posted
When it pertains to filing records of bank statements or other financial records, how do you arrange things?
I usually adapt to whomever I'm sorting records for. I do have some experience in this, but I thought perhaps the following question would interest some of Hatrack's more organized, intelligent denizens.
For example, here's an overview of my system: Primary Category: Expenses, Income, Bank Records, etc. Secondary Category: Car, Food, Entertainment, Bank of America, etc. Tertiary Category: 2003, 2004, etc. (for some folders, others get chucked at the end of the year. )
Inside that secondary category folder, I've got each record, arranged by date. Now here's the kicker question: earliest to latest, front to back? Or back to front? Meaning, is it best to keep the most recent in front? What system do you use for this?
In other news, coming up with a title for this thread was a challenge. System of a Down, System of a File...haha...The jokes I come up with while sorting paper. Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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The divisions allow us to make end of year tax filing a lot easier, since charity, education (childcare), medical expenses, and rental house expenses are all tax deductible. I seperate out Office Expenses to make it easier to file my expense reports. At the end of the year, I make a single new year hanging file (ex. "2006), which gets all the new paperwork for the year. After taxes are filed, all the previous year hanging files go into a storage box that is labelled with that year and it gets put in our basement. Then I make all the new year hanging files and spend an afternoon filing all the stuff in my new year file.
We also keep permanent files for our kids (labeled with their names) with their report cards, any legal papers for them, and immunization records. We do the same for our cars, where all maintenance receipts go. And I have a permanent file for household appliances, one for manuals and one for warantees.
This seems to work for us...I can actually find things when I need them and it's not too difficult to keep up on the filing, which I hate to do.
addited: and for where in the file stuff goes, the new stuff goes in front. Usually.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
I let all the stuff pile up on my desk until about this time each year, then I frantically sort it all, make a spreadsheet, and mail the pertinent stuff to my accountant. Then I shove everything into a folder with the year on it and start fresh for next year.
This system seems to work for me and I'll probably continue to use it until/unless I get audited. (knock on wood).
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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