can be found at http://becomingunencumbered.com/.

What problems were you trying to solve by going paperless?

My paperless dilemma is two-fold. First it was a necessity in preparation for packing up our life and going traveling long-term . In addition to our household effects, we needed to streamline our storage and handling of files, mementos and mail simply because we would be on the move for the next six months to a year. There had to be a way to eliminate a backlog of physical paper piling up in our absence while still ensuring that our essential documents were secure, yet accessible if needed. The second reason ended up being because our plans got sidetracked and now we need to organize and archive the papers of an incapacitated relative. We are basically using and fine-tuning the system I started for my family.

What were the biggest stumbling blocks?

As I am still going through this process I would have to say my biggest stumbling block is the culture around me. I am currently located in Puerto Rico where most transactions still generate a lot of paper and institutions require physical paper rather than electronic records. Build-up of receipts can be a nightmare as almost every store prints two different kinds for each transaction. My husband and his father are also paper attached and that makes it hard to just get rid of it. I’m doing a lot of coaching and training each step of the way.

Tell us about your paperless workflow

I recently wrote a blog post called Fighting paper enemies on this very topic. It details my reliance on gadgets and apps to aid me in keeping on top of paper. Step one for me is receiving my mail online, as well as any document for which I won’t need to present an original. This stops a lot of paper from ever entering the house. I can have the mail scanned, shredded or forwarded to me as needed. Anything I want to keep I just save a copy of the scanned document to my computer. Next, for paper I do have in the home I use my Doxie scanner and then save immediate need items in Evernote and long-term or more sensitive files in Dropbox. Everything is on automated backup through CrashPlan to both an external computer drive and a external hard drive on site with me. I also make use of my smartphone to input almost everything I am doing in the moment into Evernote. I also use apps on my phone for my grocery list, electronic checkbook, passwords keeper and business rolodex. Having a scanner app on the phone that turns pictures taken on the phone into PDFs that I can send to Evernote means I never have to make a photocopy of anything. The other day my son missed a day of school and important test review notes. I snapped a picture of a classmate’s notes, converted it to PDF and put it into Evernote for him to review on the computer. No paper generated!

Is this for a business? Tell us about it

While my work in lifestyle management solutions www.becomingunencumbered.com does overlap into this area, I needed to improve and automate my system specifically for personal reasons. The extra, more complicated task of putting in place a paperless system for my ill father-in-law has made me focus on this area of my work more, and how to better guide clients through the process.

Is There Anything Else We Should Know?

Becoming paperless is an evolving process that begins with understanding your own personality. Just like when I help guide clients through organizing their possessions or household systems, no single method of doing it works for everyone. It all comes down to finding your sweet spot where habit melds with what leaves you feeling accomplished and in control of your system. Even for me, a more naturally organized person, this has been challenging. Finding good resources to give you ideas and direction is important. On this topic I am still learning and doing so I read sites like this one regularly for tips and instructions. Setting a paper priority list takes a bit of thought and tweaking. And of course, patience.

Thanks Lee! Great workflow and tools, and I just love your point about going paperless being an evolving process that needs to match your personality. So true.

If you have questions for Lee, leave a comment and I will try to get them answered, or head on over to her site.

(Photo by kevin dooley)

This post is part of the paperless stories feature at DocumentSnap. Some stories are from readers that have successfully gone paperless, some are still going through it. Would you like to share your story too?

Today’s featured DocumentSnap reader is Eileen Reppenhagen, CGA from Delta BC, Canada. She can be found at http://www.taxdetective.ca.

What problems were you trying to solve by going paperless?

How to create binders with information, for example, creation of a working paper file. As an accountant, you start a file, and then find transactions that require different categorization either as capital or income, and additional information appears that requires processing. Sometimes the working paper file gets completely revamped four or five times.

What were the biggest stumbling blocks?

Figuring out a way to find everything again.

