Organizing Business Receipts

Posted on July 20th, 2007, by Meggin McIntosh

Question:

Can you give us some advice on the best way to file and organize our business receipts?

Posted by Billy Simms | 07/20/07

Answer:

I think for all members of MEMc, we need to be careful about making this more difficult than it is–so I use a fairly simple system and it works great for me.

At the beginning of each year, I create 12 files, labeled (with a label maker or something other than my handwriting, which isn’t too legible) January – December. I put those in my accounting drawer (which is right next to my computer). I just took and picture and inserted it below so you can see how “not fancy” I make this.
Daily or whenever I have receipts that come in (when I make purchases at stores, when boxes are delivered from UPS with reciepts inside, or when electronic receipts arrive, I put them all into my “To Be Processed” accounting folder. If it’s something I charged on one of my credit cards, then I put it in that folder (you can see, if you look closely, that I have a UBS and an American Express folder inside the “To Be Processed” folder).
Then, weekly, I process all of my receipts and input the information into QuickBooksPro. I am going to outsource that very soon, but for now, I’m still doing this. As soon as things are put into QBPro, I move them into that month’s receipt folder. I keep all of the credit card receipts together until the final statement comes in and then staple them all to that statement and put the whole thing into the month’s receipt folder.
Then, after the month has passed, I move the folder into one of my file cabinets that is across the room from my desk so I have access to it, but it’s not in my “prime real estate.”
At the end of the year, I’ll move all of the year’s monthly folders to my garage file cabinet (where it’s archived in case I need it) and then I start the process over with a new set of folders.

Hope this makes sense.