Editor's Note: Matt Petersonis president and CEO of eFileCabinet.

The concept of cloud storage has been around for over a decade,but using the web for applications and storage has really taken offin the last five years.

Paperless office systems and file sharing systems rely on acomplex network of servers to host and share data that may beaccessed from anywhere in the world. Importantly, cloud-based filestorage and sharing frees a company from the challenges and costsof maintaining internal servers and hiring the IT support staff tomanage this infrastructure.

Based on over 10 years of experience in the document-managementindustry, here are some tips for efficient document management viathe cloud:

• About 80 percent of what you put in yourdocument-management solution will be scanned pages. Require allpaper documents to be scanned as soon as they come into your officeor department. Start scanning from this day forward anddon't worry about your back files. After you have the scan-forwardprocess down, then begin scanning back files from the mostrecent to the oldest. 
• A scanner is an essential tool for a paperless office, but itis very important to buy one that has optical character recognition(OCR) functionality, otherwise, you are creating "deadgraphics" that do not have any text-search ability. With OCR, youcan do Google-like searches for text within the document ratherthan just searching for the document name. Additionally,make sure the scanner can scan at least20 pages per minute at 300 DPI (dots per inch) resolution or higherwith an automated sheet feeder. 
• Like any type of clutter, files can accumulate to the pointwhere you find yourself digging through chaos. Be consistent inyour descriptions and naming schemes so that you can easily findfiles when you search for them later. Use specific names for yourfiles that include not only the topic, but the media type and thedate when the file was created. Avoid using names that are overlycryptic. Use a specific order in how you name your files. Forinstance, you can list the type of document first, the client it isintended for as second, the date as third, and the date the filewas created last. Developing a formula makes it easy to quicklypull up files when needed.
• Use a firewall. On top of using complex passwords and a securenetwork get a firewall—a software or hardware-based network systemthat analyzes data packets from incoming and outgoing traffic. Itdecides whether data should be allowed through or not, and isessential for keeping your information from gettingintercepted by the public.
• Back up files regularly. Files are not entirely safe if theyare only on a hard drive. Back up all necessary files on the cloud,and it's best to do it immediately so you don't forget which datais critical.