Going paperless is a big step forward for any business, but in many cases, scanning alone isn’t enough. If you’re unable to find your documents once they’ve been digitized, the effort and resources spent on the process can feel wasted.
That’s why indexing your digital records after scanning is such an important step. Proper indexing means your files are organized, searchable, and easy to find, allowing you and your employees to retrieve exactly what you need just by typing in a keyword or phrase found within your documents.
When done right, indexing doesn’t just save hours spent hunting down misplaced records; it helps create a clear, intuitive structure that’s easy to maintain as your business grows.
At SecureScan, scanning and indexing records is a core part of what we do every day. Many of our customers haven’t given much thought to how they want their documents organized or what type of information they need to make accessible through searches. This article is designed to be your preview to that step. We’re giving you an inside look at how we approach indexing, whether you’re planning to do it yourself or simply want tips on maintaining what we’ve already set up for you, we’ve got you covered.
By the end of this guide, you’ll know how to create an index that is practical, reliable, and customized to the way you do business.
Start With a Folder Structure
Once your documents have been scanned, the first step is deciding how you’ll organize your files. A clear, intuitive folder structure sets the foundation for quick access later on.
The best way to structure your folders is highly dependent on how your business operates and your use case, but there are a few reliable methods that work well consistently across the board:
Organize by Type
Grouping records by type, like invoices, employee records, or contracts, is useful if you want employees to be able to search through specific kinds of records quickly. Instead of searching your entire file system, they can focus their efforts on searching the folders that pertain to their current task.
Organize by Department or Team
If your business has different teams or departments, creating folders for each one (human resources, accounting, sales, etc.) is a smart choice. Keeping these records separate allows each team to access relevant records without cluttering their view with unnesseary files. It also makes implementing access controls and security much easier.
Organize by Date
A date-based folder system, by month, quarter, or year, is perfect for financial documents, legal records, or records that follow specific retention schedules.
The key here is simplicity. Choose a structure that’s easy to understand and aligns naturally with your existing business processes. Don’t bury documents in overly deep folder layers, typically, two or three levels of nesting is more than enough.
Once you’ve selected a folder structure, communicate it clearly to everyone who interacts with your digital files. Consistency ensures your files remain organized and easy to navigate.
Choose a Consistent Naming Convention
Once your folder structure is established, the next step is creating consistent naming conventions for your files.
Inconsistent file naming is one of the most common mistakes businesses make, and one of the easiest to avoid. Without clear, standardized naming, records can be difficult to find, slowing down every search and frustrating your employees.
To keep things simple, choose a naming system that follows a predictable pattern, and stick with it. Here’s an example of a common naming convention that’s clear and easy to use:
[Date][Document Type][Client/Project Name].[File Extension]
For example:
- 20250301_Invoice_SmithDental.pdf
- 20250410_EmployeeContract_MarkWilliams.pdf
Why Does it Work?
- Dates First: Putting dates at the beginning ensures your files are organized chronologically, making it easy to track versions or locate records from specific time periods.
- Clear Document Type: Immediately identifies the file’s content.
- Identifier: Including a client’s name or project name makes searches quick and intuitive.
The exact naming format you choose might be different depending on your business needs, but simplicity and consistency are key. Make sure everyone on your team understands and follows these conventions. It’ll save everyone a lot of time and frustration.
With clear naming conventions in place, finding your documents becomes second nature. Next, we’ll look at how to choose file formats that make your documents even easier to manage in the long term.
Select the Right File Format
The file format you choose when scanning your documents has some impact on your indexing strategy. The two most common formats, or at least the ones we use most often at SecureScan are PDF and TIFF.
PDF (Portable Document Format) is often the best choice for businesses that want to be able to search the entire document, as PDFs already support searchable text out of the box. When paired with OCR (Optical Character Recognition), the text within your scanned documents becomes fully searchable, allowing you to retrieve records by keywords or phrases they contain. This makes creating a deeper, more detailed index simple and intuitive.
TIFF (Tagged Image File Format), while not inherently text-searchable, is often used in situations where high resolutions and image clarity are the priority. Along with the consistent, descriptive naming conventions we mentioned earlier, TIFFs support metadata fields like document type, date, author, or project information, which is embedded directly within the files, allowing you to search and retrieve these documents by them.
Choosing the right format for each type of record you need to digitize ensures your files are as practical and useful as possible.
