Glossary
File Clerk Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential file clerk terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key file clerk vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in file clerk training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Alphabetic filing
- Filing by name.
- Chart
- Patient record.
- Confidential
- Private.
- Cross-reference
- Pointer to related files.
- Data entry
- Typing information into systems.
- Indexing
- Tagging records for search.
- Metadata
- Data about a document.
- Numeric filing
- Filing by number.
- Offsite storage
- Records kept elsewhere.
- Out guide
- Marker for a removed file.
- Purge
- Removing old records.
- Queue
- List of tasks waiting.
- Retention schedule
- How long to keep records.
- Terminal digit filing
- Filing by last digits.
- Workflow
- Steps to complete work.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free File Clerk practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see File Clerk training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.