Been to a mortgage closing lately? It’s scary how much paperwork is involved to get a loan. Unfortunately, the real estate paperwork nightmare is not just limited to mortgages. From buying to selling, lending to contracting and everything in between, paperwork rules the day in real estate.
So much for our paperless society.
Even when you’ve filled out all the paperwork, you still have to keep copies ‘for your records.’ That means lots of time filing the paperwork. Or scanning it and uploading it to your hard drive, your ‘cloud’ service, Evernote, or wherever else you keep it.
Sounds pretty overwhelming. Real estate Moguls should be out making deals – not filing paperwork. But hiring administrative staff can be expensive for investors looking to cut costs.
Sure the admin people are necessary once your business grows to a certain size, but even then you want to cut down on the amount of help you need to hire.
Where do you turn for help then? Technology of course.
Let Your Computer Become Your Virtual Assistant
There’s a service now that can file bills automatically. It’s called ‘File This.’ They also have an app for both Apple and Android users to help you with ‘phone filing.’
Think of ‘File This’ as a sort of Mint for paperwork. Mint goes into your bank accounts and pulls out all the numbers. Then it puts them together to create a complete financial picture for you.
“File This” does sort of the same thing. Once you have “File This” set up, it will go into all your banking and bill websites. Then “File This” will search around the site, extract all the documents as you have specified and put them in the electronic folders you want.
The service is contracting with over 3,000 companies nationwide that send the vast majority of bills out.
“File This” will ask you to pick out which online websites have documents you need. Then it just needs a username and password for the website (they claim they have ‘Bank Level’ security to protect your information). “File This” files them in the cloud service of your choice:
As you can see from the picture above, “File This” also offers their own Cloud service. The “File This” service offers Optical Character Recognition (OCR) with the “File This” service for more accurate filing and search ability. The “File This” cloud can recognize such items as:
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Dates
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Account numbers
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Institution names
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Keywords
Then, File Cloud will put the document in the correct folder. With the OCR ability, File Cloud can look at a July bank statement you upload in December, and still file it in the correct folder.
Regardless of which cloud service you use, if the document is on one of the business websites you specify, “File This” will automatically grab it and file it for you.
Another nice feature is that “File This” will automatically name the document for you with something recognizable. It will also ‘tag’ the document with certain keywords so it is very easy to search for the document later.
You can see how ‘File This’ works with your storage location of choice here.
Other documents not on websites will still have to be uploaded to your cloud service manually.
Just How Much Is this ‘Automatic Assistant’?
Like so many services on the web these days, there is a free plan, and some ‘Premium’ versions. The main difference between the free service and the pay plans is mostly the number of billing companies you can sign up.
The number of times the service runs through all your bills each week also depends on how much you want to pay. If the timing of filing your bills is not that critical, you may want to opt for the less expensive version.
The ‘Add On’ packs for the ‘Ultimate’ service allow you to add even more billing companies (or banks, etc.) than the 30 you get with just the ‘Ultimate’ service.
As you do more and more deals, you will find you have less and less time. Successful investors know where to spend their time and where to eliminate or outsource. “File This” is a service that lets you ‘outsource’ the filing function for all your bills at a much lower price than a human assistant.
Holla at Us
Have you used this online filing system? Tell us about it in the comments section below.
Review What You Do – Are you focusing on the right tasks? Look back at your day and see what you should eliminate or delegate.
Stay Organized – Knowing where you can find everything can save you both time and money. From resolving disputes to filing your taxes, being organized is essential for real estate.
Know Your Limits – Don’t be a hoarder. You don’t need your grandfather’s grocery receipts. Figure out when paperwork is no longer needed and clean house. It will simplify your organization and make you feel much better!
JP Moses
is a real estate investor in Memphis, TN, with experience ranging from land lording to note buying, rehabbing, and wholesaling. However, wholesaling is the area that he enjoys most and where he bring the most experience and expertise to his students.