A Plan for Keeping Up With Receipts

The Best Methods for Storing Your Receipts

I realized that I left this topic out when we covered the accounting department of the family plan. This is a topic I love; it’s how we handle receipts. I know this isn’t important to everyone, but there are many out there like me that love to be able to put their hands on everything.

The Thought or Concept:
You see, I have a few issues when it comes to receipts.

1. I hate to throw paperwork away.
   I’m one of those people who will not throw away any paperwork because I believe there’s a possibility that I might need it. My wife on the other hand isn’t quite that intense as I find, from time to time, that she’s placed a receipt in the trash. Can you believe that? Someone would actually place a receipt or mail in the trash?
2. I need to account for every receipt and every bill representing our financial obligations.
   I’ve found, the hard way, that receipts can cause you some trouble when you don’t have them. You can’t return an item if needed. You can’t use it as an itemized deduction with your taxes. You can’t prove an expense with your credit card company or attorney if you have legal matters requiring proof. So I’ve grown accustomed to keeping them all.
3. I hate to see them discarded as if they have no value.
   As I mentioned earlier, sometimes I’ll find receipts in the trash.This makes it hard to balance our family’s budget appropriately. When you’re missing items, that means your future plans will be incomplete, not taking this expense into account. I want to make sure that we have a solid budget and plan for what we can expect to spend and those receipts tell the story.

The Practice:
Pamela believes that I just rummage through the trash. But the truth is, I’ve in the past had so many of the common financial issues that many face, are facing, have faced, so now we run our life, our family like it’s our business, because it is. This is how the company you work for handles its receipts. I bet they make you complete some type of expense report for your company purchases. I bet they make you scan receipts for travel expenses and I’m certain it’s very difficult to get reimbursed without a receipt. If this level of accounting is good for your employer; it has to be good for your household. This receipt thing is serious when you’re serious about your financial outlook. With that said, let’s discuss two methods we use to store and account for our receipts.

Method 1: Physical Storage
For years, I was a fan of physical storage. Mainly because I could place my hands on it. We’ve used a combination of receipt folders & holders, file folders, and plastic coupon organizers. That’s not the important piece. What’s important is how you store it. I believe that every person’s method should be custom or unique to them.

Here’s an example, since we as a family shop at Walmart regularly, we have a place for all our Walmart receipts. Others would have you place this in a shopping folder or a groceries folder, but for us that has little meaning since we actually can identify better with Walmart. Keep in mind that Walmart sells goods and services that can fall into a variety of categories so we like to know how much we have spent at Walmart.

At any rate, if you choose to use physical storage, there is one tip I’d like to offer. Make sure you have enough space for everything you wish to store easily.

Method 2: Digital Storage
Since digital scanning has become so easy, we’ve totally committed ourselves to a paperless household. We scan everything, even Tamia’s work she brings home to us from school. Why not? It’s digital and we have an endless amount of storage for it.

In our digital receipt storage, we have categories for places we see recurring expenditures, like Walmart and Amazon. For other receipts we have a general receipt folder that houses the receipts by month with items in it like McDonalds or Dollar General, places we don’t visit as often as Walmart or purchases made with Amazon.

Using digital storage gives you a few advantages that physical storage doesn’t.

1. You can scan your receipts in real time.
2. Once you scan your receipts you can discard them.
3. You can share them easily and as many times as needed.
4. You can search for receipts and tag them if needed.

There are two applications (apps) that we like: Evernote and OneNote. Our preference is OneNote. We use this application to go completely paperless as we’ve decided to go all in with technology.

No matter which way you decide to store your receipts, do it in a way that serves you and your family without allowing it to create a ton of work for you.

Today Is Friday!
The point of this is to have a plan for how you handle your receipts. If it’s important to a business to handle theirs with processes, then it’s even more important for us. It’s our home, our lives, our business, and we want to make certain we are running it to the best of our abilities. Receipts are a part of that business and must be managed to some degree.

Question: Is your life, your home, your business, important even to you to manage your receipts?

Thanks for visiting Kerry A. Clark & Co. I’m sure you know at least one person who can benefit from this lesson on handling receipts; pass it along.

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Our team has worked very hard putting it together. We designed it to help you and your family move the needle forward in making your life your business. Find out more about the Family plan here.