The most commonly thought-of business filing systems are stand-alone pieces of office furniture such as filing cabinets and drawers. These are generally made of metal or wood, and contain large sliding drawers that are big enough to hold many hundreds of folders and paper files. From small businesses to large corporate offices, physical business filing systems are found in all shapes and sizes to accommodate any type of hard-copy file that needs to be stored securely.

Business filing systems are electronic file storage systems. Computer operating systems have electronic filing capabilities built into the software to make this a convenient way to protect files of many sizes and types. Files can include text documents, graphics and images, software, or web-based files.