Basic tips for moving receipts out of your wallet and into time-saving order.

• Talk to your accountant. Make sure you are clear about what is expensible in your business area.
• Keep all your receipts! Credit card and bank statements are not enough if your are audited. When you get a receipt, indicate what and/or who it’s for. If you have clients you bill expenses to (i.e. construction materials, event supplies, travel expenses) indicate which client the expense applies to.
• Have a filing system. It doesn’t have to be sophisticated but at the very least sort receipts into groupings, i.e. capital expenses in one folder/box/envelope, meal and entertainment in another, travel in yet another.
• Track your receipts against your bank and credit card statements.
• Consider a user-friendly software program to log your expenses. If you are computer savvy Excel, Quicken, Open Office, Lotus 123 all offer spreadsheets with which you can create your own templates to meet your specific needs. If you’re not, ask your accountant to create a simple template for you and email it to you. That’s what they’re there for!
• Protect time in your schedule once or twice a month to sit yourself down and deal with it. You’ll thank yourself at tax time.