Messy Filenames for Downloaded Paperless Bills and Statements

Most companies keep their customers’ paperless bills and statements online for only one year. If you need them longer for tax returns, loan applications, archival, or other purposes, you have to be diligent and download a copy to your computer before companies remove them from off their servers. When you download them, companies use the most unhelpful filenames, and they all go into the same download folder along with everything else you've downloaded.

Messy and Unhelpful Filenames

This image shows the default filenames of bills and statements I downloaded from 20 companies where I am a customer. You cannot tell which company is which. In a few cases, you can see a date. A few others give clues based on part of the filename used.

Some companies use the same name for each file downloaded, such as the above claims.pdf, GetDocument.pdf, and CheckStub.pdf.  But when I try to download another statement for another month from that company, since there is already a file named claims.pdf, Windows will automatically add (1) to the next one, claims (1).pdf. And the next one, claims (2).pdf, and claims (3).pdf, and so on.

Renaming to Sensible Filenames

Because the default filenames are useless, I am forced to change each one to meaningful filenames. I use this format for filenames, YYMMDD_CompanyName_DocumentName.pdf. 

YYMMDD is the statement date, not today's date or the date it was downloaded. I use YYMMDD instead of MMDDYY because then it will automatically sort in chronological order in the folder listing. You could also use YYYY-MM-DD.

Here are some example filenames. These are bank statements for the months of November and December of 2022, and January of 2023. And they come out on the 23rd of the month.

• 221123_FirstRiverBank_Statement.pdf
• 221223_FirstRiverBank_Statement.pdf
• 230123_FirstRiverBank_Statement.pdf

These are from an insurance company. Note how Auto and Home are part of the file name for the case where there is both an auto and a home policy with the same insurance company.

• 220309_TotalInsurance_Home_Bill.pdf
• 220601_TotalInsurance_Auto_Bill.pdf
• 220601_TotalInsurance_Auto_ProofOfInsuranceCards.pdf

Folder Structure

A typical adult has about 10 to 15 companies that send them monthly bills and statements. That would be up to 180 files per year in the Download folder. (Along with other unrelated files downloaded to the Download folder.)

In my Finance folder on my computer, I have an eDocuments folder. (Name it what you want.) Under there, I have a folder for each company, First River Bank, Total Insurance, Gamma Cellular, Mountain Electric, etc. I move the files from the Download folder to their respective company folder.

Since I have both my home and auto insurance from the same company, I have two subfolders under the insurance company folder, Home and Auto. If you have multiple credit cards or bank accounts from the same company that provide separate statements, you could use the last four digits of the card or account number to make subfolders.

• eDocuments/FirstRiverBank/9876/200423_FirstRiverBank_9876_Statement.pdf

After a few years, there gets to be quite a number of files in each folder. You could add a folder level for the year, such as one of these two:

• eDocuments/CompanyName/YYYY
• eDocuments/YYYY/CompanyName

If you have a filing structure for how you file your paper copies in your filing cabinet, you could emulate that with a folder structure on your computer.

Cubby Paperless Renames Files for Downloading

Since Cubby Paperless keeps your bills and statements online for much longer than the one year most companies do, there is not the need to download the files. But if you want to download copies onto your computer, Cubby renames your files for you using the statement date, company name, and other parameters. 

Naming your downloaded files and putting them in the organized folders will save you time in the long run when trying to find past bills and statements.