You are a fast-growing small business owner looking for best practices for organising scanned receipts. Of course, you don’t want to be in a situation where you fail to prove a transaction, the receipt details have faded out, or you don’t know where the receipt is.
Keep reading to learn some benefits and tips for organising scanned receipts to save tons of paper, time and paperwork headaches.
Why Scanned Receipts?
We understand that you want easy access to your well-organised business receipts to prove your transactions/claims whenever and wherever needed. You want to do that without paying a hefty amount to an accountant for managing paper receipts. Meanwhile, you also need to balance your work and family life. If you think it is not possible without spending nights managing the paper receipts, the idea of scanning receipts is for you.
Keep reading to learn some benefits and tips for organising scanned receipts to save tons of paper, time and paperwork headaches.
Scanning receipts isn’t only time- and space-saving; it also ensures easy organisation and simplified auditing.
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Tips For Organising Scanned Receipts
If you don’t know what to do next after scanning your receipts (how to organise scanned receipts? Where to save them? Can someone else do it for you?) Please keep scrolling, and you will know it all by the end.
Have a Desk Scanner and Hard Drive
Begin with buying a desk scanner and a hard drive for your work PC. For every receipt you receive, scan it using the desk scanner and save the file to your attached USB drive right away. Since it is important to have a dependable backup, you can use a separate drive solely to save scanned receipts. Keep the drive with you, and produce the receipt wherever and whenever needed. You will also need to install software on your PC to interface with your scanner and assist in organising scanned receipts.
There are multiple computer and scanner options available out there. You can always choose as per your needs and choices. Try selecting a scanner with OCR technology so that numbers on the receipts can be recognised easily.
Scan The Receipts in Time
It is suggested that you scan and file your receipts on an ongoing basis as most scanned receipts have volatile ink, they can become unreadable after some span of time. Scan and save the receipt as soon as you receive it to ensure you always have a legible digital copy. You can set an hour of the day for this purpose and scan all the receipts ongoing as a part of your standard operating procedures. (SOP’s). However, if you have a pile of disorganised receipts, arrange them chronologically, with the newest on the top, for easy organisation.
After scanning and organising your receipts, you can put the paper receipts in an envelope without wanting to manage them because you have the scanned, organised, and easy-to-find receipts in soft form with you.
Organise Scanned Receipts the Proper Way
Naming your receipts is important for future reference. The more descriptive the name is, the quicker you can find the receipt when needed. An example would be: <date of purchase> – <name of supplier> – <amount of purchase> For instance, ‘2024-03-05, $12, GetMeSorted’.
Save the receipt in PDF format and, once scanned, move all receipts to a folder called ‘receipts’ and then in subfolders by year. Move the receipts to their respective year folders.
Using this approach will help you find your scanned receipts easily.
Scan the Essential Documents
Your scanned receipts are going to stay with you for several years. So go through all your receipts and separate the ones you will need for tax time or future use. Try to understand which receipts you need to save and which you probably don’t need anymore. Just ask yourself, does knowing the price of this item help me? Do I need it for taxes? Do I need this for a warranty? Do I still have this item? Etc.
It will become much easier once you sort, scan, and save.
Use Your Phone to Digitise and Organise
If you are finding the whole process of buying the hardware and operating the related software, you can always use your phone. Look for a scanner App compatible with your phone. A handful of free apps are available on the internet. Use that App to scan the receipt. Most Apps automatically convert the receipt into PDF format. Name the file and save it to your phone.
You can also use Google Drive, iDrive, Evernote, etc., to save your scanned receipts to the cloud and access them when and where needed.
Security for Digital Records
Just as your business’s physical files and papers must be saved from theft, fire, natural disasters, and other kinds of loss, so do your scanned receipts. You must protect the receipts because equipment failure, virus attack, or password theft can cause them to be lost.
Keep checking your digital record now and then. Create a secure backup for your necessary receipts and ensure your essential tax receipts are there when needed.
Get Me Sorted Can Organise Receipts for You
What if we tell you someone who can do all the digital organisation of your business’ receipts on your behalf? Meanwhile, you can spend quality time with your spouse, focus more on your business growth, and still spare some time for your social friends.
Handover your paper receipts to our trained Get Me Sorted staff, who will transform them into well-organised digital files. Our excellent organisation services, tailored to your needs, would let you access your meticulously digitised receipts whenever needed.
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