To end the mountains of paper to sort, we give you all the practical advice to properly store your invoices and other important administrative documents.
Even if we are less and less invaded by the paperwork thanks to the digital documents, in our houses there are cases where old papers drag in boxes, cupboards or boxes. The accumulation of documents is stressful, and in doubt you never know what are those to be preserved and which one can destroy unscrupulous. A few hours will be enough to put order in your administrative documents.
Step 1: Sorting
At first, take a pile of documents, sub-homes, a marker and a box or a bag to sort out. Isolate the documents to destroy and those to be preserved. For information, you must keep your papers:
- Salary bulletins and employment contract: for life
- Account statements and check heels: 5 years
- Mobile and fixed phone bill: 1 year
- Energy invoice (Eau-Gaz-electricity): 5 years
- Health insurance reimbursement: 2 years (statements or are paid daily allowances must on the other hand be kept until the liquidation of your pension rights)
The list of papers to be preserved is available here: http://vosdroits.service-public.fr/particuliers/f19134.xhtml.
Practical example: Have you accumulated 12 years of bank account statements? Know that they should be kept only 5 years! As a result, all previous account statements can be put aside in the cardboard or the bag to be destroyed. Then classify the remaining 5 years per month and year and store them in a shirt. Repeat this operation for all other posts or labels (health, insurance, car, electricity, etc.). And you will see that after a few hours, the number of papers to be preserved will have decreased significantly!
Step 2: Classify and archive
Once this first phase has been carried out, it will now have to archive and classify the remaining documents. Why archive them? Because some documents must be kept for life but you will not need it for a few years or perhaps never (securities of real estate properties, salary slips, civil status documents, former account statements, etc.). These documents are therefore not necessary to clutter your storage spaces. Classify these papers in elastic shirts and use archive boxes to store a large number of papers and easily storing on a height shelf or at the bottom of a wardrobe. Gather the shirts by wording or post of the same family for more coherent archiving and a quick document search.
Practical example: Compose an archive box at the “Maison” wording. Classify the following shirts in this box: lease and rent receipts, energy bills, home equipment purchase invoices, home insurance. Use another box for employment and store your work contracts, salary slips, etc.
You should not set up too many subcategories because files of files will only waste crazy time when you are looking for a simple document. With this archiving and classification method, you must be able to find a document in less than a minute! Place a simple and above all intuitive archiving system for you, because what will seem logical to you will not be for someone else. Some people will classify for example automotive insurance in the “insurance” position with household insurance receipts and others will classify this document in the “car” position with the vehicle purchase bill and maintenance or repair bills.
Step 3: Group documents often used
You have sorted, isolated the documents to destroy and archived the documents that required it. Now the last step is to classify the documents to be kept under the elbow in a functional way. For this, it is recommended to use large levers binders with intercalaires of 6 (especially not a game of 8 or even 12 for the simple and good reason that the workbook will not be optimized and will be quickly filled). 2 to 3 binders will be necessary depending on the composition of the family and your lifestyle.
In these binders, therefore slide the documents with 1 or 2 years (12 last salary slips, last 12 account statements, 2 last tax notices, etc., the rest being archived in the boxes). In this way, if you needed to build a file to take out a mortgage, all the documents will be accessible in a few seconds. Do not forget to note the corresponding posts on the slice of the binders, for rapid and clear identification.
Step 4: Destroy the documents
Here are the documents are sorted, archived and classified. Now you have to destroy unnecessary documents. Be careful not to throw them as much as or just torn in two in the trash because an identity theft can quickly happen. Ideally buy or have a destructive of documents that will eliminate your parts safely.
The case of magazines and newspapers
Magazines and newspapers are often piled up and accumulated by taking dust and especially space in the house. An unread magazine in the month following its acquisition is unlikely to be consulted one day … If you bought a magazine because an article you were interested, cut the page and classify it in a plasticized view or scan the article and get rid of the rest of the magazine. Unsubscribe from the magazines that don’t interest you or little, you will spend a few minutes there, but you will save space and money.
The case of mail
Often and despite a good will, the lack of mail treatment due to a lack of rigor in the ranking and the organization can generate unpleasant surprises such as unpaid invoices! As far as possible, pay the maximum of charges or pay off your bank account. Also remember to note all your access codes and identifier in the same place on a paper medium and/or a computer to avoid wasting time looking for your identifiers or spending your time reactivating your access.
What to make mail that will happen now? Use either a bannette or a document range with 3 compartments and identify the continuation to be given to these documents:
- To be classified: These will be for example the next pay sheets or the last tax notice that will have to be put in the corresponding workbook quickly.
- To be treated: it will be necessary to put the invoices to pay, the disease sheet to be sent to the social security center, the prescription of the drugs to buy, the school insurance certificates of children which will have to be given to the establishment at the start of the school year … Once the document is processed, put it in the “to classify” cover.
- To keep (under the elbow): the leaflet of the pizza delivery man, the perfume gift check to use within a few days, the invitation to the wedding of your cousin, etc.
Ideally, do this once a week or every 15 days, it will only take you a few minutes, an hour at most, and you will always be up to date in the processing and classification of your administrative documents and especially the accumulation of paperwork and the regarbative side of the processing and the classification of the document will be for you only a bad memory!
For even more tips and advice, call on Elvira, storage coach and organization of the all my coaches.
