Do invoices and administrative papers accumulate on your desk? Do you waste too much time searching for information in your archives? Do you feel that there is no time for filing or archiving?

You have always avoided office work because you do not have patience, it does not suit you or it is not in line with your activity. Many entrepreneurs hate administrative work, considering it boring, tiring, unprofitable and much more.

But it is essential to process the documents produced / received to know the history, the present and what you will do in the future. All the company’s activity is reflected in… documents (contracts, offers, litigation, invoices, delivery notes), if you do not know where they are or how to find them, you will not be able to:

– know what conditions you set with partners / clients,

– communicate on the situation of receipts and payments,

– you know what deliveries you have made and what is waiting,

– the presence of viable financial statements before the tax office and the social ones before the social institutions, etc.

So a legal obligation that respects strict regulations from which no business can escape.

The classified and archived documents become the proof of the rights and obligations necessary to exercise the company’s activity. Therefore, their classification is necessary especially when they are subject to:

– Claims,

– Taxes, judicial control,

– Litigious situations.

A rigorous document filing system helps avoid headaches.

The classification of administrative documents includes all the tasks and processes that will make it possible to process, order, classify and facilitate the search for documents within your company.

An efficient and operational system can save you time and money. An organized process of documents facilitates searches and considerably reduces losses. This first step then allows easy access to important information related to the company’s activity for a summary.

For current and intermediate archives, the filing plan allows them to be arranged so that they can be easily found. As for the final archives, they are placed and ordered in an archive service to be preserved,to avoid any accidental damage or loss.

In addition to these advantages can be listed: communicate increased organizational performance, ensure compliance with legal and ethical obligations on access to information, ensure respect for privacy and neutrality, neutralize the harmful effects of employee mobility and support organizational memory, in addition, is a guide and a reference for improving and designing other complementary and more specific tools for better document management.

Organize your archives systematically and sustainably

The real dashboard of archiving your documents classifies and prioritizes all the documents that reflect the company’s activity. Through a thematic method, he draws up a tree-type structure organizing documents on topics, from general to private.

Within these themes, the subthemes are developed according to whether the documents are in current use or are considered intermediate or final archives. Thus, each listed subject is preceded by a rating or an index (an encrypted or alphabetical or alphanumeric code) to easily find any document thus archived.

How to correctly organize the classification of documents?

There is no standard document registration model or magic formula. Submitting documents is effective when the owner or manager of the company can instantly find a document without the need for the secretary responsible for submitting documents. To make this storage simple and accessible, it is necessary to have one or more cameras that will be used for this purpose or to have a computer server for data storage. Think of a logic specific to your industry or the requirements of your core business to adapt your classification method.

Professional files can be classified alphabetically, chronologically, categorically or according to their content. The archives should be updated regularly so that each new document is submitted as soon as it is no longer used.

The main types of possible classification

– Physical classification: filing cabinet, box, storage cabinet, separators, free sheets, etc.

– Digital submission: IT tree structure (submission plan), Electronic Document Management (EDM) solution.

Alphabetical classification plan

This type of classification method aims to arrange the documents according to their titles. It is a method of organization perfectly adapted to the documentary fund.

Digital submission plan

This method is especially true for archivists. Because it is generally applied to managing documents on large volumes. The principle is to classify each document, assigning them an identification number

Thematic classification plan

This is the most commonly used secretarial filing system. The method is simple. It consists in organizing the documents of architects, in general, by grouping them first on titles and then on topics. It also helps locate documents. This classification is both thematic and typological. While offering explicit themes, this classification plan emphasizes the status of each archive (working document, reference document, or final archive).

All these filing methods should not be taken isolated, as they are very often used in combination to fully adapt to the existing archive background.

Why do you need to establish a document classification plan to better manage your archives?

Rank efficiently to find easily!

The archive classification plan is based on a system of organization and classification of archived documents that reflects all the company’s activity. Archiving is not only used to securely and sustainably store documents, but is also the best way to easily find and therefore have easy access to every document so classified. Although there is no “perfect deposit”, the correct storage of documents requires a good understanding of the different criteria for a well-done archiving.

It is often recommended that documents be classified into two distinct categories:

– official documents

– management documents

Practical advice: The purpose of a storage plan is not just long-term and secure preservation of archived documents. Allows easy access to archives. This requires knowledge of the various criteria of an effective plan.

What are the criteria for an effective ranking plan?

The classification plan is the practical means by which it is possible to group logically and hierarchically (functions, professions, activities, categories or subjects) all the archive documents. This methodology meets certain efficiency criteria, of which the main ones are:

• The plan must follow a logical classification structure; each document being distributed and classified according to a logical diagram comprising hierarchical levels and corresponding to the nature of the documents. Thus, for each document is assigned a precise and definitive place.
• Regardless of the type of document or its support, the submission plan common to all allows the systematization and standardization of the entire archiving of documents. Once submitted, any archived document can be easily found.

Accessibility: all documents must be accessible; the receipt-submission plan is based on a method that aims to correctly identify the documents in order to find them easily.

Update: the purpose of any reception-submission plan is the efficient management of archives with the preservation of constantly updated information and knowledge (facilitates the exchange and circulation of information, ensures traceability, guarantees the protection of sensitive and classified information).

Purification: if the classification of documents consists in their intellectual ordering and their logical and rational organization, this then includes a purification phase, ie the elimination of any document that has nothing to do with it. (documents to be deleted, those to be archived, etc.).

Reliability: methodical and rigorous, classification facilitates locating a document and finding it easily, in all stages of the life cycle.

Why outsource?

Time consuming and tiring, filing documents (invoices, books, magazines, meeting reports, etc.) is a time consuming task.

Outsourcing this activity can be a great way to relieve pressure. Focus on developing your business and let a professional administrative secretary organize your documents.

It is not always easy to find a trusted person with whom you can share the most sensitive issue. We have validated the skills and experience in the field and we will be able to sort, store and classify all types of documents, on paper or digital.

Through our secretarial and document filing services you will have archiving and classification processes according to your needs.

We can intervene directly within the company or remotely on various aspects:

– Checking the conformity of the received and sent documents,

– Sorting, processing, classifying, digitizing and archiving files (invoice, estimate, etc.),

– Organizational audit of document classification and archiving,

– Establishing a process for classifying documents within the structure,

– Dematerialization of document classification processes,

– Assistance in the implementation and regular updating of an electronic document management (EDM) solution.

Conclusion

The action plan is a precise and rigorous classification methodology used by specialists. It is a useful and efficient tool for managing an archive fund and facilitates access to this fund. To do this, is it important to know who produces the documents? How are archives produced? What classification logic and what type of classification plan to choose?