What is the difference between alphabetical and numerical filing in lateral file cabinets?

The filing method you choose has real implications for how many lateral cabinets you need and how efficiently your staff retrieves documents. At OfficeFurniture2go.com, we advise clients on cabinet counts for both systems. Alphabetical filing is straightforward but can create clustering around common letters (Smith, Johnson) requiring careful drawer distribution. Numerical filing, standard in healthcare and legal environments, requires an index but scales to hundreds of thousands of documents with minimal retrieval errors — especially when paired with terminal-digit color coding. Our 4- and 5-drawer laterals in 36" and 42" widths accommodate both systems. Call 1-800-460-0858 and we can help you estimate cabinet needs based on your active file count.