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One of the best ways to protect yourself in the event of an audit is to save receipts & bills that show proof of what you’re spending money on. I know nobody PLANS on ever being audited, and honestly, the chances of getting audited are probably pretty slim. But, are you willing to risk it and end up having to pay a ton of extra in taxes because you DIDN’T do this?

I know I’m not. That’s why I am a huge advocate of having a simple process in place to help you save AND organize all those invoices, receipts, bills, reports, statements…EVERYTHING that helps back up and support the financial records for your business. Today, I am going to go over 3 ways that you can do this in your own business.

A Good Way to Save Receipts 

If you’re looking for the simplest (although, maybe a bit old-school) method, you can keep a filing cabinet for all your paper. I recommend having a drawer for each year, and then having separate folders for each of the following: (1) Individual folders for each vendor to keep all the bills, invoices & receipts, (2) a folder for all bank statements, (3) a folder for all statements for each credit card account, and (4) have a folder for all monthly sales reports.

If you go the more old-school route, I do want to encourage you to at least take a photocopy of any thermal ink printed receipts. As I’m sure you’re all aware, that ink doesn’t last forever, and it’ll fade so you’re unable to read it. That’s why I recommend you save the photocopied version of any physical receipts you may have.

A Better Way to Save Receipts

In my opinion, a better version to save receipts is by saving digital versions of all documentation inside of Google Drive. You can use the same concept as a physical file folder, and have a folder for each year, subfolders for each category (vendors, statements, reports), and then subfolders inside each of those for the individual vendors, banks and providers you work with.

I also recommend using a consistent type of naming convention when doing this. For example, for all receipts, name them with the date of the receipt, the vendor name, and then what was purchased – “2024.08.20 Costco – Storage totes & shelving for warehouse”. By naming your documents, you can know what each one is without having to open it up. Plus, Google Drive is searchable, so if you ever need to search for a specific receipt, statement, or report, you can easily find them. 

The Best Way to Save Receipts

I love taking advantage of technology to make any business tasks easier and more efficient. Because of this, I love using a software called HubDoc to help me save & organize all my business receipts. It’s a relatively cheap software (currently $12/month), and well worth it, in my opinion. 

I can upload receipts by either snapping a picture from my phone, forwarding them from my email, or simply uploading the to the dashboard. From there, I can categorize them and actually “push” them into my Quickbooks Online account so it will create the expense there for me automatically. 

Quickbooks Online also has a receipt management tool built into it for free, and that can also be a great option, but I still prefer to use an outside software for this. In my opinion, the QBO version isn’t QUITE as user friendly or efficient. Plus, I love that my receipts are stored outside of QBO just in case anything ever happens to my data inside QBO.

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Now that you’ve heard my good, better, best approach, I have something else to share – you don’t necessarily have to pick just 1! I actually use a combination of HubDoc (for all receipts) and Google Drive (for all statements & reports), so you can find a combination that works for you! I would just recommend that you be consistent so that you KNOW where to look for something at any given time, instead of searching in all 3 places for a specific receipt.

If you have any questions on how to implement a system like this in your business, feel free to shoot me an email at megan@findingfreedomfinancial.com, and I’d be happy to help!