How to Organize Your Receipts

Have you ever purchased and item and a few weeks later need to return it but wasn’t able to find the receipt?

I know I have and while many stores now no longer require a receipt for returns or exchanges some still do.

Since the day I married my husband my primary role in our finances has been organization. Organization is my strong suit and figuring out how to make things run efficiently in my home makes me all giggly inside.

So today, I’ll tell you how I organize my receipts.

How to Organize Your Receipts

Here is My Process:

1. Each time I get a receipt I do a quick sort that makes sorting them later much easier. As I accumulate receipts they either go in my pocketbook or my wallet. Receipts that I don’t plan to keep long term go in my pocket book and the other go in my wallet.

2. A few times a week (usually after shopping), I empty the receipts from my purse and wallet onto my desk. If I haven’t already written the purchase in my checkbook I use the receipts to record all purchases.

3. After I have recorded each purchase in my checkbook and verify it via my online bank statement, I trash the receipts we don’t keep such as a grocery store or gas receipts and I create a pile with the ones that will be filled.

4. I then file them into an envelope (each envelope is categorized by month).  I sort them like this so I can easily find a receipt if needed.

It’s usually easy to find a receipt when we can narrow down the month or season in which we may a particular purchase. For example, school electronic supplies would be in August whereas toys would be in December or around birthdays.

5. All of our receipt categories are filed this way except for business, auto and home improvement receipts.

These are ones we find we have to refer back to more often than others. For example when trying to remember the last time something on the car was maintenanced or repaired. Also with plants you have two years to return them so I keep them in my Home Improvement file.

6. I keep all other store receipts for 6 months just in case I need to return something.

7. At the end of the financial year, I then place all the receipts that we need to keep for tax purposes in a large folder with our filed tax forms.  We keep these receipts for 7 years.