Going paperless doesn’t have to be limited to office work. Between online bill payment and services like Apple Pay, Google Pay, Cell, CashApp, and Venmo, you can get rid of almost all of your finance-related problems. But why stop there? Going paperless can apply to virtually any area of your life. Here are some ways to make the full transition at home.
Sign up for electronic bank statements
You can register for electronic account statements via your bank’s website or app. If you haven’t already, sign up for online banking. Once you have done this, you will be asked if you would prefer electronic statements and digital correspondence. Agree to the terms and provide an email address that you will check regularly so that you can keep track of your finances online.
Download online bill payment apps
Almost every bill you pay has an online platform or app that you can use to manage and pay your debt. Download them as needed and save them in a single folder on your device to keep your digital life organized too. Most apps can be found in your iPhone or Android app store.
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However, if you don’t have a million different apps, this is a good place to go simplification or Truebill to consolidate and easily track all of your billing information in one place. Just make sure you have signed up for e-bills and bank statements so that you no longer receive paper bills. Some banks like Allied Bank or Carillon run completely online.
Have your signature digitized
This process used to be a bit of a chore as you captured, uploaded and uploaded a picture of your signature Remove the background for easy insertion into a PDF or Word document. While you can still do this, there is an easier way: if you have a Mac with PDF Preview, you can create a saved signature. Just open a PDF on your Mac and click “Tools,” choose “Leave a Comment,” then “Signature.” You’ll see another drop-down menu with the option to “Manage signatures” and the option to “Create a signature.” You will be asked to use the trackpad to draw your signature (don’t worry, you can try as many times as you want)
The preview also accepts an image of the signature with the computer camera while you are under “Manage Signature”. The signature is saved in the preview so it can be used on any document that you need to sign. Just follow the same instructions.
If you need signatures from yourself and others, you should sign up for a digital signature service like Docusign and Hello sign. They are a convenient way to request a signature, have a document signed, and get a digital copy for your records. If you need other ways to electronically sign your documents, please see our guide Here.
Scan and clean up all of your old paperwork
Take a day (or a weekend or a week) to digitize all important documents. Once that’s done, it’s time to get rid of the paper that is already in your house.
You want to scan important documents like contracts and medical records. (Even better if you can find a digital copy in your inbox somewhere). You want to keep the original copies of Federal documents such as birth certificates, vaccination certificates, and marriage certificates, but you should still search these for an online backup. This makes them easier to replace if necessary.
Outside of a physical scanner have online platforms like Google Drive Scanning functions This is how you can take a picture of a document and upload it directly to your drive. We reported about the benefits of scanning apps like Scanbot for Android in the past, with features that are especially helpful for receipts and other documents.
How to unsubscribe from junk mail
It used to be really helpful to send vouchers and offers home. Now that newsletters are emailed and social media does everything, most catalogs are just added to our piles of trash and it can be difficult to stop those emails from being sent.
Fortunately, there are sites like Catalog selection and Eco cycle to stop the rush of junk mail. Websites like this one turn to the catalogs or credit card companies and turn off mailers for you. They do the legwork so you can remove papers from your house without them piling up again.
If you’d like to manually turn off credit card offers and mailers, check the fine print of your incessant promotions for the toll-free number terms to get off their marketing lists. It will be like playing a punch in the mouth though, so using a service like Catalog Choice or Ego-Cycle is an easier option.
Get used to saving documents as PDFs
Once everything is digitized and erased, get into the habit of keeping it that way. When you receive an invoice, invoice or form, click “Print” and select “Print”.save as PDF“Instead of printing them out. Store your files in a safe place with two-factor permissions and relax knowing that you have a lot more physical space in your house and that organizing your digital folders is a lot easier than a pile Paper.
