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What Are the Best Tips for Receipt Management?

By Felicia Dye
Updated: May 17, 2024
Views: 6,765
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Receipt management should begin with committed efforts to ensure all documents are accurate and complete. Then, a decision should be made as to where the records will be kept. Once there is a designated area for the receipts, they should be sorted into major categories and subcategories. To simplify the process, individuals may want to consider converting paper records into digital files.

Individuals should realize how important receipt management is and how costly it can be if the task is neglected. Considering this importance, the first step in managing receipts is to make sure that they are complete and accurate. This is especially important when the documents are handwritten. Tax authorities and employers tend to require detailed information if a record is to be considered valid.

Receipt management is different from keeping receipts. When a person merely has a habit of keeping these documents, she may carelessly place some in one location and others in different locations and only round them up when necessary. Managing receipts means that the documents are kept in organized fashion in a single location.

One of the initial recommendations for organizing receipts is to separate documents according their relevance. For example, a person may need to keep receipts for personal transactions, work expenditures, and her own small business expenses. In cases such as this, she should maintain three different files. To simplify matters, as records are added to each file they should be placed into subcategories. For instance, fuel receipts and entertainment receipts should be kept separate.

One way to drastically simplify receipt management is by scanning them into a computer and maintaining digital records. Doing this on a regular basis makes it a much less arduous task than it will be if a stack of documents are accumulated and must be scanned at once. Another benefit of digital management is that each record can be given tags, which will make referencing them much easier. Since there is always the possibility that something could happen to a person's computer, it is best to make sure that these files are backed up.

Individuals without the time, knowledge, or patience to convert their paper receipts into digital records may want to consider document management services. This type of service provider generally accepts receipts in several formats and they will scan and organize them for their clients. Before paying for this type of service, however, it is best to make sure that the parties that the records need to be shared with will accept them in this format.

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Discussion Comments
By seag47 — On Jan 27, 2013

I bought a cashbook with folders inside to help me with my receipt management for my art business. I keep track of my expenses and my sales with this book.

I keep every receipt, but I also write down the amounts and add them up each month. This makes doing my taxes easier, because I don't have to go back and do a year's worth of math.

I have enough folders for every category inside this book. I like having both the written record and the receipts in one handy book.

By JackWhack — On Jan 27, 2013

Receipt management software sounds awesome! It sure would be handy not to have to deal with my awkward, overstuffed file folder anymore.

All my receipts are different sizes, and some have to be folded in order to fit in there. I shred them at the end of the year, but it would be so nice to be able to shred them immediately after scanning them in.

By shell4life — On Jan 27, 2013

The newspaper where I work recently converted to digital document management. The women who work the front desk and deal with customers just had so many receipts in paper form to deal with that the task got very tedious.

I'm glad the company decided to invest in a program that they could use for this. I know that dealing with paper can be frustrating, especially when you lose a sheet or a receipt slips behind a filing cabinet or something.

By giddion — On Jan 26, 2013

I don't do detailed receipt record management, but I do keep my credit card receipts separate from my debit card receipts. This is so I don't accidentally deduct the amount of a credit card receipt from my checking account when I balance my checkbook.

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