How To Keep Your Finances Organized
You look in the mail and see a letter from the IRS - they have an issue with your last filing and need you to prove your expenses and income. Can you find those documents easily?
Getting your finances into shape starts with getting organized. With online banking and online credit card management people no longer balance checkbooks and save receipts, which can make resolving an issue difficult and stressful. You don’t have to print out receipts and documents (go green!) but getting everything together is essential.
Physical File Keeping
If you are old-school and feel more comfortable with hard copies start a physical file collection. Just head on down to your office supply store and grab an organizer, files and tabs.
Start with your income tax filings and organize them by year with all of their associated documents that you already have on hand. You may not have copies of all of your W-2s but it is worth it to at least print out the tax filings themselves. For more recent returns (maybe the last 2 years) try and gather all the documents you can because there could still be an issue. Mark everything by year and file accordingly.
Next up is your credit card and banking info. File any statements and credit reports you may already have on hand by year. Save any loan documents, credit card applications etc. so you can easily refer back to them if you need to.
Last is purchases and receipts. If you write things off on your taxes save receipts for those by year. Include any larger purchases and their associated warrantees so they are easily on hand if something breaks or needs to be returned. Filing by year is a simple way to keep things organized without making it time-consumingly tedious.
Digital File Keeping
If you would rather keep a digital record of your financial transactions and documents you will want to organize them the same way as a physical collection.
First create folders for each year and download your tax returns from whatever software you used to file. Try and track down your W-2s for the last couple of years to add to the filings as well as other documents. This should be relatively simple since just about everything is online. Check you email for some of these documents as many are sent directly to you in January.
Next track down credit card and banking info and to the corresponding year folder. If you have a lot of documents create a sub folder for easy organization. Focus on credit card terms and conditions, applications and other loan information.
Finally add in digital receipts, warrantees and other contracts you’ve signed. File those by year or topic depending on your preference and how many documents you may have.
Make sure you save any digital records in two places to ensure that they don’t disappear if you computer breaks. Use an external hard-drive or flash drive and keep it in a safe place in your home like you would the physical records.
Fixing your credit can be as simple as making a call! We're here to help you rebuild and understand your credit. Give us a call to get started or learn more about what we can do for you 1-800-431-0449.