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Filing Best Practices
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contains which records, so that retrieving paperwork is an easy affair. The result-
ing benefits from the change will be a considerable increase in working space and
less need for expensive office space and fewer expensive filing cabinets. The best
improvement of all is that it contributes to overall efficiency, for the amount of
paperwork remaining will be so greatly reduced that it will be an easy matter to
determine where the really crucial files are located, which reduces search time.
Moving records off-site is an excellent method for reducing occupancy costs and
clutter in the accounting area.
Cost: Installation time:

10–13 REDUCE NUMBER OF FORM COPIES TO FILE
Over time, it is a common occurrence for a company to continually add to the
number of copies of printed documents. For example, an invoice that starts
with two copies—one for the customer and one for the company—may later
have another copy added, so that invoices can be filed in numerical order, and
perhaps another copy, so that the customer service department (or some other
department) can have an extra copy. These additional documents are usually
added without much thought to the consequences for the filing staff, which
must put away all of those extra copies. Also, additional document copies
result in more expensive documents (since there is more paper involved), as
well as, in some cases, a much more heavy-duty printer that can punch
through such a thick sheaf of documents (which can also bunch up quite eas-
ily, causing a printer jam). Thus, a large number of document copies results in
a multitude of problems, not the least of which is a considerable increase in
the workload of the filing staff.
The best practice that eliminates this problem is to reduce the number of
copies. However, this is not a simple matter of ordering new documents with
fewer parts. Both costs and politics can become an issue when implementing
what appears to be, on the surface, a very simple matter. The main cost is that
there may be many documents still in stock with extra copies. If so, it makes
little sense to throw them all out. Instead, use them up, throwing away the extra
copies that are generated, and then order new documents when the old ones are
gone. The main problem is politics. If there is an extra copy being generated, it
is a good bet that someone in the company asked for the extra copy and that
person will not be happy when the copy is eliminated. If the person who wants
the extra copy is a highly placed manager, it is unlikely that the change will go
unnoticed or tolerated. Instead, if persuasion does not work, it is probable that
implementation will be impossible until that person leaves the company or
moves to a position having less influence over the decision. Also, before decid-
ing to stop using a document copy, it is mandatory that the exact use of the