Letter Archival does anyone do this?

Bes · 27 Oct 2007 at 13:52

Well now I am a grown up, I find myself getting more and more post each day.

Bank statements, CC bills, etc I just shred and recycle as I do it all online anyway.

But other letters (Payslips, letters from the IR, letters from various companies you want to keep etc) all take up valuable space.

I am thinking of buying a decent quality scanner and setting up an old PC in a mirrored RAID format and storing all my docs electronically, binning the originals.

Does anyone here do this at all?

Mad old tory · 27 Oct 2007 at 14:23

can you do that with HMRC docs? I thought you had to keep the originals?

rpstewart · 27 Oct 2007 at 14:25

Bes said:
Does anyone here do this at all?

We do a lot of that sort of things for clients but on an enterprise scale - think terabyte SANs etc.

The main disadvantage that I can think of is that when it comes to applying for mortgages etc you'll probably need original bank statements, payslips etc so destroying the recent ones maybe isn't a great idea. I'm not sure where the Inland Revenue stand on the issue either.

I've just tidied through all my paperwork and it now fits in a small cardboard box about the size of a small PC so there isn't that much of a space saving to be had.

norm · 27 Oct 2007 at 14:30

The time it'll take to scan/archive each piece of mail can hardly be worth the effort.

SideWinder · 27 Oct 2007 at 14:34

norm said:
The time it'll take to scan/archive each piece of mail can hardly be worth the effort.

Agree.

OP: Just buy a bigger folder.

whitecrook · 27 Oct 2007 at 14:53

We do this for companies. Thinks tens of 1000's of documents a day.

We have fast production scanners that do hundreds of pages a minute though.

It can be done with a home setup, but you'd need to rigoursly control it, as once you have a pile, it can be a task to scan them all in, a typical home scanner would take probably about 20-30 secs a page?

Scan in B&W thresholded for best reproduction and smallest filesize. Colour for any docs that absolutly require it.

Set your scanner up for one button scanning. The less hassle it is the better.

And consider OCRing all the docs, as this will make searching easier later.

Then just archive all in a box, maybe monthly then you only need to do it 12 times a year. and make sure the file sytem or indexing ssystem bears some resemblence to the hard copy so you can actually find docs again.

Nix · 27 Oct 2007 at 14:55

To be honest, just buy one of those opening box folder thingies with the wallets in (I can't remember the name). Easiest and most practical method.

norm · 27 Oct 2007 at 15:43

Some people just like totally over-engineered solutions, that fall on their head when the power fails.

PhillyDee · 27 Oct 2007 at 16:02

I keep my stuff for a year in a archive box, then it gets moved to an a4 box for a year. After that, it gets shredded. It works. Apart from payslips, for some reason, i always keep them.