Finance: Organize Your Receipts Before Tax Time

Hopefully you’re not keeping receipts in a shoebox and have to scrounge around at tax time to get everything in order. And I hope you won’t have to pay your accountant for the extra hours it’ll take to get everything organized.

When I started my business almost 11 years ago, as part of the Accounting section of my filing system, I had a folder for each vendor I spent money with regularly (e.g., gas, light, Office Depot, etc.). When I found myself sticking receipts in a To Be Filed folder, I knew my system was too tedious. Because I was procrastinating about filing everything, I knew I needed to simplify my system.

Here is a simple solution that works for me.

• Create a home for all receipts for the current month. This can be a file folder, tray, basket, or whatever works for you.
• Create a home for all pay stubs from clients. For all checks you receive for the month, keep these pay stubs separately and near your receipts.
• Keep everything with that month’s bank statement. When the bank statement arrives, use a jumbo paper clip to keep all receipts and pay stubs for that month behind it.

This system is simple so it’s easy to maintain.

One thing though, I had to figure out a way to quickly find receipts for higher-priced products in case I needed repair, etc. I created a contact in Outlook called “Big Ticket Items.” In the text area of the contact I have a 2-column table that is similar to the one below. If I ever need to find a receipt, I’ll know which month/year bank statement to pull. (To create the table: if you use Outlook as your email editor, create the table in Word and paste it into the text area of the contact. Once it’s there, you can click inside the cells and type as you normally would. When you need a new row, click inside the last cell of the table and tab. Once this table fills up, you can quickly find what you need by using Find. Open the Big Ticket Items contact, click anywhere in the body, then press F4. Type whatever you’re looking for in the resulting Find what box and press Enter.)

What system have you developed that works for you? Let us know.

-Peggy Duncan, SCORE Atlanta
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4 Comments November 13, 2008