How much Paperwork on board?

[brazenarticle]

Check out Evernote ( Evernote | Remember everything with Evernote, Skitch and our other great apps.). There is a free version that is robust, a paid version that is better and more secure. It is a great boat app.
You can scan documents into Evernote, take a picture with a camera or phone, forward an email or pdf. Everything is searchable, even text in photos of documents, menus, manuals, etc.
You can have many notebooks as organized as you want or a giant pile of stuff that is searchable by name, date or content - like "1978 US 1040".
There are some tiny scanners that they recommend ( not real expensive) that work particularly well with Evernote. I open the mail, scan what I must then throw the paper away.
There are moments when I open a manual on the boat in the middle of the bay on an iPad that seem like a bit o' magic. Opening tax docs would be less magical but still pretty cool.
I'm not the inventor or an investor ( dammit), used it for a couple years and plan on using it for many more.

[Hudson Force]

I keep passports, insurance policies, vessel documentation, registrations, 5 years of basic tax return info, engine and parts manuals, immunization records, engine log, the current as well as seven former deck logs, a small box of current bill receipts, health records and warranties, and about a dozen paper chart books. I had a printer and CD burner at one time, but I've discarded these and use shoreside opportunities for printing and faxing.

[Boracay]

When I looked most of what I had was "replaceable" in one way or another.

Almost every company I deal with has been in business for a very long time. I trust them. If I didn't I'd find someone else.

Many companies do "eStatements" these days.

No one wants to see original documents these day for straightforward transactions, except maybe title deeds, passports, educational records, birth and death certificates and the like. Those with more complicated affairs would need to ask their professional advisers.

I've been leaving key documents in a bank safe for many years. They'll take an A5 or A4 envelope (from memory) without charge.

I started going through all of my paperwork and putting everything that I did not need in a box. Then I tried putting it all through a toy shredder and found life is to short to spend days shredding - and the d@^^^ thing kept jamming.

So I looked up professional shredders on the net, found one nearby, packed it all into shopping bags and dumped it into their bin. $20 and it's gone. I've done two loads so far and that's gotten rid of most of it. The rest will just about go though the "toy" shredder.

The hardest things to get rid of is d@^^ X-rays. Just about indestructible. Now I know why the doctors give them to me. In the end I cut them into smaller pieces and fed them through the toy shredder. Only had to dismantle it once to get the tiny bits that were jamming the safety switch out.

I'm down to keeping one copy of anything and have gone from what felt like dozens of boxes of papers to a couple of folders.

From memory the tax dept only wants records kept for 5 years. What are they gunna do? Never heard of anyone being shot for not keeping a record.

My big worry was that anyone who got their hands on my records could say that they were me. Not going to happen now. No records...

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Depends on what country you live in. Ask you accountant how long you need to keep records. For Australians you need them for 7 years so I keep mine for 8 years. Not on the boat, of course.

It's five years currently in Australia:

From the ATO:
Retention period for records
26. Generally records are required to be kept for 5 years. However, the events that mark the beginning or the end of the retention period vary according to the relevant provisions of the particular law. Care should be taken to ensure that the correct period is identified, for example, records relating to capital purchases will generally be required to be kept from the date of purchase until 5 years after the capital gains tax event (such as a disposal) has occurred.

[seandepagnier]

I'm slowly reducing my paperwork (looking at the fire I'm about to roast on)

I used to have registration, but I never did have any bank or credit statements.

[Seaworthy Lass]

I find photographing documents much easier and quicker than scanning (our printer will scan, but it is a PITA to pull it out and use it on board). This is adequate for most records, including tax stuff, saves storing paperwork and it instantly accessible anywhere. A back up is kept on an external hard-drive. I may be overcautious, but I would personally not risk storing anything on Cloud.

Safe deposit boxes in Australian banks are $65 per year for one a bit bigger than a shoe box and this is very useful, removing the burden of safekeeping from relatives.

[LJH]

Originally Posted by gwmort

We are in the process of starting to downsize our landlife, and one of the areas we are having some trouble with is what to do with all of our paperwork. I'm trying to clean out the home office, and picturing what we would need to take with us when we go. My wife doesn't want to get rid of old bank and financial records, credit card statements, investments accounts, etc...

I was wondering what do cruisers consider essential and keep with them aboard, what gets thrown, and what if anything do you store somewhere else and how? (not boat paperwork per se, more just the household records)

Where possible we use electronic billing and statements. We had scanned copies of all of our papers before heading out and left and the originals in storage. I have two external drives for redundant backups as well as using CD/DVD.

Not sure what your rules are, but in Canada we need to keep last seven years. However, if we have older files and get audited, the older files can be subject to audit as well. No benefit to keep those older files.

[LJH]

Originally Posted by jongleur

Some ancillary questions:

Best kind of printer/scanner/fax on a <30 foot sailboat?

Does anybody use cloud computing? Any tips on that?

My printer is Cannon iP100 with 12v power supply and I use a Snapscan 1100 mobile scanner. It is a compact usb powered sheet feeder not a flatbed scanner. Fujitsu Scansnap S1100 Scanners | Mobile PDF Scanners : Fujitsu United States

We don't use the cloud for important documents, but I do use google drive for non sensitive files.