Tell us about your paperless workflow

I use Microsoft OneNote to create working paper files and in fact, showed the Institute of Professional Bookkeepers how to use OneNote in a recent series of online workshops which were recorded and are for sale on my website shopping cart.

I also use Evernote for recording my Tasks and To Do’s and Notes. What’s cool about Evernote is that I can move an email straight into Evernote to create a note and sort it into folders right from the Outlook email.

Is this for a business? Tell us about it

Yes, I’m an accountant who prepares personal tax returns. I used to prepare business returns too, but have decided to narrow my focus to only personal work. This can sometimes still involve a self-employed person, and for every person or family, I prepare a working paper file to keep pertinent information about the work and a record of the work. It’s referred to as ‘work product’.

Is There Anything Else We Should Know?

I use Outlook for email and Calendar, GoToMeeting to meet online, Evernote for Tasks and OneNote for creation of working papers and project files. For example, I’m writing a story, which is will be published as an e-Book about organizing your personal papers. I have 24 checklists for sale on my website in the Store to help you organize paperlessly, by entering your data into the Microsoft Word fillable forms, and storing those forms to edit when your financial situation changes, plus creating a Quicken data file with your financial records, you can be very organized, all paperlessly.

All of this paperless organization, combined with the use of a Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 means that I’m using so much less paper than before. I used to stock up at tax time with multiple boxes of paper, but this year, I’m thinking that I might not even use one box.

Thanks Eileen that’s an awesome combination of tools to get your work done efficiently.

If you have questions for Eileen, leave a comment and I will try to get them answered, or head on over to her site.

(Photo by Alan Cleaver)

This post is part of the paperless stories feature at DocumentSnap. Some stories are from readers that have successfully gone paperless, some are still going through it. Would you like to share your story too?

Today’s featured DocumentSnap reader is Alexander Walter from Munich, Germany.

What problems were you trying to solve by going paperless?

As you can read below, I was trying to get rid of all the incoming and outgoing papers every single day in my job. I cannot go totally paperless but my wish is still to reduce the paper where it’s possible. Therefore I have come to the conclusion, that even Rome wasn’t built in one day and so I’ve done this with ease and lot of brainstorming. What can be accomplished easily and right now is one’s own thinking. I was never afraid to loose any paper or significant documents since I trust myself and the computers I’m working with. They were built to make people’s life easier. The next step was jumping over the papers and give it a try with the folders from last year. Emptying them, getting the paper in packages and feeding the machines. Soon I got myself a big pile of empty folders and a whole year’s storage transferred to the computer. Much better: I could now gain immediate access to anything I was searching for, since the PDFs created are searchable.
Nowadays there are almost no more folders in my office. They were replaced by a simple briefcase-inbox. All of the papers are going there and whenever the inbox gets full, I start a scanner-session (in fact I can’t wait for the time because this is great fun!)

What were the biggest stumbling blocks?

They were none for me. It is all a matter of willing to solve the paper problem. First I got myself a Mac, next I bought some pretty intelligent software. With these means I got curious what else can be accomplished in an easy way and that was about the time, when I started research on the web and reading books about going paperless. Soon afterwards I was quite convinced that I was in need of one last but essential thing: A document scanner.

Tell us about your paperless workflow

I have already. Anytime the inbox is full or at least at the end of a month, when all the rest of the work has to be done, I start the scanner. Important documents are scanned immediately, digitally signed with my autograph and sent as PDF via e-mail.

Is this for a business? Tell us about it

I am working as head-nurse at the Emergency Ambulance University Eye Hospital in Munich. There are about 50.000 visits a year and they are still getting more, since we’ve reduced the capacity on our stationery ward. Surrounded by incoming and outgoing papers, such as receipts, orders, invoices and much more on a daily basis, my folders and file cabinets ran out of storing space after a few years of doing this the old-fashioned way.

Is There Anything Else We Should Know?

