Standing column
This week in the office: the files
Filing has one deep day. Everything indexed, chased or shelved happens on Wednesday morning, so a practice knows exactly when a file it has asked after will have moved.
Where scripting is available, the current weekday is flagged on the strip and in the list.
- MondayNew paper that arrived over the weekend is sorted into the pending tray. Nothing is named yet; naming is a Wednesday job and doing it twice is how two names appear for one file.
- TuesdayRequests for files are answered from the index: which shelf, who signed for it last, and whether it is out on loan.
- WednesdayRecords morning. Files named to the rule, written on to the index, shelved. Loans more than a fortnight old are chased in writing.
- ThursdayMis-filed items found during the week are corrected, and each correction is noted against the index entry it changed.
- FridayThe quarterly review sheet is brought up to date with any file closed during the week, and its review date worked out.
- SaturdayNo desk cover. Nothing is shelved, named or released.
- SundayNothing is handled. The index stands as Friday left it.
The rule
One naming rule, applied without exception
Every file the office handles is named the same way, because a filing system is only as good as its dullest habit. The name is built from fixed parts in a fixed order, so that a sorted list is also a chronological list, and so that two people naming the same file independently arrive at the same string.
| Part | What it is | Why in that position |
|---|---|---|
| Year | Four digits, the year the file was opened. | Sorting by name sorts by year without any further work. |
| Practice code | Three letters agreed with the practice on day one. | Keeps one practice’s files together inside a year. |
| Kind | A short word from a closed list: diary, order, supplier, correspondence, engagement. | A closed list means no synonyms, so nothing is lost to a near-miss search. |
| Reference | The running number the office issues, never reused. | Makes the name unique, and makes a gap in a sequence visible. |
| Status | Open, or the date it was closed. | Review dates are worked from this, and from nothing else. |
No name carries a person’s name, and no name carries a description of why a file exists. A file name is an address, not a summary.
Custody
Where a file lives, and who may open it
Each file has exactly one home: a numbered shelf in the office, or a named folder inside the practice’s own system where the office has been given access under the engagement letter. The index records which of the two, and there is never a third answer. A file that is in neither place is a file the office reports as missing, in writing, the day it is found to be missing.
The access list
The practice names, in writing, who at the practice may ask for a file and who may authorise it leaving the office. The office holds that list and works to it. Changes to the list are changes in writing; a caller cannot add themselves to it by telephone, however well they know the practice.
The loan sheet
Anything that leaves a shelf is signed out on the loan sheet: file reference, date out, who took it, and the date it is due back. The sheet is reconciled every Wednesday morning. Loans older than a fortnight are chased in writing, and a chase that gets no answer is reported to the practice rather than repeated indefinitely.
Closing a file
A file is closed on the practice’s written instruction. The office writes the closing date into the status part of the name, works out the review date from the retention period the practice has set, and adds the file to the review sheet for the quarter that date falls in. Closing a file does not destroy anything and never has.
Sheet two
Retention review dates
The office does not decide how long anything is kept. The practice gives the office a retention period in writing, as part of its own filing rule, and the office does the arithmetic on it: closed date plus the period gives the earliest review date, and the review date falls in one of four quarters. The file is then written on to that quarter’s review sheet, and on that quarter the practice is asked what it wants done.
Type in a closed date and the period your own filing rule sets. The helper below is set to a worked example of 30 September 2026 and a period of eight years.
Listed for review in Q3 2034, on or after 30 September 2034
- File closed on30 September 2026
- Retention period you typed in8 years
- Earliest review date = closed date plus the period30 September 2034
- Review quarter it falls inQ3, July to September 2034
- Quarterly review sheet the file is written on toQ3 2034
Arithmetic on the period you typed in. The office does not set retention periods and offers no advice on them: the period comes from the filing rule the practice gives us in writing.
A review date is a date to ask a question on, not a date anything happens on. Nothing is destroyed by a calendar.
Limits
What the filing desk does not hold
The office holds addresses and references. It does not hold what a practitioner writes down, does not copy such material to its own shelves, and does not keep it in the office mailbox. Where the office works inside a practice’s own system, it works there and leaves it there. Anything of that kind sent to the office by email is deleted and the sender told so — the reasoning is set out on the office and data page.