Steal This: My Receipt Organization System

Scheduling software, Facebook ads, membership sites, client gifts, accounting software. The list of expenses needed to run your own business can be exhaustive. And to talk about exhausting, you’ve got to keep all of those receipts organized for tax time. Yikes!

But it doesn’t have to be so overwhelming. I’ve got a simple and free method of receipt organization that’s guaranteed to make tracking those receipts so much simpler. And let’s face it, free is good (who needs ANOTHER receipt to keep track of?).

What To Keep

First, let’s chat about what to keep. Spoiler...it’s everything. The IRS only requires you to keep receipts greater than $75, so that’s the bare minimum. But really you should keep them all. It makes it easier for you to remember what you’ve purchased and will get you into the habit of saving them. Not to mention you’ll be able to back up every single transaction if the IRS comes knocking on your door. A win-win in my book.

So, What's The System?

My simple and free system is none other than Google Drive! I use this with all of my clients and it has worked wonderfully. We start with a folder labeled receipts (whoa, too simple right?). Every single receipt gets put into this folder, either in PDF form, or a picture of the receipt (you know, if you go shopping in the real world and not just online). 

If you want to help yourself out later I would name the document with the date and vendor but that isn’t entirely necessary. At this stage, all you’re doing is dumping the receipts in the folder, no bookkeeping necessary at this point. Make it a habit, every time you purchase something to stick the receipt straight into the folder. If the receipt is just an email (like say Amazon) just print the email to a pdf and store that in the Google Drive Folder.

Receipt Organization

Well this doesn’t really seem like a system yet does it? But it is. Within your Receipt folder create another folder called Processed Receipts, within that you can create folders for the current year and month.

When you sit down weekly to do your bookkeeping, (cause you’re doing that weekly, right?) You’ll open up your receipts folder in one browser and your bookkeeping software in another. As your categorizing your expenses you’ll find the appropriate receipt, download it from google drive and attach it to the transaction in your software. Then you’ll go back to google drive and move the receipt into the processed folder under the correct year and month. And that’s it!

Why Bother?

This may seem like a bit of work but here’s why it’s helpful. First, when you’re looking at your bookkeeping software and you have a question about a transaction the information is right there at your fingertips. That makes it easier to analyze your transactions without having to search all over the place for your info.

Second, with the receipts being organized in Google Drive you have not only a working list of the items you still have to process, but you’ve got a second place to find your backup if there’s ever an issue with your bookkeeping software. It’s always a good idea to back up your digital storage. Additionally, storing by month and year gives you another way to look up information on the chance you remember when you bought something but maybe don’t remember where you got it or how you classified it in your software.

Third, if you ever need to switch bookkeeping software you can get your info from your current software without having to worry too much about pulling all your receipts as well, you’ve already got those stored, And lastly I love Google drive because you can access it from any computer and don’t have to worry about your computer crashing and losing everything. The IRS will not accept a computer crash as a reason for not having your receipts.