Guess what’s the hardware I use? A Fujitsu ScanSnap 1500. I love it! The software is DEVONthink Professional. The books I read: TidBits publishing on Take Control books. My favourite website on paperless office: DocumentSnap. Always brightens my day.

Thanks Alexander, glad to hear I brighten your day! Great use of a scanner and DEVONthink, but I think my favorite part is the realization that everything starts with a mindset shift.

If you have questions for Alexander, leave a comment and I will try to get them answered.

(Photo by aria9)

This post is part of the paperless stories feature at DocumentSnap. Some stories are from readers that have successfully gone paperless, some are still going through it. Would you like to share your story too?

Today’s featured DocumentSnap reader is Myron Molnau from Idaho. His website is http://www.shipsonstamps.org.

What problems were you trying to solve by going paperless?

Get rid of a lot of paper that dealt with my stamp collection, books in my library, old tax records and all the loose paper from our travels.

What were the biggest stumbling blocks?

Finding the time to get started! After planning and laying out the entire process, I found I needed at least two scanners so I had to shop for new scanners. I had at least three choices for saving data so I spent more time experimenting but finally settled on using Devonthink Pro (DTP) which I have used for years and I am familiar with it. I also had to solve the problem of having several pieces of paper on my desk at one time, particularly while writing a paper or long article. This was solved by using two monitors. The rest was easy except for finding the time to do it right.

I like this quote:

If I could just do it over, I would do it better – maybe even right.

William Faulkner (1897–1962)

Tell us about your paperless workflow

The workflow is pretty much the same, regardless of what is being scanned and saved. Sort all the paper into two piles: scan and recycle (be ruthless!). I set up several Profiles on the Fujitsu S1300 so each group would have a proper name and destination. Also, not everything needs OCR. When needed, DTP would do all the OCR, not the ABBYY included with the Fujitsu. The AI in DTP does a good job in sorting through the files and putting them into proper usable groupings. That also makes it easy to get information out of DTP.

When going to the library or taking data from bound materials, I use a portable Pandigital Handheld Wand Scanner. That saves a lot of time clipping newspapers and magazines and allows very flexible use in libraries and away from home.

Is There Anything Else We Should Know?

There are two major processes in the paperless office: getting documents in and getting useful information out. I found that there was a lot of paper that I was saving that did not need to be saved. Just because you can dump it easily into a computer does not mean that you need to scan and save it. The use of Devonthink Pro, Circus Ponies Notebook, Evernote, Aquaminds NoteTaker and others like them may make a person lazy but you cannot make maximum use of the documents that you scanned unless you plan on using an intelligent scheme to retrieve those documents and be able to use them to solve some problem.

I still need to find a way to get some data types into Filemaker pro without having to use Excel as an intermediary.

Thanks Myron, That’s such a great point about the distinction between storing and retrieving useful information.

If you have questions for Myron, leave a comment and I will try to get them answered.

(Stamp photo from shipsonstamps.org)

This post is part of the paperless stories feature at DocumentSnap. Some stories are from readers that have successfully gone paperless, some are still going through it. Would you like to share your story too?

Today’s featured DocumentSnap reader is John Kendrick.

Synchronize Everything

One of my long-time goals was to become paperless in my business and personal life. I spent a lot of time traveling and got tired of lugging papers and a laptop back and forth across the country. The purpose of having a PIM on my laptop and my mobile devices is to remain connected and synched 24/7. I never want to be without my personal or client information and my GTD task lists.

While my digital set-up is explained below, the real defining moment came last year when I purchased a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner and its related software, which is a wonderful capture device, and much better than my HP 3 in 1 printer/scanner/fax machine. The ScanSnap is the final link in my paperless chain. I scan all paper documents (invoices, checks, contracts, etc. for all my clients) to either Evernote, to my task list, or to a subdirectory on my laptop.

The ScanSnap scanner itself and the included software tools couldn’t be easier to use. I did purchase The Unofficial ScanSnap Guide and found the information contained in the book made my workflow even more efficient.

