How to Digitise Office Files: Scanning, Naming, Folders

Digitising an office does not mean scanning every sheet in the building. It means choosing the papers that matter, scanning them consistently and giving them names and details that make them findable. Here is a method that works for a small or medium Nepali office, and a plan that fits around daily work.

Step 1: Decide what to scan first

Sort your papers into three groups:

1. Active: documents you use every week, such as current contracts, running projects and recent bills.
2. Important but occasional: registration papers, licences, property documents, agreements, certificates and minute books.
3. Old archive: past years that are rarely opened but must be kept.

Start with active documents going forward, so new papers never join the backlog. Then scan the important group. Leave the old archive for last, and scan it in stages, perhaps one year or one cabinet at a time.

Step 2: Prepare the paper

Remove staples and clips, flatten folded sheets, and note torn or fragile pages. Keep documents in the order they belong. If a file has attachments, scan them in the same batch so they stay linked. A little preparation saves a lot of rescanning.

Step 3: Choose scanning settings

• Use a flatbed or sheet-fed scanner for bulk work. A phone camera is fine for single documents if you use good light and a flat surface.
• Scan at a resolution that is readable but not huge. Very high resolution makes files heavy and slow.
• Save as PDF. Combine all pages of one document into a single PDF.
• Use colour for stamps, seals and signatures that matter, and black and white for plain text to save space.

Check a few pages after each batch. A blurred scan of a contract is worse than none because you might destroy the paper and lose the content.

Step 4: Name and describe consistently

Good naming makes search easy. Agree a pattern and write it down. For example: document type, party, date and reference. Something like "Agreement - ABC Suppliers - 2082-05-12 - REF 045". In a document management system, these details are stored as fields, so you do not depend only on the file name. Decide whether dates are BS or AD, and use one format everywhere. Many offices record the BS date because that is what appears on the paper, with the AD date calculated automatically.

Step 5: Design the folder structure

Keep it shallow. Three levels are usually enough. Examples:

Level	Example
1. Department or area	Finance, HR, Legal, Projects
2. Year or case	Fiscal year 2082/83, Project Alpha
3. Document type	Invoices, Contracts, Minutes

Too many levels make people lose files. If a document could belong in two places, pick one and use tags for the other.

Step 6: Link the paper to the digital record

You will keep some originals. Write the file number or print a QR label on the physical folder, and record its cabinet and shelf in the system. A person who finds a scan can then locate the original, and someone holding the paper can look up the digital version. This is especially useful for items that need to be shown in original, such as stamped agreements.

Step 7: Set permissions before you upload

Decide who sees what before sensitive papers are uploaded. Staff files, bank documents and legal matters should go into restricted folders from day one. It is much harder to tighten permissions after thirty people have seen a document.

Step 8: Build the daily habit

New documents should be scanned or uploaded the day they arrive. Assign one person per department to be responsible for filing. Put a recurring reminder at the end of the week to check for papers left on desks. The backlog will not grow if the habit holds.

A sample plan for four weeks

• Week 1: agree structure, naming and permissions; train staff.
• Week 2: scan active documents and begin using the system for new papers.
• Week 3: scan important documents; attach expiry dates for contracts and licences.
• Week 4: review search results, fix naming problems and start on the old archive.

What not to do

Do not destroy originals just because you scanned them. Check first with your lawyer, accountant or the relevant authority about what must be kept in paper, and for how long. Do not leave scans on a single computer without backup. And do not allow every staff member to create their own folders with their own names, or you recreate the same mess in digital form.

Quality checks before you finish a batch

At the end of each scanning session, open five random files from the batch and check four things: every page is present and in order, text is readable when zoomed, stamps and signatures are visible and the file name and details match the paper. Write the batch number on the physical folder, for example a short code and the date scanned, so you know it has been processed. Keep a simple log of batches in a sheet or in the system. If a problem appears later, you will know exactly which paper and which day to check.

Who should do the scanning?

Do not give the whole job to the newest intern without supervision. Scanning needs care and a basic understanding of the documents. A good pattern is one person who scans, one who checks and one senior staff member who decides what is important. For large backlogs, a temporary team working a few hours a day is usually more reliable than asking regular staff to scan between their normal tasks.

Our document management software is set up with your folders, fields and permissions, and scanners can be supplied on request. If your archive is mostly letters, look at darta chalani software. Message WhatsApp +977 9846280400 to plan your first batch.

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