3 ANNUAL PAPERWORK ORGANIZING TASKS

There are three paperwork organizing tasks you must take care of annually, and most people do not know how to do them correctly. Yesterday, we covered one unexpected paperwork organizing task you must do monthly here.

You can download my Paperwork Maintenance Routine Chart here and keep it in your inbox to keep your paperwork under control on a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual basis. Be sure to download that chart here, so you are never at a loss for how to keep your paperwork under control.

So, to begin, you will grab your insurance polices and contracts, petty files, and tax files.

How to Properly Complete the Three Annual Paperwork Organizing Tasks

Task 1: Purge, Review, and Update Insurance Policies and Contracts

1. Purge, review & update insurance policies and contracts: once the new one comes, you don’t need the old one anymore. This goes for all auto insurance policies, life insurance policies, health insurance policies, wills and trusts, etc.

• If your vehicle has reached a ripe old age, you can see about reducing your coverage.
• If you plan on having a baby, you can see if you need to up your health insurance coverage.
• If you’ve made a major purchase, you can add it to your will and trust.

Task 2: Move Your Current Year Files to Your Previous Year Files’ Area

Move your ‘Current Year: Petty Files’ and ‘Current Year: Important Files’ to your ‘Previous Year’ area and place the emptied ‘Previous Year’ file folders in the ‘Current Year’ area. Your saying, “What?” I understand. You must have an efficient paperwork maintenance system in place for this to make sense. In summary:

• You will have twelve file folders labeled my month where, throughout the year, you will toss in petty files that you don’t need to keep permanently. These folders will be in a subdivision under a tab labeled “Current Year.”
• At the beginning of the next year, you will move these twelve file folders under a tab labeled “Previous Year.”
• You will take the twelve file folders that were sitting in the previous year section, empty them, and move the emptied folders to the current year section.
• All the previous year petty files that were emptied from the folders can be recycled.

Task 3: Shred the Tenth Year’s Tax Files

Shred the tenth year’s tax files. Again, you’re probably saying, “What?” First, you need an efficient paperwork maintenance system in place to even have a proper place to store your taxes by year. Next, you need to understand why I am referring to the tenth year’s tax files. Technically, we only need to keep up to the previous seven years of tax documents on file. To be safe, I suggest keeping up to the previous ten years of tax documents on file. And, to be even safer (also, to track records for financial history and analysis for businesses), I suggest scanning the tenth year of tax documents before shredding. Now, moving on to the paperwork organizing task, in summary:

• You will remove the old label from the tenth year file. For example, if it is 2021, you will remove the file label from 2011.
• You will bring the empty file to the front of your file system. For example, your file labels will be in order by 2020, 2019, 2018, etc.
• You will then insert the newest year’s tax files into the empited folder, and apply a new label.

I hope this clarifies how to efficiently take care of three essential annual paperwork organizing tasks. In the next post, I share my efficient paperwork maintenance system. I use this same system for businesses and non-profits. It can also be converted to a digital system. Be sure to download your free paperwork maintenance routine chart here so that you have a quick reference for how to stay on top of your paperwork throughout the entire year.

Happy Organizing!