Filing Systems Filing Systems Practicing filing methods, School of Commerce Office Training Lab, ca. 1915. Good filing methods and practices have always been a hallmark of an efficiently run office. Filing is one of the most important tasks in any office. If the proper records are not kept and filed so that they can be retrieved when they are needed, then they serve no useful function.
Filing can be an extremely complex task with very intricate systems.
Filing systems may be direct or indirect and require an intervening index to be accessed. Whichever filing system or systems you may adopt for your office, keep these two evaluative principles in mind. First, the simpler the filing system is to use and to teach, the better it will serve your long-term needs. Simplicity in filing systems sacrifices specificity or locality precision, but gains much in ease and speed of use. The second principle is to file records in the scheme that best helps you to retrieve them.