Not Made Of Money

Since most of our purchases involve either cash or a debit card, it is of upmost importance that we save our receipts for financial tracking. We treat our finances like a business – expenses must be accounted for and tracked. We use Quicken to manage our finances and the sales receipts are a focal point of this financial management system. We’ve developed a fairly easy system for storing, recording, saving, and discarding all our receipts. Here is a step-by-step process of how we handle sales receipts in our household:

1. The receipt is saved when it is generated. For example, when I purchase something then I immediately take the receipt and place it into my wallet. When I return home, the receipt is removed from my wallet and placed into the “to be posted” slot in our filing system.

2. Sales receipt information is entered into Quicken. During the weekly posting to Quicken, the receipt is removed and the information from the receipt is entered into Quicken including date, place, amount, and appropriate category of expense. Whomever does the posting to Quicken initials the receipt, and the receipt is then stored in another file labeled “receipts posted”. The receipt will stay in this file until we see that it has cleared the bank (if a debit).

3. Receipts are checked against monthly bank statement. We reconcile our bank account when the monthly statements come in. All receipts that have cleared the bank are then removed from the “receipts posted” file. We review these receipts to see if we need to keep any for a longer period of time (i.e. if we think we might return an item, to substantiate a warranty, or for tax purposes). Otherwise, these cleared receipts are shredded in our cross cut shredder. Any receipts that have not cleared the bank stay in this file for now.

4. Receipts that are kept from item #3 are then filed in the appropriate files. These include receipts where we might return an item. Many stores now have a policy in place that they will not refund or even exchange merchandise without a valid sales receipt. Since most returns are handled within a week of purchase in our household, these receipts usually have not even cleared the bank when they are done. However, we have a file for those receipts that need to be kept until the return period has expired. We also have a folder where receipts related to warranties are kept. These receipts are stapled to the owner’s manual or operating instructions for the item that was purchased and stored in a file that we’ve titled “owner’s manuals and warranties”. Tax related expenditures are stored in the current year’s tax file.

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