Keeping Track of Your Important Correspondence

On March 2, 2012

Keeping track of important correspondence can be very difficult in this day and age. When letters and paper bills used to arrive at our doors, it was very easy to manage the storage of these. By merely inserting them into one of several separate folders, it was easy to create a chronological record of all expenses and costs. Keeping track of important correspondence today, however, is more complex because everything from investment property finance reports to Christmas greetings arrives by email. Are you on top of all your important correspondence?

It is possible to keep track of important correspondence within your email system. There are numerous programs which are capable of recording endless amounts of data in the form of emails, and which are secured on multiple servers. These systems provide a backup system that you could only really beat by printing the emails out onto paper, so they offer an excellent way to store information. One of these programs is Gmail. Gmail has the capability of storing a vast amount of data for you so it is very unlikely that you will ever run out. Unfortunately, using Gmail is not a real option for many of us because the domain does not appear nearly professional enough for the management of business expenses.

The answer to this comes in the form of Lotus Notes and Microsoft Outlook. Both programs allow personalised domains to be used as email addresses so you can combine the security of backed up server storage and professional contact points. Of the two, Outlook provides a far better filtering system which will allow you to file different bills, financial reports, and correspondences into separate and ordered folders. The emails will still be brought to your attention, but once you have processed them you will be able to quickly forget about them in the knowledge that they are stored safely in an easy to locate and secure place. Migrating from lotus notes to outlook will enable you to reap the benefits of this archiving capability and can be done in a way which will preserve all of your data.

In addition to the fact that all outlook files are backed up by Microsoft, it is possible to utilise the personal folders backup application to create a greater peace of mind and ensure that your financial data remains available. This tool will allow you to backup your files to a computer hardrive or server. From there you will then be able to copy them to an external drive, a CD or a DVD. The files will be saved in the same format as they were originally, so they will be easily accessible from any computer with Microsoft Outlook installed. This application provides a foolproof way to save and record all of your important correspondence without ever having to worry about filing, copying or saving documents. The system will even remind you when you need to do a backup so that all you will ever really need to do is determine the filters, press ‘OK’ to start backups and remember to pay your bills!