Facing Your Financial Documents

Happy Spring! I love to attend conferences because I find that they are one of the best ways to stay on top of the ever growing techniques and methods in organizing. Meeting inspirational speakers, taking concurrent sessions/workshops taught by fellow organizers, and networking with people from around the country builds my own understanding and knowledge base, which in turn helps me best serve my customers in this rapidly changing environment.

Just last week, I returned from our annual National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) conference in Minneapolis. NAPO has close to 4000 members across the country and about 850 of us were in attendance. As you can see from the picture below, my good friend and fellow organizer, Elizabeth Hagen, was talked into taking a picture with me and our opening keynote speaker, Jack Canfield.

Both Jack and our closing keynote speaker, Mark LeBlanc (pictured below speaking), have been influential to me in my business so it was a pleasure to learn from and spend time with them. Perhaps they could help you this year in meeting your business and personal goals. Whether that is getting organized or growing your business, learn more about each of them by clicking their links above.

Getting back to business...let’s go down memory lane for a moment, shall we? It was a few weeks ago, around the 17^th of April. Do you remember that wonderful day? Many of my clients were jumping for joy because they finally had organized all of their tax paperwork and handed it off to their accountants or the IRS.

Before many of them filed their taxes, they had all sorts of financial documents strewn about their offices and homes. The documents were gathered, analyzed, dissected, reviewed and calculated. Finally every piece of paper was organized and ready to mail in or file away.

Isn't it great at that one time of year when we finally get it all together? What can we do to keep our papers that way year round? Here are some helpful tips to get you going.

• Did you know that we only use about 20% of what we keep? Unless you know you need it or your tax expert told you to keep it with your tax information, throw it away.
• Schedule days periodically (annually is a good rule of thumb) where you clean out all of your files. This helps keep your files and your desk clutter free.
• Archive your taxes. We all know we have to keep our tax records for a certain number of years. But since you’re not using it, get rid of the clutter. You can put all of your tax returns, business financial records, and banking information in an inexpensive filing box. Label your box and then tuck them away in the attic, storage room or basement.
• Consider using a numeric filing system such as The Paper Tiger to quickly access information or scanning software such as Speedy Scan to get rid of paper documents all together.

Here are some simple guidelines on how to make this job even easier:

• Discard credit and debit card receipts after they have cleared your bank.
• File receipts that you must keep under an appropriate heading such as tax, warranty or insurance.
• Use Quicken, QuickBooks or Microsoft Money to help you keep track of your expenses and for better documentation.
• Make sure you shred all documents you no longer need. Shredding protects you from identity theft.
• Hire someone to help you file. We’re all busy, so grab your teen or ask an office assistant to lend a hand.

Once you’ve set up a regular system to deal with your financial documents, you too will be spending less time in your office, enjoying more of the fine weather each spring, and maybe even jumping for joy.

Good luck! Have a wonderful month.

Nicole