Storing invoices by month
A simple naming and filing habit so next month you can still find last month's invoice.
Last updated: 25/09/2026
Filing matters more than people expect. With the same pile of invoices, an organised set takes a minute to search and a jumbled one takes half a day.
Name files with the date first, then the invoice number and the customer name. Write the date year-month-day so the list sorts itself into the right order.
Group by month, one folder each. Do not group by customer: one customer can appear in several months, and that way you have to open a pile of folders to add up a year's revenue.
Inside each month folder, keep a separate subfolder for cancelled invoices. Cancelled invoices still have to be kept, but they should not sit among the real ones when you are adding up revenue.
Back the folders up off the machine. A folder that exists only on one computer's drive is the easiest thing to lose when that machine dies or gets reinstalled.
Once a quarter, open a random folder and try to find an old invoice. If it takes more than a couple of minutes, the naming is not working yet, and fixing it now is far easier than fixing it at year end.