Organizing Your Business Finances
By: Ashley Bailey
Ashley Bailey, founder of Ideas to Reality Consulting, has over 15 years of financial experience working in the private and public sectors. Ashley has specializes in accounting/bookkeeping services (Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Payroll, Financials, Tax Returns). Ashley is currently in graduate school, working towards her MBA.
Let’s talk about how to organize financial documents in your business. Whether you’re trying to do the accounting yourself or you have help, consistency is key. Making sure that you have your receipts and financial documents filed and organized will help in case questions arise from vendors you’ve paid or from your tax professional at the end of the year. Here are some tips to maintain quick and easy organization of these documents.
KEEP A SMALL ENVELOPE OR FOLDER IN YOUR VEHICLE TO PUT RECEIPTS IN RIGHT AWAY.
This could be a paper envelope, small plastic envelope, or anything that you can keep close to put receipts in right away. When you get to your office, bring inside and file right away. This will help to prevent loss of receipts or statements that you collect throughout the days and weeks so you’re not searching for them with no luck in case you need it again.
HAVE A DEDICATED FILE SYSTEM FOR INVOICES, RECEIPTS, AND STATEMENTS.
You can organize however you would like but keep it consistent. If you like to look up information by vendor, have a file for each vendor. If you want to be able to look up info by month, have a file by month. I personally prefer to keep invoices by Vendor, and then add in older documents to the front of the folder, so I can look at the newest first and go back if I need something from the beginning of the year. But whatever you choose, just be consistent.
USE ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE
A lot of accounting software allows you to utilize an app to snap a picture of the receipt that corresponds to the expense and store it within the system. QuickBooks for example has a function that you take a picture of the receipt with your phone, and it matches it up to the expense and the receipt can be found very quickly. That is a great option to utilize if you prefer taking advantage of technology for filing.
KEEP THESE RECORDS FOR 7 YEARS,
as that’s how far back an audit can be requested. If the documents are needed to be found, having a good filing system on the front end will save a ton of time and energy if the need ever arises.
Overall, document storage and maintenance is easy if you go into it with a good plan. Even if you’ve let it go awhile, if you take a bit of time and come up with an easy-to-follow system that works for you, it will save you some headaches down the road. If you have any tips or questions, please reach out!
Ashley