How do you go about setting up the paperless office? Is there a scanner that will allow you to scan the document wirelessly and also save the file name right on the scanner? In other words is there a way to scan something to the cloud and then save the file name without a computer?

I have friends that do everything paperless. Therefore, each time they have an issue and need to find the right "file" to retrieve the necessary data -- they spend hours looking, and often don't find it. Then they call me back up for me to explain things again. Such as where to place a smoke detector or c/o sensor.

Jen,

Another 5 votes for Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500. Wireless.

5 votes because I bought one for every helper and each one works flawlessly. Will do double sided, color, high resolution, multiple paper sizes at one time, 27? pages at a time...

This is the one piece of tech that actually does what it is supposed to when you plug it in!

We have a file for every house by house number, which contains a file for every resident and a file for the purchase and other legal stuff for the house. Move in and out photos are in the resident's folder. We scan the lease folder after they move out. KISS.

Receipts: it took us more time to scan than to file the papers. We pay the bill with Quicken, drop the receipt or invoice in a folder for that month, and never touch it again. If we ever (seldom!) need to find a receipt we look on Quicken for the month it was paid and thumb thru that month's folder. (1-2 minutes?)

After 3 years we burn the box of receipt files. Kinda fun! So we have 3 file boxes of receipts in the basement.

I'm also paranoid of data loss so the leases and docs scanned are backed up in the cloud, on an external drive, and on the computer's hard drive.

Personally I am a visual learner so looking at one thing at at time on the screen is like a one armed wallpaper hanger. I like to open up a paper folder and lay out the various documents I need. I wind up printing the scanned docs so I can put together the info I need.

Whatever floats your boat, just determine if it is reducing time or making more work.

BRAD

We also use scansnap. The old S1500 and the iX500. We went paperless about 12 years ago. The minute a piece of paper hits the desk it is scanned and shredded.

We use Quickbooks online so all invoices and receipts are attached to the checks and it is backed up every 5 minutes so no chance of losing anything.

We store every document in Dropbox and Onedrive by property by tenant to include any mortgage payments, utility bills, repairs, prop taxes, HOA notices,insurance, all tenant communication, leases and addendums and pdf's their monthly electronic payments and SD deposits. I can access them from anywhere in the world.