Guidelines for Home Document Imaging

Throw away that ugly filing cabinet and get with the program! These days there is little excuse to keep paper records that clutter your home. Paper records are too easily lost in a busy household. Instead, start filing documents electronically and follow these guidelines for home document imaging.

What You Will Need

To switch to paperless filing, you will need a scanner. An all-in-one printer and scanner is a good option for this. If you have a lot of documents to scan, get one with an automatic feed to save yourself some time and trouble. Some documents must be kept in original form, so get a small fire-safe box for the one or two folders you will need for original documents.

You should also have a way of backing up your scanned documents. You can either use an internet service or use an external storage drive. Use whichever system you prefer for your photos. Understand that Internet storage can be susceptible to the dangers of hackers and external storage drives are susceptible to everyday dangers like fire and water at your home.

Organizing Electronically

Organize your receipts into electronic folders. You should have files organized by date and by type of purchase. This is most easily done by filing scanned images with photo organizing software that allows you to assign tags to images. Add tags for the date of purchase, category of purchase and name of the product. If a purchase may be tax deductible, be sure to tag it as such.

Other electronic documents can be organized simply by naming folders and the files themselves. Bills can be paid online or by electronic check. Sign up for e-statements so that you can get your bills by email and then pay them online. Save a copy of the statement in a folder named for the service provider and year. Name the file with the service provider name and statement date. When you need to find a document, you simply do a search of the folder where you keep electronic documents.

If you continue to receive some statements via snail mail, scan them and then shred them. This is the best way to preserve the information while preventing it from falling into the hands of a criminal.

What to Scan and Toss, What to Keep

Some paperwork cannot be stored online alone. After you have scanned your documents, there are some things best kept in a fire-safe box. These include receipts for tax-deductible purchases, vital records and contracts.

You should keep receipts because the IRS decides what constitutes acceptable evidence. If you can give the taxman originals, your audit will go much more smoothly. The IRS recommends you keep such paper receipts for three years.

Vital records like your original birth certificate, death certificates of relatives and your marriage certificate should be kept in a fire-safe box. You should also hold on to your passport or citizenship documents.

Contracts have special rules of evidence that will apply should a law suit arise. The Best Evidence Rule requires that any original contract be held as the "best evidence" when compared with a copy of another version of the same document. Keeping an original ensures your copy will carry the most weight in court. This includes insurance policies because they are considered a type of legal contract.

Now you will have one small fire-safe box instead of large file cabinets full of documents. It will be easier to retrieve your documents when you need to find them if you tag and file the images in a logical manner.