Workflow - Archiving mail and attachments - what is best practice?
 

At present, if I get an email with an invoice attached, I print the invoice for the accountants, save the invoice to my reference --> accounts folder and then archive the mail.

Net result 2 copies of the invoice on my SSD (which isn't as big as a HDD) and a physical copy in the folder (the accountants still like a physical copy)

One option is to bin the email rather than archive it.

Another is to stick it into a 'wait and then bin' folder with a purge of anything over x months

A third could be to strip the attachments and archive just the text (so there is a record of correspondence happening)

What do other people do? What is best practice?

TIA

One thought that comes to mind would be to only keep a link to the email in your reference folder. Another is that your reference folder could probably be stored on external rotating media. In a paper world, you'd be filing that invoice in a filing cabinet somewhere, not keeping it on top of your desk, right?