Hi forum colleagues,

I am reading feeds from TheMoneyGym just to see what other people think Joe Public want to know about wealth creation, and the latest autoresponder is pasted below.

Personally, for the last ten years, I have kept a receipt for everything, written it in my diary, then at least once per month, have moved the receipts to a box file, and written all purchases in a spreadsheet with these simple columns: voucher number, date, description, then the amount in one of three columns: personal expenditure, UK business expenditure and "other".

I am curious to find out how widespread the habit of keeping receipts is. Please answer the poll.

Can I Have A Receipt, Please?

Receipts fill in the knowledge gaps between your bank and credit card statements - especially if you make a lot of cash withdrawals. Try to get into the habit of paying by switch - it lists the shop name on your bank statement and helps you figure out what you spent where (unless you are trying to stick to a budget by taking out a fixed amount of cash per week and living on that!)
Don't worry for the time being about what to do with all of these pieces of paper, just collect them.

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You need another option or two!

* I keep all business receipts and account for them

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Simon,

I guess it depends on the interpretation of the word regular. I do move them to a spreadsheet about once a month, but only do my annual accounts once per year. I wish I did them more frequently, and they're always at the last minute, but for me "regular" is daily to the diary, monthly to the spreadsheet and annually to the accounting package.

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:-) I was more meaning the difference between business receipts and personal ones.

I rarely keep personal ones, except perhaps high value but anything business related is kept, of course.


Your daily diary entries are admirable! A habit!

Good poll.

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Simon,

Though it's really boring, I keep the personal receipts (or track of what I've spent) because it's just as important to know your personal costs and how they are made up as it is to accumulate unearned income. I've recently paid two part time people to come to the house and manually extract all that information from our bank and credit card statements for the last four years. Why? Because I don't actually know what we've spent in the last four years, but I'm sure it's not enough . To be serious, we may be at the stage of effective retirement, and it has come a bit faster than I expected. So it's become really important now to measure and manage. I really want to go the route of 30% of income on fixed costs, 30% on enjoyment, 30% on reinvestment and 10% on charity. So not knowing how much is spent on each has become a real pain, hence the post to try to understand how many other robots like me there are out there.

I hope this makes sense.

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Gerry I feel I should praise what you manage to do.. it is beyond me..

There should be an extra poll

" keep every receipt. Ram them in a tesco carrier and hope you can make head or tail when accounts time is near"

I vote yes for that one.

My personal strategy is everything is bought on a business credit cards. I write a label on each card front what project / business they are for. That way I automatically have a time, name and accurate account of what I've spent. I then ruffle through my carrier and staple my receipts to the monthly card bill. Also then i know when I've lost a receipt.
Unfortunately a house rebuild can take several carrier bags and wont get sorted for months.. but the card statement gives an automatic reminder of the running total.

Another one of my oddities is every time I fuel up I put in Xpounds but always put in 18p worth that way I can quickly ID my fuel expenditure.

I wish I was more organised but I'm not. My accounts have to be in by end Dec and I'm dreading it.

John

John,

At times it's painful, but I always smile when I know I don't have to correct any employee's mistakes (except my own, and I pay myself to blame myself). It's become a particular challenge now that Sahar and I have to account for four companies in four countries. I was sticking all the Spanish receipts in with the UK ones for six months, then had to pay someone to relist them and separate all the grotty bits of paper.

For property (and for all things UK for that matter), I find the voucher numbering system really useful, as I do by naming each property by a "job number". This is mandatory once all the costs go into the accounting package, because it's the only way you can surely drill down on any cost, and at the same time have a complete income and expense / asset and liability account on a per property basis, spanning across more than one financial year.

There's often a load of advice about generics and "how to", but I've rarely seen many people describe the actual procedures they use in keeping track of stuff in their lives.

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My sizeable receipts (ie anything bigger than a couple of pounds on photo copies or screws, clips, screwdriver etc) that are business related go into a box or pile and I look through them around accounts time - which should be now-ish!

I think small receipts aren't worth the hassle when it comes to filling in my spreadsheets and doing accounts.

I can see where you are coming from Gerry!

What I do for my (non-property) Ltd. Co., all the bills come in, I invariably don't open them for a couple of months. They get stuck in a pile. Usually around end of the VAT quarter
I open all the post, sort it all out, enter it all into Quickbooks, lever arch file everything. Reconcile the banks (90% of sales come straight in, so don't need invoicing along the way). Pop out the VAT return, pay a few bills (lazily...). Any invoicing is sorted out as and when. Year end my (excellent, one man band) accountant takes the QB file, jiggles it about a bit, corrects my mistakes, produces accounts.

Personal finances are most ad-hoc, most spends are on Credit Card, paid of month end. Some cash spends. Don't worry too much about how it's spent, I have relatively simple spends, I don't have a family to worry about, just me.

Sole-trading income receipts are collected, filed according to job. At some point they will be electronicised, and bank accounts and credit cards analysed for deductable business spends. It's not too separated at the moment, my accountant will moan, so I'm slowly getting around to trying to keep it separate - but one of the advatanges (in my opinion) of Sole-Trading is all the money is your own at the end of the day, and it's all dealt with on the tax return.

So basically it's a mix of being organised, albeit in a delayed manner, and not being too detailed about it. It works at present. But I'm all too aware that I'll have to change my ways!

On the other hand, when I ran a couple of Ltd company, had staff (what a bother!), etc, I had an assistant who sorted everything out nicely, and to be honest, as I get busier I hope I can afford to have another assistant, all the stuff I delayed doing just happened.

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Hi Bobby

My accountant's pet hates is being given a 'shoe box' (as he always calls it) full of stuff, invariably just before a deadline! He's mentioned this pet hate so many times, it's sank in that I shouldn't present it to him like that! If it took me more than a few hours I'd get someone else to do it, so I'm not too concerned.

Bobby, do you make a note which property / job the expense relates to, before you chuck it in the pile/box? Or do you consider everything on a higher 'whole portfolio' type manner?


What I find fascinating about this forum is where people perceive their efforts should be. Some people concentrate very closely on the 'real business', and everything which isn't income-generating gets left outsourced (in some way). Other people do everything themselves and don't mind that, even if they could be making more / have more time / more efficient. It just goes to show, there's more than one way to crack a nut.

Brilliant!

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I usually remember which item/job was done at which property.
If there is any doubt or if it is small items, they get charged to my main HMO.

You're right - what works for one person may seem like madness to another. Each to their own I suppose...

Ha ha, great poll and post Gerry.

I have to admit to being boring and obsessive when it comes to keeping my receipts - both for business and personal expenditure - but I'd like to think I have a vested interest to do so. I file and note absolutely everything, even something for 20p , as I do all my own accounts and returns for my ltd companies and myself (PAYE: P35, P14, P11D, Corp. Tax, VAT, Self-Assessment etc). I don't like the admin to build up and I like to know I can call upon accurate figures when I get an enquiry from HMRC. I upload everything to Excel spreadsheets and work from that.

I know I should employ an accountant and book keeper, but it's something I've got used to doing unfortunately. Therefore it's hard to delegate or outsource these tasks. Clearly I haven't read the '4 Hour Working Week'.

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Hi Gerry,
We keep every receipt and they are entered in a ledger every day by my wife.
Our main business is none vat. Therefore any expense with vat on we claim back. Averages £1000 per quarter back off the vat man. This does tend to focus your habits as a lost receipt equals lost money.
Janet prefers ledgers to computers as she hates the damn things(except shopping)
It saves stress trying to remember purchases in the distant past.
It saves accountants fee's as each receipt is numbered and corresponds to an entry in a ledger.
But each to his own.