The following set up keeps me all synched up and ready to address practically anything anytime, and answer any question anytime. Further, these devices allow me to have a method to record (either typing or voice recording) tasks close at hand all the time (phone and/or iPad). As a result I have no need for paper and I only need a pen to sign the occasional check that I don’t send through electronic banking.

The table below shows what software I use on which device. The footnotes below the table explain a bit more about the software and synching.

1. I use Toodledo to synch tasks and notes between the laptop, iPad and iPhone. I’ve used the Getting Things Done methodology for about 10 years now.
2. Calendar and contacts are synched between the laptop, iPad and iPhone using the Apple tether/powercord using iTunes. iTunes does not synch tasks, so I must use Toodledo.
3. Note Taker HD on the iPad/iPhone allows me to annotate PDF documents, which comes very handy in my line of work. This app also lets me take a quick note using my finger as a pen.
4. I use SugarSync because once I upload a file (or a directory with files in it) to SugarSync, updates from any device are automatically saved to SugarSync and no further synching action is required on my part.
5. I also back up locally using a portable hard drive.

The synching of Outlook to the mobile devices is not the handiest, although I’m sure someone will come up with a method to synch all of Outlook’s various functions in the cloud. The two step synching process aside, I have more trouble via iTunes synching than with Toodledo. But I never have to re-record anything from one device to another.

I purchased annual subscriptions to Toodledo and Evernote. SugarSync is free for now as I have not exceeded their 5 GB’s of free storage. The annual subscriptions were purchased as I want to be able to fully synchronize all data, and don’t want to be constrained by the limited features of free software.

I’ve been a long-time user of Adobe Acrobat and scan /assemble many documents using this software tool. Anything I get in paper, gets scanned almost immediately using my ScanSnap.

I have no selling or ownership interest in any of the hardware or software companies named above. My goal is to throw away paper, pens, and pencils. For the first time ever, these devices and the related software finally get me virtually there.

Thanks John, I love how you have all the pieces of the puzzle working together. Very cool.

If you have questions for John, leave a comment and I will try to get them answered.

(Photo by seier+seier)

This post is part of the paperless stories feature at DocumentSnap. Some stories are from readers that have successfully gone paperless, some are still going through it. Would you like to share your story too?

Today’s featured DocumentSnap reader is Harvey Levine.

Fifteen years of data to store

Fifteen years ago I became a serious investor. I didn’t want to pay the high commission costs that even discount brokers charged in those days and I wanted to make several very small purchases each month so that I could slowly build up a diversified portfolio of stocks.

I learned abut Dividend Reinvestment Plans (DRIPs or sometimes DRPs). These plans allowed you to purchase stock directly from companies with little or no commission and dividends paid by your companies may be reinvested in additional shares of stock.

The one acknowledged problem with DRIPs is that you had to keep all the individual records from each DRIP yourself. So I put all the investment information (number of shares purchased, price per share for that purchase, etc.) into Quicken. I kept the statements I received after each purchase and at the end of the year, I filed away the annual statement of all activity in the DRIP for that year.

Although you can still open DRIPs (and I still have many of the original ones I started years ago), two things have happened to make them less appealing: the costs of DRIPs has generally gone up and the internet revolution has made it much cheaper to invest using an online discount broker. In many cases the cost of making a DRIP investment is higher than making the same investment at a discount broker online. I haven’t opened a new DRIP in over a decade.

Where to store fifteen years of financial records

After moving many of my DRIPS to a discount broker, and selling others, I still have a core holding of 16 DRIPs. An annual statement runs between one and four pages, depending on how much activity took place in the DRIP. After 15 years, the information on these core DRIPs runs to several hundred pages and grows each year. If I decide to sell one of these investments, I’ll need these statements if the IRS questions my cost basis.

