How to Go Paperless at Home: A Practical Guide for Canadian Families
Every family has one. The filing cabinet, the drawer, the box in the basement. Stuffed with insurance policies from 2019, tax returns you are afraid to throw away, and a birth certificate you desperately need but cannot find.
Going paperless is not about buying a fancy scanner or signing up for another cloud service. It is about making your family’s important documents findable -- so when the insurance company calls or tax season arrives, you are not spending two hours digging through folders.
This guide is for Canadian families who want a practical, step-by-step approach. No jargon, no expensive equipment required.
Before you start: what to keep on paper
Some documents must stay in paper form for legal validity in Canada:
- Original wills and powers of attorney (photocopies may not be accepted by courts)
- Birth certificates and citizenship cards
- Property deeds and vehicle titles
- Marriage certificates
- Original signed contracts
Digitize these for searchability, but store the originals in a fireproof safe or safety deposit box.
Step 1: Sort before you scan
Create four piles
- Keep and scan: Insurance policies, tax returns (last 7 years), medical records, property documents, warranties
- Keep originals only: Wills, birth certificates, deeds (scan copies but store originals safely)
- Shred: Anything older than 7 years with no ongoing relevance (old utility bills, expired warranties, duplicate statements)
- Not sure: Set aside and revisit after you have processed the first three piles
Step 2: Scanning -- simpler than you think
Modern phone cameras produce excellent scans. Use your phone’s built-in document scanner (Google Drive, Apple Notes, or Microsoft Lens). Hold the phone directly above the document in good lighting. The app will auto-crop and straighten.
Best for: Quick one-offs, receipts, single-page documents.
PDFs preserve text quality and are searchable. JPEGs compress text, making it blurry and impossible to search. If your scanner only outputs JPEG, upload to Archevi anyway -- our OCR reads the text from images automatically.
Step 3: Organise digitally
The biggest mistake families make is recreating their physical filing system digitally. You do not need 47 nested folders. You need to be able to find things.
Step 4: The Canadian checklist
- Tax returns and notices of assessment (last 7 years -- CRA requirement)
- T4s, T5s, RRSP contribution receipts
- Property tax assessments (MPAC notices)
- Home and auto insurance policies
- Life and disability insurance policies
- Mortgage statements and renewal letters
- Wills and powers of attorney (scanned copies)
- Birth certificates and passports (scanned copies)
- Health cards (OHIP, CareCard, RAMQ)
- Vehicle ownership and registration
- Warranties for major purchases
- Rental or lease agreements
- Employment contracts and pay stubs
- Professional certifications and diplomas
- Medical records and prescription lists
The Canada Revenue Agency requires you to keep tax records for at least 6 years from the end of the tax year they relate to. If you filed your 2020 return, keep those documents until at least the end of 2026. When in doubt, keep it.
Step 5: Make it findable
Scanning is only half the job. The real value is being able to find what you need.
Ask questions
Instead of browsing folders, ask in plain English: "What is my policy number for home insurance?"
Expiry tracking
Automatic alerts when your passport, insurance, or warranty is about to expire.
Family access
Every family member gets their own login. Share tax records with your spouse without sharing everything.
What about privacy?
Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive are excellent general-purpose tools. But they were not designed for sensitive family documents like insurance policies, medical records, and tax returns. Consider where your data is stored (country), whether it is used for AI training, and who else can access it.
Archevi stores all documents on Canadian servers (DigitalOcean Toronto), anonymises your data before any AI processing, and never uses your documents for training. But regardless of which tool you choose, going paperless is better than leaving everything in a filing cabinet that only one family member knows how to navigate.
Start this weekend
You do not need to digitize everything at once. Start with one category -- insurance policies are a great first choice because they are the documents you are most likely to need in a crisis.
The goal is not perfection. The goal is being able to find your insurance policy at 2 AM when a pipe bursts, instead of tearing through filing cabinets while water is pouring through the ceiling.
