Create a System to Organize Receipts for Next Year’s Taxes
May 21, 2009
By Barbara Boone
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YahooMyWebTax time is stressful for most people. If you’re still recovering from doing your taxes, perhaps you need a system to organize your tax receipts. If you have your information organized ahead of time, it will reduce the stress. Follow the directions below to create your own organizing container for the tax receipts you need, and next April will be a little easier.
- Make a list of all of the deductions that you take for your business.
- Check with your accountant or financial person to see if you forgot any deductions. These are some of the common categories for deductions: Advertising/Marketing, Cell Phone, Credit Card, Donations, Insurance, Office Expenses, Books/Magazines, Professional Services, Professional Dues, Training/Seminars, Travel, and Taxes. I also include a compartment for Mileage and Income. You may have more or different categories.
- Buy an accordion file folder with the alphabet labeled. One without a top works better than one with a top. Get one with the alphabet labeled because you need as many compartments as possible. You will not use the letters but will instead create labels according to the names of the deductions you have chosen.
- If you have an electronic label maker, use it to make the labels for each compartment of the accordion file. If you don’t have an electronic one, hand-write the labels.
- Lay the labels out and put them in alphabetical order. It is easier to file receipts this way.
- Attach the labels to the file folder.
- Place the file folder in a file cabinet next to your desk if possible. It should be close by so that you log in the receipts into your computer files and then immediately file them into the accordion folder.
- When it is time to do your taxes, total each category and take the information, along with the back-up receipts, to your accountant.
If you would like help with organizing your tax information, call Barbara Boone of Busy Bee Organizing Services at 443-854-3563 or e-mail her at Barb...@bzbeeorganizing.com.
Barbara Boone has a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in education and a master’s degree in professional writing. She has been organizing and writing in the fields of education and business for 40 years and is the author of “Tools for Writing: Creating Writer’s Workshops for Grades 2-8,” a resource for teachers. Barbara has used her organizing, writing and teaching skills to educate business owners and busy professionals about organizing their work environment. She does this through her company, Busy Bee Organizing Services, located in Cockeysville, Md. (www.bzbeeorganizing.com) Her monthly newsletter gives solutions, ideas and advice on many different organizing problems in the home and office.
Have you come across Shoeboxed Mail-in Service? They makes it easy to organize and manage your receipts for expense reports, tax returns, budgeting, and for returns and exchanges. They’ll also help you organize your business cards for an easy way to manage your contacts. And since they do the scanning and data entry, you’ll have all the data and organization but won’t do any of the hard work. Sort of having a personal assistant to do your laborious work for you so you can do more important things.
http://budurl.com/sbmi