Receipts

P

pambam

0
Hi,

I am halfway through the book (GTD) and excited about getting started. However, I find it reaally odd that David never mentions those of us drowning in receipts before doing our expense reports. Does anyone else struggle with having sometimes hundreds of little receipts? They tend to easily get lost. I checked the glossary and there was nothing under receipts or expense reports.

Interested to hear your good ideas.

Thanks, Pam
 
Receipt Management

Hi Pam,

I have an A4/Letter sized plastic folder which i empty my wallet out into when travelling or until I put my expense claim in.

If it's at home, I empty my wallet into my In Tray and then process them to the plastic folder to build an expense claim.

Hope this helps?
 
For general receipts, I grouped them daily and bind them with staples. They are filed in an expandable folder label from January to December.

For items with warranty, I filed them in individual manila folders based on product and kept in my general reference. You can make a copy of the original receipts and keep a copy in the general receipts folder.

Every year when you want to do your finance report, you can quickly pull out a years worth of receipts from the expandable folder and do your report.

alternatively, I carry a PDA with me and key in every transactions i made instantly through out the day.:cool: so i always know how much money left in my account.

when i get a receipt from the cashier, i usually fold it into half and keep it in my wallet where my paper money is. i use my wallet as temporary inbox for receipts. if my receipts is big (A4 print out) i will toss it into my plastic folder in my bag. These 2 will be empty when i get back to my house and filed at appropriate place.

is this helpful?
 
One way or another, the key is to simply have a system. I prefer my digitally, but many others don't. I've done two different things:

1 -- I put them all in Evernote. As soon as I got the receipt, I'd take a photo of it with my iPhone, upload it to evernote in the "Receipts - Business" or "Receipts - Personal" folder, and then toss it. http://www.evernote.com/

2 -- Lately, I've been using ShoeBoxed instead. I take a photo of the receipt and email it to them. It gets stored and categorized automatically. They even have a low-priced service where you can mail all of your receipts to them, and they'll scan, sort and organized them for you. Pretty slick. http://www.shoeboxed.com/

Hope that helps.
Mickey
 
I fold and house all receipts in my notetaker wallet throughout the day. At the end of the day, I drop them into my home inbasket and process them into the proper file at home.

Just a simple system works well for me.
 
In my general reference files, I've got one called "Expenses 2009". Every receipt goes in there (besides fixed expenses: rent, telephone, electricity and municipality taxes which have their own files).
 
Personally I used to file all receipts but then completely stopped.

I had file folders for each category such as "Clothing Purchases" "Furniture Expenses" & "Restaurant Receipts." After a while I noticed that I use my credit or debit card for almost everything nowadays and all these purchases show up on my Mint.com account which does a better job of graphing and organizing my spending habits; which is the final result of why I wanted to keep my receipts in the first place. So now, I could care less about actual receipts...

...Unless I go on vacation; I like to see exactly how much that particular vacation cost me. For example this past May on Memorial Day I went to Vegas with a buddy for my birthday and saved all the receipts and configured everything in a spreadsheet so I know exactly where every dollar went. The awesome thing about doing this is that I managed to spend a few days in Vegas, Memorial Day weekend for almost nothing; already knowing what I wanted to waste money on...and I'll most likely not overspend when I return.
 
I keep all my receipts in my wallet & empty them into my inbox at least once a week. I usually process my bank statement and YNAB software before I start my weekly review.

Balancing the checkbook is like the weekly review, gives you that relaxed feeling when you're done.

Pablo
 
sarahg;72947 said:
There's a new members podcast episode called "Organizing Financial Information" that sounds like just the kind of information you're after; its here:

https://secure.davidco.com/connect/audio.php?titleid=213&trackid=713
Click to expand...

Great podcast! Thanks!

I actually HAVE a sort of shoebox for my past bills (not just one year though..) - I thought I might need something more sophisticated, but maybe not? ;) hmm..

I had times when I tracked things, put bills into envelopes or paper-clipped them.. (and then dropped off the wagon and just shoved everything into a big drawer that's most handy for this!)

I'm still wondering about the categories a bit...
I'd love to track individual categories, so I'd know how much I spent for things.. Not sure if it's really necessary though.. And not sure if I'd stick to it..
Keeping technology and batteries etc (items with warranty) separate really seems like a 'must', even if they are just smaller items.. I've searched for some of those, at times..

I wonder about the privacy and reliability of eg Evernote or ShoeBoxed a bit.. They're probably very handy in case of fire or something like that.. Probably good to have backup elsewhere too.. (And just one safety box may not be enough, at least if you live in Slovenia! There was a big infamous robbery years ago where bank safety boxes were robbed!)
 
Layla;72955 said:
Great podcast! Thanks!

I actually HAVE a sort of shoebox for my past bills (not just one year though..) - I thought I might need something more sophisticated, but maybe not? ;) hmm..

I had times when I tracked things, put bills into envelopes or paper-clipped them.. (and then dropped off the wagon and just shoved everything into a big drawer that's most handy for this!)

I'm still wondering about the categories a bit...
I'd love to track individual categories, so I'd know how much I spent for things.. Not sure if it's really necessary though.. And not sure if I'd stick to it..
Keeping technology and batteries etc (items with warranty) separate really seems like a 'must', even if they are just smaller items.. I've searched for some of those, at times..

I wonder about the privacy and reliability of eg Evernote or ShoeBoxed a bit.. They're probably very handy in case of fire or something like that.. Probably good to have backup elsewhere too.. (And just one safety box may not be enough, at least if you live in Slovenia! There was a big infamous robbery years ago where bank safety boxes were robbed!)
Click to expand...

Well, the way I organize my receipts corresponds to the way in which I have to present my annual tax report, that's the logic behind it, so when the due time comes I do my report fast and easily.

If you don't have to present an annual tax report, any way in which you can retrieve your receipts easily in case you need them should be OK. Don't waste to much time on it.
 
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