How to organise the company document archive?

What is the difference between digital archive and shared folders?

Shared folders are where daily work takes place: drafts, incomplete work, temporary files are there. Archives are where completed but required-to-keep documents reside: signed contracts, finalised invoices, outputs of closed projects.

Keeping them in the same place leads to the archive being as messy as the shared folder. Keeping them separate allows applying different rules to each: few people upload to the archive, many read, and documents in the archive hardly ever change.

By which axes should the archive be organised?

For most companies, three axes are sufficient. Deciding which will be folders and which will be tags determines the future structure of the archive:

• "Department or business line (Finance, HR, Legal, Sales): this is the top-level division and determines access rules.
• "Period (2025, 2026 or 2026-Q1): makes it easier to monitor retention periods and close off old periods.
• "Document type or status (contract, invoice, “signed”, “sent to customer”): usually works better as tags rather than folders, because a document can be in multiple statuses simultaneously.

How to find documents faster in the archive?

It is naming and tagging consistency, rather than folder structure, that determines archive speed. A consistent naming rule strengthens searches by filename; status tags show at a glance which stage each document is in.

For questions about document content, names alone are insufficient. Instead of opening documents one by one to answer questions like “Is there a penalty clause in our contract with this supplier?”, a tool that can query content saves significant time.

How is archive organisation set up step by step?

1. "Open the Archive as a separate area or designate an “Archive” folder within each department area.
2. "Open period folders. Create one folder per year; if usage is dense enough, add quarter or month folders underneath.
3. "Define status labels. Choose labels that are easy for everyone to understand and do not exceed five: "signed", "approved", "sent to customer", "expired".
4. "Apply naming rule. Date, party, and document type should be written in the same order.
5. "Restrict write permission to the archive. Only responsible persons should place documents in the archive; everyone else should only read.
6. "Review closed periods annually. Separate documents whose retention period has expired according to your organisation's policy.

How are related documents linked in the archive?

A contract, its attachments, quote, and invoice may reside in different folders. Linking them rather than copying them into the same folder preserves the relationship without creating duplicates. Thus, the person opening the contract can also access the relevant quote and invoice with a single click.

How is paper archive migrated to digital?

Scanning the entire paper archive at once is unrealistic for most companies. A more feasible approach is to digitise incoming documents from today onwards and scan historical documents as needed. Frequently referenced documents (current contracts, current parts of personnel records, licences) are scanned first.

Scanned documents must follow the same naming convention as other files in the archive. A name provided by the scanner such as “scan_0034.pdf” means the document will get lost in the archive. Writing the document's date, party and type into the name takes a few seconds during scanning but saves minutes later on.

What are common mistakes in archiving?

• "Archiving everything: When drafts, copies, and temporary files enter the archive, the searched document gets lost in the clutter.
• "Allow everyone to write to the archive: the archive's structure is inversely proportional to the number of people who place documents there.
• "Leaving the tag count unlimited: forty different tags are less useful than having no tags at all.
• "Mixing the archive with shared folders: If a document still being worked on is moved to the archive, the archive ceases to be a location for unchanged documents.
• "Ownerless archive: an archive with no responsible person reverts to an old shared folder within a few years.

How is the regularity of the archive measured?

A simple test is to ask a new employee to find five randomly selected documents. If they find all five within a few minutes without asking anyone, the archive is working well. Documents they cannot find reveal gaps in naming or tagging conventions. Repeating this test once a year helps detect early signs of archive degradation over time.

The second indicator is the number of internal requests for documents from the archive. If the accounting or legal team frequently receives messages from other departments asking 'can you find this contract?', it means either the documents in the archive are in the wrong place or the access permissions do not align with actual needs.

How do document retention periods affect archive organization?

For many document types, legislation prescribes minimum retention periods. For example, Article 253 of the Tax Procedure Code No. 213 requires books and documents to be kept for five years starting from the calendar year following the relevant year; Article 82 of the Turkish Commercial Code No. 6102 defines a ten-year period for commercial books and certain documents. For documents containing personal data, the Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698 requires deletion or anonymisation when the purpose of processing ceases.

Organising the archive by period folders makes tracking these durations easier: the folder of an expiring year can be reviewed as a whole. Decide with your organisation’s policy and legal advisor which documents should be stored for how long; this section is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice.

How does SmartFiles solve this?

In SmartFiles, a separate storage area is opened for each department or archive. Each area has its own set of colored and icon-tagged labels; multiple files can be selected and tagged together. The search box in the top bar searches within file and folder names as well as inside documents; documents containing the word are listed along with the sentence where it appears.

Uploaded documents are automatically read by AI, and a short summary appears in the file list. You can ask questions directly about a specific document or an entire folder. Documents are linked to each other via Related, Source of this, or Replaces this links.

An area no longer in use is archived by the administrator and removed from users' lists.

The total size and file count under each folder are calculated recursively; the archive does not estimate which part takes up how much space but displays it on screen. Documents are previewed in the browser without downloading: PDFs, images, videos, and CSV tables open directly; Word and Excel documents are shown if the organisation administrator has enabled Office preview.

SmartFiles featuresTagging filesArchive storage area

Frequently asked questions

Should the document archive be organised with folders or tags?

Together, they maintain an archive that is both organised and flexible. When distinctions that define access rules and periods—such as folder, document status, etc.—are stored as tags.

How to find scanned documents in the archive?

SmartFiles reads the first ten pages of scanned PDFs and image files using visual analysis; it summarises them, allows questions to be asked, and makes content searchable. Naming rules also make searching easier.

Should documents from old years be deleted from the archive?

This depends on the type of document and the retention period specified in relevant legislation. Determine the retention period according to your organisation's policy and legislation; this guide is not legal advice.

Does linking an archived document to another document create a copy?

No. File links in SmartFiles only record the relationship; the document resides in a single location.

Can you see how much space each department uses in the archive?

Yes. In SmartFiles, the total size and number of files for each folder are calculated, including subfolders, and are visible on the screen.