keep a paper trail

[ndsimm]

As a business owner, as you deal with your clients, do not throw ANYTHING away. file it, scan it and save it to your hard drive, but don't toss it!

I did a wedding 3 years ago and met with the groom to deliver the album (I know, don't say it) and he loved it and took it home. The wife saw it and was not happy. She did not like the image choices I made for the album (I had just started doing digital albums back then and did not involve the couple in the selection). After agreeing to redo the album, I discovered the REAL reason for the problem with the album - there was ONE shot of people on the dance floor and in the shot was the grooms' ex girlfriend - why she was there is another story
I sent them a letter certified mail, return receipt letting them know that they had 60 days to make their image choices and I would redo the album and I never heard anything back from them.
Fast forward to today and I get a message on Facebook from the groom asking about the status of the album I remind him about the letter I sent and how the delay was because I was waiting for them to respond back. After the "reminder" he responds and tells me to just reprint the ORIGINAL album.
I didn't even ask and just told him I would ship it when it was done. I know if I had not sent that letter I would not have a leg to stand on and would probably be in small claims court or on Judge Judy.....

[Steelsun]

Good advice.

As a small business owner that gets most of his business from Lawyers, I've also learned to document EVERYTHING. I keep hard copies of actual papers for 1 year, then scan everything to keep electronic backups. Electronic communications are also saved (I "print" the emails to a PDF document and save them in a file)

[ggeen]

An auditor told me if it is important, it is on paper.

Paper archives last longer and you don't have to worry about what application versio you need to read it. It is simply too easy to photocopy a sheet of paper and hand it off.

That is why even though I file electronically, I keep paper copies of my tax records.

[Steelsun]

Yeah, but many lawyers are moving to a "paperless" office, and if it works well for them it will work well for me.

One lawyer I talked to estimated his firm (3 partners and 2 associates) saved at least $100K last year by going paperless:
Saved storage (lease cost per sq feet is HIGH)
Saved on filing/pulling - both lost time with the lawyers waitng and paying for an assistant to do it.
Saved money and time on copying (now the lawyer just prints or emails a copy to whoever)
Alot harder to "lose" a file or document.

The biggest expense was
1) training everyone to use the scanning systems (software plus all in one machines at each desk), but that actually paid for itself in under a month.
2) paying someone to scan their old archives. (which they think paid for itself in the first quarter out of saved lease costs and recovered costs from selling old shelves/etc).

[suerenee]

Until March, when I was laid off, I was a paralegal. Our office was completely paperless. Many of the Counties are also going paperless. I totally recommend paperless--JUST make sure you back up your files and store them off site. If you do that it's actually better b/c you have back up in case of fire or flood.

[ggeen]

I don't need to keep tax records for life so, I think I can spare seven years of tax records. I'm an IT guy. I've been an IT for 20+ years. Digital is temporary but I keep pics in three forms of digital, don't I. Hmmmm.....