Using staples

[Atcoolio 0]

I am wondering if it is OK to use staples on some of my documentation. For example, I have many bank and credit card statements that are each 3-5 pages long (for each month) can I staple each month together individually? and then use one of those binder clips to clip them ALL together? I read somewhere to not use heavy duty staples. But I would be using the normal sized ones. 

[Starkilla09 366]

Yes that's fine. You don't want a big mess of paperwork. Arrange your documents organized.

[neilsqueen 433]

I personally did not use any type of staples.  They mentioned that they would like the package to be easily disassembled if need be so I was thinking staples would get in the way.  As a possible alternative, you can use clear, plastic holders to put items that you want kept together.  They can just grab the papers out from the top.  I know it's a pain, but anything that will keep them happy and allow them to keep working quicker is always a plus. 

 

@CookieCat posted amazing instructions on how she assembled her packet that can guide you.  It's one of the pinned items in the ROC forum.  I follow it and it was nice and organized.  Best wishes!

[Starkilla09 366]

I think he's talking about monthly statements which are several pages long. In that case he should staple each monthly statement to keep it organized and use a paper clip or separate folder to arrange all documents then together.

 

[A'n'L 735]

No, don't use staples. If you've seen the folder type the CO uses, you'd see that they need to take all individual pages apart when they sort/go through the documents. For all our packages, we stacked all our paperwork neatly and used one large clip. You can use several smaller paper clips if need be. 

[Atcoolio 0]

Yes, to be clearer, I am separating things into categories, such as: Banking, Credit cards, Assets, Wills & POA, Photos, Travel itineraries. I just want to know if I can staple individual statements together because right now it is a huge mess of paperwork. Then I will take each individually stapled statement and bulk them together into  folders with a Large binder clip so it doesn't fall all over the place. I literally have like 20 + statements form all the bank accounts and credit card accounts.

[Starkilla09 366]

9 minutes ago, Atcoolio said:

Yes, to be clearer, I am separating things into categories, such as: Banking, Credit cards, Assets, Wills & POA, Photos, Travel itineraries. I just want to know if I can staple individual statements together because right now it is a huge mess of paperwork. Then I will take each individually stapled statement and bulk them together into  folders with a Large binder clip so it doesn't fall all over the place. I literally have like 20 + statements form all the bank accounts and credit card accounts.

You're perfectly fine to do this. This is what I did since AOS and it's a non issue. Like I said you don't want to staple your whole package. You want but those monthly statements that run several pages in a single month, then use paper clips to it thereafter to the rest. For instance if December 2016 statement has 4 pages, staple those 4 and use a clip to attach December statements to January ones and so fort. Again use a simple stapler. 

Edited March 21, 2017 by Starkilla09

[Atcoolio 0]

12 minutes ago, A'n'L said:

No, don't use staples. If you've seen the folder type the CO uses, you'd see that they need to take all individual pages apart when they sort/go through the documents. For all our packages, we stacked all our paperwork neatly and used one large clip. You can use several smaller paper clips if need be. 

Are you saying that I should NOT separate each months statements? For example I have statements from one credit card that go back 2 years. I should just stack them together without separating the months?

[Starkilla09 366]

No of course you have to separate each month's statement. I'm saying for the sake of organization only staple several pages of a statement within that same month if that month happens to have a statement that's more than a page long.

[Ryan_Chialien 15]

As an alternative to staples they sell very small sized binder clips.  They sell a fairly large volume bag at Office Depot that had enough to get me past all the documents up to AOS so far.  I used these instead of stapling anything for small groups of pages I wanted to hold together.  They are small and low profile enough to not make a stack of documents bulky and hold the pages together securely if you only have a few pages to hold.  I used larger sized binder clips to hold groups of these together.