Job file organisation, mine looks a mess. What do you do?

[Phill Fenton]

Every Month I start a new folder – e.g.October 2019
Within that folder I create subfolders for every customer or enquiry I deal with that month. (this means that regular repeat customers will have a series of folders spread out over the months and years we have been dealing with them).
All files relevant to each customer gets stored in their own dedicated folder each month (If necessary I create subfolders within each customers folder).

Whenever a repeat order is placed with an existing customer I simply cross reference through my accounts package and look up when the last order was placed – this allows me to locate the files used last time.

Sounds complicated but isn’t. It also means I only need to backup the current months work (which I do once a week) to keep everything up to date.

Works for me and I can still locate any specific file created as long ago as 1996 when I first started.

[Daniel Evans]

Thanks Phill

It does sound a little confusing but as long as it works thats the main thing.

I like the idea of only backing up the recent files rather than everything. It’s not the idea I had in mind but it’s worth a look into.

Dan

[David Hammond]

We use clarity, which creates the job customer & job folders on our server.

We have Jobs-201x for each year,
Then a folder for each customer.
Inside that a job for each job (Job#)
Inside that 4 folders, Artwork, Proofs, Print Files, & Documents.

It’s all automatically created, and we can look up jobs in clarity going back years, click a button and they appear

Had a similar system when we kept paper/manual job sheets, using index cards, and duplicate pads.

[Neil Davey]

I, pretty much, do exactly the same as Phill and it works very well. I can also find job from the dim and distant past very easily. My iMac backs up every hour to an external drive that goes home with me everyday.

quote Phill Fenton:

Every Month I start a new folder – e.g.October 2019
Within that folder I create subfolders for every customer or enquiry I deal with that month. (this means that regular repeat customers will have a series of folders spread out over the months and years we have been dealing with them).
All files relevant to each customer gets stored in their own dedicated folder each month (If necessary I create subfolders within each customers folder).

Whenever a repeat order is placed with an existing customer I simply cross reference through my accounts package and look up when the last order was placed – this allows me to locate the files used last time.

Sounds complicated but isn’t. It also means I only need to backup the current months work (which I do once a week) to keep everything up to date.

Works for me and I can still locate any specific file created as long ago as 1996 when I first started.

[Martyn]

I have a works folder created every year. Within this folder A-Z and within those folders the companies.

Simple and effective for a 1 man band.

Works from an external hard drive and automatically backs up few times a week onto another external hard drive.

Keeps my computer drive clear for illustrator to run well.

Dont keep a record of quotes, i find them through the email system if needed. I have hard copies on my job sheets which are filed.

As i say pretty much as basic as it gets. Wont be any good for larger operations

[Chris Wilson]

By looks of it others are similar to us.

We have 3 folders:
Artwork (Corel files with everything)
Digital print (actual files printed)
Graphtec (cut vinyl files)

In each we have a-z and then in each the customers own folder.
We then name things like pop up banner may 2019.

To go with this we have trello which we have started using so every enquiry goes in there on one “thread” the. We have garments, sign workshop etc.. and the jobs get filtered as and when required.

Before this we had a XCel sheet with 3 tabs. Litho, garments and signs.
Every job goes on as soon as a price is agreed or the order comes through.

Customer name/ job (ie signs, pop up etc) value and then a box for invoice number. All colour coded. So orange job has been started. Green is done. Purple box on the invoice number means it’s been sent to the customer.

Quite handy as everything is there in front of me. So I can see, oh we have 12 pop up banner jobs in and I only have 8 cassettes, better get them ordered. Very quick to see who has been invoiced and also that no one has been missed by mistake and getting a freebie.

Trello is good for the Boys as we can create a checklist of bit of the job. Make notes such as printed on 24/10 so we know gasing our times etc.. all the lads have it on there phone and every aspect of the job is now in there. Saves typing out a job sheet.
Not sure how am going to cross over my xCel sheet into Trello just yet. So used to it. I would imaging it would be a pain in the arse opening every job to see the list of garments needing to be ordered. With xCel it’s in front of me in a big list.

Also with our invoices we give a pretty accurate description I.e 2000mm x 1000mm skybond matt black face sign with 799 cast vinyl as per proof. There’s then no confusing of it was re-ordered again and we just have to type in the customers name to QuickBooks and boom. There it is. Quick and easy. No searching.

Possibly better ways of doing it and Trello is helping push the boys a bit faster and possibly more relaxing for them instead of trying to peace bits of info together at times.