A Paperless Office: What to Scan, Where It Goes, and What to Do With the Original

An operational description, not advice. What must be retained, in what form and for how long is settled with your accountant and according to the rules the Tax Authority publishes. This covers the operational side only: how to scan so things can be found, and the folder structure that survives years.

Going paperless nearly always fails for the same reason: everything is scanned into one folder, and then nothing can be found - and when nothing can be found, people go back to paper.

What to scan

Row five matters: what does not need keeping does not need scanning. Scanning everything turns the archive into a digital pile, which is exactly what produces the feeling that "paper was easier".

The naming convention - the decisive part

This is the one decision you must make before starting, and it cannot be corrected afterwards without a lot of work. A structure that works for most businesses:

Date - document type - counterparty - number. For example: 2026-03-14 invoice supplier-a 10422.

Three rules around it: dates always in one format beginning with the year, so sorting by name also sorts by time; the counterparty's name exactly as it appears in your system rather than in variations; and the document number where one exists, because that is what makes a single search find it.

A folder structure that lasts

As simple as possible, and by year. Year, then category - suppliers, customers, employees, contracts, banks. That is all. A deeper structure looks tidy and makes people file in the wrong place, because they are unsure which sub-sub-folder something belongs in.

What is worth adding is one folder called "to file" or "inbox" that everything scanned lands in before being filed. That prevents scanning being deferred because there is no time to file - which is, in practice, the number one cause of paper piles returning.

Who scans, and when

The right moment is when the document arrives, not at the end of the week. Batch scanning weekly sounds efficient and in practice is what creates the pile - and one busy week is enough for it to become a month.

In most small businesses the simple method is photographing with a phone on receipt, straight into the inbox folder. Phone quality is sufficient when the document is flat and well lit; what matters is checking it is legible before discarding the original. How this connects to supplier document capture is covered in capturing supplier receipts and invoices.

What to do with the paper original

This is where the confusion starts, and it needs saying plainly: what may be destroyed and what must be retained on paper follows the rules the Tax Authority publishes and a conversation with your accountant, and it varies by document type. The digital archive aspects are covered in document retention and the digital archive.

What can be said operationally: decide in advance and in writing what happens to each document type after scanning - kept, kept for a period, or destroyed - rather than deciding per sheet. And in every case, destroy nothing before confirming the digital copy is legible and backed up.

In practice many businesses settle on a sensible compromise: keep the paper in a binder by year without filing it carefully, and rely on the scans for day-to-day searching. The paper exists if it is ever needed, and nobody spends time organising an archive that is almost never opened.

Backups - the forgotten part

Once documents are digital, one failure erases what was previously spread across several binders. Three simple rules: one copy in the cloud and one separate copy; a periodic check that the backup actually contains files; and permissions - who can delete, which should be fewer people than can read.

The second check sounds unnecessary until the first time it emerges the backup has not run for three months. Five minutes a quarter is enough: open a random file from the backup and see that it opens.

How do you start in one week?

• Monday - decide the naming convention and write it in one line everyone can see.
• Tuesday - build the folder structure for the current year only, with an inbox folder.
• Wednesday - define who scans, when, and into which folder.
• Thursday - confirm a backup exists and is genuinely running.
• Friday - start scanning what arrives, without touching the old archive.

The rule that holds this together is not touching the past. A business that starts by scanning three years of archive stops after two days and never returns; one that starts from today ends up with a working method, and the past stays on paper until it is needed.

What stops the method sticking

• File names everyone writes differently - the number one reason things cannot be found.
• A temporary folder that becomes permanent and holds hundreds of files.
• Scanning deferred to the end of the day and then the end of the week.
• Nobody responsible for the inbox folder.
• Permissions that are too broad, so somebody deletes by accident.

The first is solved in a minute of agreement, and it decides whether the method survives. When everyone writes dates differently - one writes 14.3, another 2026-03-14, a third "March" - search stops working and everybody goes back to asking who has the file. One worked example written beside the folder is enough to prevent it.

Sources

• Israel Tax Authority - information for businesses
• Document retention and the digital archive