Record Keeping

Original rough draft written in June, but adding an addendum at the end.

Keeping records for a family or for a business is crucial. I have not been a very good record keeper over the years. I admit it. The sheer magnitude of the chore overwhelms me. There are so many steps, so many things to keep track of! Adding a business or two on top of that, there are the added things to keep track of as well.

With everything, there is a certain amount of time investment that needs to occur to keep track of everything. To keep things neat and put away, for me is a challenge. I admit it. I fall so very short in this area again and again. I am getting better than I was years ago, but it has been a very slow and arduous journey for me. Throw in home schooling papers that need to be kept to put in to porfolios and you've got quite a paper work mix that just seems to swirl round and round in a never ending whirlwind.

I've purposed to stop the whirlwind. The past 2 weeks, I've been working on getting paperwork under control. I just work an hour each day on it. Sometimes I feel good enough to work on it a second hour after going off and doing something else. I know this is something that may come easy to others, but for me, it is extremely challenging. I am sharing here what I do. It may appear to some that I can actually skip a step or not even do something. I am open to suggestions!

For starters~Receipts~

Receipts are important items that show you exactly where you spent your money. I am beginning to like receipts for the information they hold. Why? Because once the receipts are entered in to Quicken in this fashion~




The above "split transaction" is an example of my Aldi's list. I separate in to categories to track our spending whether it is over spending or underspending. It helps us to adjust the budget in those areas. It also helps me to know where I need to cut costs. When I find a good deal on shredded cheese, I buy it in bulk because it pays off in the long run.

What does all this record keeping of receipts add up to?



This, hopefully, gives you a better picture of what the beginning of the month looks like. I'm sure that by the end of this month, the pie chart you see above will definately look much more colorful with more sections to the pie, like the one below~

This helps me to see how much or how little we spend in any given area.  I have the groceries separated by type as well so that we can see where we need to cut back, make from scratch or spend more in-like baking or potentially making our own cheeses.

Regardless, once I finish with the receipts, I mark on them "Entered into Quicken" and they're ready to file in to the accordian file.

There are numerous other programs you could use to keep track of things like this, but I keep coming back to Quicken for its ease of usability for me. You may like Quick Books or MS Money. Either way, it always helps to not just start a program, but get in to it, utilize it, get familiar with it, short cuts and learn everything you could possibly do with the program to help you keep track of your records.

What about bills? When paying bills, I learned this from my dear mother-in-law, that you mark every bill with the date you paid it, the check number and the amount paid on the bill part that you keep for your records. Make sure you always write down the account number in the memo corner of your check. If you're paying your bills online, this is already done for you through electronic transfer. Everyone has their own preferences whether they go to the company itself to pay with cash, sending money orders or checks in the mail, or electronic transfers. Just make sure you have records to back up that you paid your bill, when, for how much and the account number is put on the method of payment unless cash, in which case you just need a receipt from the company. :)

Once you've paid your bill, the records need to be filed. Many people scan their bill, keeping a file on their computer and throw the paper away. Many people file everything in a filing cabinet with everything in alphabetical order and everything within the file is filed by date. There are other ways to file, I'm sure, but be sure to keep it simple and user friendly. Make sure you enter the bill payment on Quicken/Quick Books/MS Money once you've paid it under whichever method you've paid it.


Addendum:  Since the original writing of this rough draft that was never published, I have been reviewing my Quicken files and marveling at how many income tax deductions I’ve missed in years past.  I honestly believe this program has been such a blessing to us.  While it has been frustrating at times, I admit, I also struggled through those frustrating times to get to the other side.  I knew that I needed something better than just tossing the receipts in to an envelope and leaving things at that.  I would highly recommend this program to anyone who has a business, it doesn’t matter the type of business.  You could purchase the program and the cost is tax deductible.  The cost of filing your taxes is deductible.  This program figured out deductions that I didn’t even know we had!  I thought we had quite a few deductions pinned down to begin with, but this particular program found things like car registration, stationary items like stickers that you would put on packages for business transactions, rental vehicles for when your “business” vehicle is in the shop.

I would like to encourage everyone to utilize a record keeping program like Quicken.  It doesn’t have to be Quicken, but just use whatever you’re comfortable with.  The point is, you’ll find tax credits that you never knew that you had.  What a blessing!