Enhance Searches With Metadata
Metadata is additional descriptive information embedded directly into your digital files that makes searches more powerful and efficient. Think of it as an extra layer of context attached to each document, helping you quickly pinpoint what you need.
Common types of metadata include:
- Document Type: Invoice, contract, resume, or correspondence.
- Date Information: Creation date, modified date, or date scanned.
- Author or Creator: Who created or approved the document.
- Client or Project Name: For associating records with specific projects or accounts.
- Keywords or Tags: Custom labels that provide extra context or make searching easier.
The key to useful metadata is consistency. Clearly define what metadata you’ll include, and ensure it’s consistently entered for every document you scan. This makes your index deeper and more effective, speeding up searches and streamlining retrieval.
Using metadata well means you won’t always have to rely solely on filenames or document contents to find what you need, especially as your archive grows.
Scan With Indexing in Mind
Good indexing doesn’t start after scanning—it starts during it. If you’re not thinking about how your documents will be organized and retrieved before they’re scanned, you’re likely creating more work for yourself later on.
That’s why it’s worth taking a little extra time to prepare your documents before the scanning process begins. Sorting them into logical categories, removing duplicates, and identifying what information needs to be searchable will make the entire process smoother and help you build a cleaner index.
Here’s what we recommend during this stage:
- Group documents by type, date, or department so you can apply consistent file names and folder placement as they’re scanned.
- Label batches clearly if you’re working with a scanning partner, so the index fields can be populated accurately.
- Decide ahead of time what information should be searchable—client names, dates, project numbers, invoice totals—so OCR and metadata tagging can focus on those fields.
- Eliminate what you don’t need. Scanning unnecessary documents only adds clutter and makes your index harder to maintain.
At SecureScan, we guide our customers through this process every day, helping them set up an indexing strategy before a single document is scanned. Whether you’re handling scanning in-house or working with a vendor, thinking about indexing up front is one of the best ways to make sure your digital archive stays organized, searchable, and useful for the long haul.
In the next section, we’ll talk briefly about the tools and software you might want to consider to support your indexing system.
Use Tools That Support Your Strategy
You don’t need complicated or expensive software to build and use an indexing system, but having the right tools in place can make a big difference in how easy it is to keep everything organized.
If you’re handling your records in-house, there are a few key features to look for in whatever document management system or cloud storage platform you choose:
- Searchable text support: Make sure your system can handle OCR so you can search within documents, not just by file name.
- Custom metadata fields: Useful for tagging documents with key information like project names, record types, or dates.
- Permission controls: So different users can access only the documents relevant to them.
- Easy-to-use interface: If your team can’t use it easily, your index will fall apart over time.
When you choose SecureScan, you don’t need to worry about choosing these tools yourself. Still, knowing what to look for can help you maintain or build on what’s already been set up for you.
The goal isn’t to over-engineer your setup, it’s to make sure your documents are easy to access, secure, and well-organized from the start.
Maintain Your File System
Even the best indexing system can fall apart if it’s not maintained. As new documents get added, teams change, and processes evolve, things can start to get messy without a plan to keep your system in shape.
The good news is, once your indexing framework is in place, it doesn’t take much to keep it running smoothly—just a little attention and consistency.
Here are a few practical ways to maintain your index long-term:
- Set clear rules for how new documents should be named and stored. Make sure everyone involved in adding records follows the same structure you originally set up.
- Schedule periodic reviews. Every few months, check in on your folders and files to make sure nothing’s drifting off track.
- Designate a point person to manage updates and help answer questions about how documents should be indexed.
- Clean out outdated or unnecessary files. Just like paper records, digital documents can pile up and create clutter if there’s no plan to manage them.
If SecureScan built your indexing system, we’ve already put a strong structure in place to help you manage this over time. But even with a solid foundation, a little upkeep goes a long way. The more consistent you are, the more useful and stress-free your digital archive will be, especially when you need to find something fast.
Final Thoughts
Scanning your documents is a great first step, but without a strong indexing system in place, it’s easy to lose the benefits of going paperless. A well-organized digital archive helps you work faster, stay more organized, and keep your records useful long after they’ve been scanned.
Whether you’re building your indexing system from scratch or maintaining the one we’ve already set up for you, the strategies in this guide are designed to keep your digital records easy to manage and even easier to use.
If you’re thinking about scanning your documents or need help organizing your existing archive, our team is here to help. Contact us today to learn more or get a free quote from one of our experienced technicians.
