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Name documents so a stranger could follow them

Name every file by project, document type, cycle number and date. It feels fussy until someone who isn't you, a colleague, a lawyer or an adjudicator, has to rebuild what happened from your files.

Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.

Why it matters

A file called final v3 revised means something to the person who saved it, on the day, and nothing to anyone else. When a dispute is being prepared, your files are read by a colleague who was not on the job, an adviser or an adjudicator. Each has to work out what every document is before they can use it. Every minute spent decoding file names is a minute not spent on the case. And a document nobody can identify for certain is a document nobody can rely on. A naming rule costs nothing to follow and removes the problem.

How to do it

  1. Agree one naming pattern for the company: project code, document type, cycle number, date, in that order.
  2. Pin the pattern up where applications are prepared, and save a copy in the file server's top folder.
  3. Name every document when you save it, including incoming notices, which arrive with the sender's file names.
  4. Use the date and a revision letter in a file name, never words like final, latest or revised.
  5. Spot check a cycle folder each month and rename anything that has slipped.

Example

Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.

The facts

A subcontractor's commercial lead hands a job's files to an adviser to prepare a payment claim for cycles six to nine. The QS who ran the job named them App Mar final, App Mar final v2, PN received and so on. Nothing carries a cycle number. Two files with different figures are both called App Mar final.

What happens

  1. The adviser spends the first day working out which file is which application and which notice belongs to which cycle.
  2. The two files called App Mar final show different sums and nobody can say which was sent.
  3. The sent emails settle which one went out, and it is renamed with the date it was sent.
  4. The commercial lead introduces the naming rule and has every cycle folder renamed: project code, App or PN or PLN, cycle number, date.

The outcome

The adviser's first day is spent on file names, not on the claim. From the next cycle, every document can be identified by its name alone. The next dispute starts a day ahead.

To have this set up for you, see our Underpayment Prevention service.