chirpfarm - 3/6/2022 22:27

I love Paperless. It is an open-source app that uses AI to learn your document naming and locating preferences. Overtime, it builds a database and will start naming documents for you as you import them. It'll also add tags, sort into folders, and more if you set it up correctly. I have it installed on my NAS and absolutely love it. I don't save any paper anymore unless its something that might be important such as specific tax documents or contracts. For these documents where I need to save the physical document, Paperless has a feature called Archive Number that is very useful for looking up a document in the electronic database and tieing it to where the physical paper document is actually stored in a filing cabinet.

Basically, I stamp any document that I want to physically save with a numbering stamp. This stamp iterates a new number each time it is stamped (0001, 0002, 0003, etc). So, document 0001 might be a 1099 from Bob, while document 0002 is a contract from Ann. I then scan the documents into Paperless and save the archive number with each electronic document. Now, next year if I need to find the contract from Bob, I can search for "Bob" & "Contract" in Paperless, and it'll show me that the archive number is 0001. I can then go to my filing cabinet and open the folder labelled folder 0000-0100 (I store documents in folders of 100) and look for document 0001. This system saves me from having tons of separate folders in my filing cabinet named "Bob taxes" or "Ann Contracts" Its just a really slick system.

It also allows you to apply tags, which are the colored boxes in the example below. So, for the pic below, I could search for tags "Farm" & "Equipment", and it'd display all documents with those tags. In this case it'd only show the document from Kibble, but there could be many others.

I will say that the setup is a bit more involved because it is self-hosted and open-source, so you do need some technical skills to get it going. It isn't a plug-and-play program where you just click "Install" and it is up and running. If that is what you need, then the FileCenter mentioned earlier might be more your speed. The nice thing about paperless is that its free.

Like I said, I rarely keep paper copies of anything anymore. I've created a system of multiple backups, including offsite backups. My accountant says so long as I have the scans of business items, there isn't anything that says I need to keep the physical paper copies. Very, very satisfied with the program.