| Not so long time ago, when a letter needed to be | | | | customer name]. |
| sent, you would have your secretary typing it with | | | | I use my initials as my team mates also use this |
| one of these noisy typing machines. What I | | | | same reference convention. It enables to easily |
| remember very well was 'the register book' used to | | | | understand which one of us issued a particular |
| list the document destination, purpose, and reference. | | | | quotation. |
| So, every business document was clearly referenced | | | | Using your document reference as you file naming |
| and properly classified. | | | | convention. |
| Today, as emails and computers are available at | | | | Your will place your reference within the content of a |
| everyone desk, it is not a common practice to have | | | | business document. But I recommend that you use |
| your letters typed by a secretary, neither to use a | | | | the reference as your file name. You may add a few |
| 'register book' nor document referencing. With the | | | | words (up to 4 words) in addition to reference in |
| new era of working (almost) paperless, did we really | | | | order to increase readability. For example, |
| improved efficiency and data protection? How often | | | | c:CR483-30.11.07-TUS LCD Samsung 42 inch.doc'. CR |
| you were looking for an important business | | | | are my initials, 483 is the document counter, 30.11.07 |
| document without being able to find it on your | | | | is the document date of issue, TUS are the 3 first |
| computer? How many time you experienced | | | | letters of TUSHINGHAM, my customer name, and |
| misunderstanding because lack of document | | | | Samsung 42 inch is the subject of my quotation. |
| traceability? | | | | What are the benefits of using references for your |
| How to efficiently manage your business documents? | | | | business documents? Referenced document will avoid |
| There are numerous business document management | | | | many errors and ease traceability. If your customers |
| software packages that provide powerful paperless | | | | are referring your document reference in their |
| office solutions. If you have the possibility, you should | | | | correspondence, the chances for errors or |
| definitely go for it. | | | | misunderstanding are lower. |
| The technique described here does not require any | | | | Having a standard file naming convention will help you |
| application or software, and provides a quite good | | | | also to find information quickly, using any search tool |
| solution for your business document management. | | | | such as Google Desktop or the search feature in |
| How to create your business document reference? | | | | Windows. Referring to our example above, if you |
| The document reference needs to be of course | | | | want to find all documents send to your customer |
| unique but also be readable. Your reference will be | | | | TUSHINGHAM, just type -TUS in your search |
| even more beneficial if it provides you with | | | | application. Want to list all documents sent on |
| information about the content of the document. | | | | 30.11.07? Just type -30.11.07- in your search application |
| When defining your reference convention, you should | | | | and you get the whole list. |
| not only have an incremental counter, but additional | | | | How to generate automatic references for your |
| information that will help you to remember the | | | | business documents |
| purpose of your documents. | | | | In order to be quicker with you references, you may |
| I am using a referencing system mainly for my | | | | want to use one of the many free applications for |
| business quotations that I send to my customers. I | | | | business document management . You will get the |
| use a format like [my 2 initials][counter for unique | | | | electronic web-based version of the good old |
| number][date of document][3 first letter of my | | | | 'register book'. |