Organizing Important Papers
Whether we like it or not, it’s tax season. How is your filing system holding up?
Personally, I like to keep things really simple when it comes to taxes. I have a file called “Taxes” that I keep in my Family File Box, and all year long I put any document in there that will be important when tax time rolls around: Charitable donation receipts, 1099s, W2s, childcare receipts, business expense records, etc.—it all goes in the file. It really helps me to have it all gathered in one place when it’s time to prepare our taxes.
I also scan receipts and tax documents into Evernote using my favorite Fujitsu Scan Snap Scanner. This scanner makes scanning all sorts of papers crazy easy and fast. You can scan up to 30 pages per minute. It can scan receipts, photos, business cards, and documents.
Once I’ve scanned something, I save it in Evernote with some tags ( “Taxes 2019,” “Charitable Donations”) and give it a title and I’m done! (One of these days, I’ll write a full blog post on this whole process!) Having a digital copy of important papers is super helpful, and I love Evernote’s search features and the fact that I can access it anywhere from my phone or computer. It’s seriously amazing!
Tax time is a great time to consider your overall filing system and make adjustments as needed to keep things running smoothly. If you’re in the market to revamp your filing system, check out my favorite products to organize paper.
And speaking of files, do you know how long you should keep different documents and records? I try to strike a balance between holding onto important papers that are useful and purging things I no longer need. This chart is so helpful when I’m second-guessing if I should keep or toss something. Hope you find it helpful, too!
If you are overwhelmed by papers and need help getting some systems in place, we would love to help. Contact me and we’ll tackle it together!
Susie
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Each of my career choices-wedding coordinator, event planner, and teacher — gave me the creative freedom to organize everyone and everything. I have always thrived on to-do lists, planners, and systems! Now, I lead a team of organizers to help me on my mission. Read more…
