Organizing with folders

Folders are the firm’s filing cabinet. Documents can exist without one, but a portal where nothing is filed becomes a search box with a thousand results in it by the middle of the season.

Create a folder

1. Open Folders and press Create Folder.
2. Name it. Names are what you will scan down a list looking for, so keep them short and consistent — the client’s name, the year, the engagement.
3. Choose whether it is Private or Shared, and who it is shared with.
4. Press Create.

Folders nest. A folder created while you are inside another one becomes a subfolder of it.

A structure that holds up

The structure that survives a busy season is usually the shallowest one that still answers “whose is this?” in one glance. Two patterns that work:

• By client, then by year — best when most of your work is recurring for the same people.
• By year, then by client — best when you archive a whole year at a time.

Pick one and use it for everything. A tree where half the firm files by client and half by year is worse than either.

Who can see a folder

A folder is Private or Shared, and a shared folder carries its own permissions: view, edit or admin. Permissions apply to what is inside, so a client given view of a folder can see the documents in it without being given each one separately.

This is the fastest way to give a client access to a set of papers, and the easiest way to give them access to more than you meant. Check what is already inside a folder before you share it. More in Access control and permissions.

Moving and finding

Documents can be moved between folders from the document’s own row, and the folder list filters by document type and status so you can find, say, everything still processing in one client’s folder. See Finding a document again.