No, this isn’t a pre-St. Patrick’s Day prank. Green files are far better for your business in a number of ways.

When I say “green” files, I don’t mean that they are green in color. I mean that they are ecologically-friendly. When I say “green” files I’m referring to scanning your files and paperwork and storing it online instead of in those giant filing cabinets that seem to multiply like rabbits in a busy office.

Online file storage companies offer a variety of services relating to storing and sharing your files. Now, I should make a clarifying point here: Some sites tend to have a greater emphasis on sharing. Sites like Box.net and YouSendIt.com are sometimes lumped into the online file storage industry but these sites are primarily there to help you ship big files from one place to another.

Instead, I’m referring to sites where you sign up and you get what really is a giant electronic filing cabinet where you can store all of your files safely. There is some form of sharing that can do with each one but the emphasis is on secure storage and convenient access. There are several reasons to use this type of service:

• It’s secure and disaster proof; far more so than the filing cabinet you keep in your office
• It’s a better use of space; you don’t need big, ugly filing cabinets taking over your office
• It can be a cheaper alternative; less time is spent on searching for files (and files never go missing)
• Most importantly, it’s an eco-friendly solution that helps to minimize the amount of paper that is not recycled. Rather than storing paper that was once a mighty tree, and only referring to that piece of paper once every year or two, you can shred the paper, recycle it, return that paper to the earth or reuse it again to save a tree, and instead store an electronic copy in a far more environmentally friendly way. No electronic trees will ever be killed to start your paperwork online!

I’ve reviewed four online document storage companies below:

HyperOffice (http://www.hyperoffice.com/online-document-storage/) offers a number of services including online document storage, and is really an ideal company to use when you have a distributed work team or you do a lot of file sharing and might need other types of services as well. Their pricing is based on users and comes as part of a package of other services. Prices start at $44.99 per month for 5 users and businesses  get about 1.25 GB of storage space.

Net Documents (http://www.netdocuments.com/) offers 3 tiers of online storage service. They give subscribers one filing cabinet for basic users and unlimited filing cabinets for the upper 2 tiers. Documents can be tagged for easier searching, they can be reviewed online, there is mobile access, documents are fully searchable, there are check-in and check-out controls so you know who has the latest version, and there are several security features to manage who can see what. Their basic level costs $20 per user per month (and a minimum of 3 users is required) and their professional level costs $30 per user per month. Their third tier is a custom pricing solution. They offer an initial 3 GB of storage, but if you add additional users you get additional 1/2 GB of storage. This is a very feature-rich solution and ideal for businesses that want to manage and control documents.

FilesAnywhere (http://www.filesanywhere.com/) offers a free plan, a basic plan, and an advanced plan with a very user-friendly, customizable price estimating system that allows you to choose how much space you need. The free plan offers 1 user 1 GB of space. I would recommend one of the paid options since one of the advantages of storage is the ability to share the document with others without the eco-unfriendliness of having the document delivered to their office. With the basic and advanced plans, prices start at $2.95 per month for 1 GB and $7.95 per month for 5 GB respectively, and users and gigabytes can be increased as necessary (with a rate adjustment). There are other features that the basic and advanced plans have, too, like higher security and version control.

DocLanding (http://www.doclanding.com) offers 3 tiers of services – free, standard, and premium. The free plan offers 256 MB of storage, the standard plan offers 1.25 GB of storage for $9/month and the premium plan offers 1.25 GB storage for $20/month. DocLanding doesn’t seem to limit the number of users who can access the files, which makes this the most cost-efficient system of the ones I’ve reviewed, although there might be some concerns around who has access to what documents. One of the key differences between the standard plan and the premium plan is the level of support. The standard plan gives users access to online support only while the premium plan gives users access to 2 hours of telephone support.

So, which online document storage service is right for you? Each one offers a different combination of services and prices for your needs – some with a greater focus on enabling web teams and others with a greater focus on managed access and searchability.

Although one of these might be right for you, any one of these services is right for the environment if you replace your current paper storage with an online document storage solution.

It’s time to turn all of your files green!