I could simply leave the records in paper form, but suppose there is a fire, flood, or burglary — well maybe not a burglary since I can’t picture someone carting off these records that would be of no use to them. Another problem is that if I die without telling my heirs where these papers are located, they might well get tossed out as junk by someone who doesn’t understand their value.

So, not surprisingly I decided to store them in the cloud. There are two phases to moving paper records to the cloud. One is the digitizing phase where the papers get transformed into computer files — I chose to save the data as PDF files. The second phase is to upload the computer files to the cloud. Converting paper files to computer files was greatly facilitated by my recently acquired Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500.

This is a great document scanner. A key characteristic is that it scans at a quoted rate of 20 pages per minute. So I loaded the 15 years worth of records for one DRIP into the “stacker” and pushed the blue button on the right side. In less than a minute, a PDF file was generated containing all the data for that DRIP.

The paperwork, converted to PDF format, now was ready to be uploaded into the cloud. I had to make a decision about where in the cloud to store it. My first choice was Evernote. I’ve been storing the majority of my online notes and documents in Evernote because of it’s great tagging and OCR capability. But in this case, I really don’t need to search and retrieve information from these DRIP records. So not wanting to clog up Evernote with information I’d never search for, I decided to more the files to Google Docs. The total storage requirement for all the DRIP information was less than 60 megabytes, which is only 5% of the total allocation for free users.

It took only a few minutes to upload all the 16 files of DRIP information to my Google Docs account. What I really enjoyed was tossing all those hundreds of dusty pages into the recycle bin.

A not so obvious advantage of storing in the cloud

Earlier I mentioned the issue that my heirs might not realize the importance of the DRIP (paper) records and toss them out, losing the opportunity to prove to the IRS the cost basis of the DRIPs. Now that the paper records are gone, replaced by cloud files, how do I inform my heirs of the location of this information? The solution: make them collaborators on the Google Docs folder containing these files. Now they have direct access to the folder of financial information right in their own Google Docs account. Everyone in my immediate family has a Google account, so there is no problem sharing these files with them. That was one reason why I chose to keep the information in Google Docs rather than in some equally useful cloud space. I’ll label the shared folder something like, “DRIP info for cost basis”.

Now I think I’ll tackle the mountain of mutual fund statements that I’ve collected over the years!

Thanks Harvey, 15 years worth of documents is pretty impressive, and good idea sharing them with family using Google Docs.

If you have questions for Harvey, leave a comment and I will try to get them answered.

(Photo by Orin Zebest)

This post is part of the paperless stories feature at DocumentSnap. Some stories are from readers that have successfully gone paperless, some are still going through it. Would you like to share your story too?

Today’s featured DocumentSnap reader is Sophie Perreault from Quebec, Canada.

What problems were you trying to solve by going paperless?

Getting rid of paper clutter, and being able to find (and stop losing!) any piece of paper in less than a minute!

What were the biggest stumbling blocks?

Having time to scan everything!

The other hassle has been the backlog of old stuff. Going through the file cabinet, or piles and scanning the huge pile is a big job.

Tell us about your paperless workflow

My Fujitsu ScanScnap 1500 sits on my desk. Whenever I get a piece of paper, I put it in the drawer underneath the scan. Whenever I have a few minutes to spare, I scan whatever is in the drawer. I use a file system to separate personal vs business documents. For business stuff, I change the title of the document to YYYYMMDD–supplier/client–description–amount. Easy to sort in chronological order, and having the amounts right there makes tax time that much faster!

Is this for a business?

Yes. I am a freelance translator and I work from home. While most of my work is done electronically (translating in Word, sending PDF bills via email), I still had paper coming in (check pay stubs, contracts, bills for whatever supplies I boughts, etc.)

Thanks Sophie, I really like the tip about having the amount in the filename. I can see how it would make things easy to find and enter into spreadsheets, etc.

If you have questions for Sophie, leave a comment and I will try to get them answered.

(Photo by brad montgomery)