Need Clutter Prevention Help: Organizing Bank Stuff

In My Humble Opinion
1

Because we now have multiple accounts at two banks (personal checking, business checking, savings, and an account required for a credit card with very low interest) and stuff to keep track of for a small business I need to get this stuff organized. That includes cards we don’t carry everywhere, password information, check books (which we also don’t carry all the time), passbooks, and so on.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

It’s needs to be cheap, compact, easy to use. Currently, the checkbooks are in a small tin box but it’s not really big enough for everything. I’m leaning towards a portable file box I recently cleaned out in a file purge for keeping the stuff for the small business paperwork and receipts. What do other people use?

2

How about a file cabinet and a copy of Quicken?

3

Quicken. A file folder for each account to hold its statements after reconciliation. Another file folder for each to hold all the crap they give you when you open the account. The cardboard boxes the checkbook refills come in, to contain them. A basket someplace near the front door to drop bills into each time you get the mail. Finally, a small drawer in a desk someplace, to drop receipts after you enter them, rather than throwing them out right away. When the drawer gets full, throw out an inch or so from the bottom of the stack, so you can retrieve receipts you think you will never need, for at lest a few weeks, without the trouble of sorting or filing them when you don’t need them (which is most of the time).

4

People still get bills in the mail?

No, really - we’ve gone entirely to on-line bill paying. No more paper bills, yay!

No, we have to keep almost all our receipts because so many of them are for the business and we need them for tax purposes. And no, I can’t just toss them at the end of the year, either. Fortunately, I’ve got it organized with end of the year tax-prep so past year’s info is stored with the tax forms for that year but sorry, can’t toss all the receipts. Might need them for an audit (of course, eventually you can toss them, but that’s a bit down the line).

I mean, I see what ya’ll are saying, I’m just looking for something more… compact. That leads to file folders here check boxes there and a desk drawer of receipts… meaning it’s all over the house. I was wondering if someone had come up with some clever all-in-one organizer for that sort of thing, but I guess not.

5

All statements are available online–no need for paper or filing anymore. The majority of filed paper never gets looked at again…

6

Can you scan the receipts to computer files? Less clutter, easy backups (including remote backup). You could keep the paper receipts for the year, and then toss them since you have an on-line backup. Yes, you’d have to get a scanner (nowadays a scanner/fax/printer/MP3 player/floor waxer/dessert topper), but the lack of clutter may be worth it to you. If you scan with optical character recognition you may be able to search the receipts also.

7

I’m in a similar position, and I think that there isn’t a magic solution that fits everyone’s needs. I’m also desperately trying to get organized, so these are things I’m attempting and not perfect at.

We have the same issue for mixing work and personal expenses. I carry two folders in my bag, one for each type of receipts so that at the time of the purchase I separate them. At home, we have two in baskets as well, so once the personal ones are entered, they can get chucked. It cuts down on space.

Also, can you take all of the previous years and shut them up into a box in deep storage so that the aren’t taking up space in your living area? If you want, when you have some time, you can separate them out into years so you know when you can start to chuck things.

8

This seems like a job for an accordion file. It’s really what they were designed for.

9

I have something from Ikea I got lots of years ago. I don’t see anything like it on the Ikea site today, but it’s got a hanging file drawer on the bottom with two drawers above, it’s a perfect height for a nightstand or end table. I found that making my storage into a piece of furniture that can have drinks, a lamp, my remote, a book on top, is much more likely to get used - as opposed to a file box that needs to be stashed somewhere. Those are for last year’s stuff that can go in the back of the closet.

Here’s something sort of similar from Target. If you can replace an end table or night stand with something like this, it might be more functional for someone prone to clutter (me too!). There’s also this, which seems neat,but would need its own spot and would take up more floor space which you may or may not have.

10

I second **Typo’s **suggestion of scanning the receipts…you may not even need an external scanner. If you have a smartphone, there are apps that convert pics to searchable PDFs or JPGs. I have used Genius Scan successfully, and it was free.
Hell, just take pictures of the month’s receipts and stick them in computer folders labeled “May2012, June2012” etc. if you want. Not really searchable but quick and clutter-free.

11

I have a small lockable firebox that I put credit cards I am not carrying and other documents such as vehicle titles, passport, bank account info, and spare checks into. I know it isn’t much for theft protection, but it keeps all that stuff in one place and it keeps prying eyes (babysitter, nieces and nephews, etc.) out of it.

For receipts I went to the office supply store and found small document boxes that are about 1/4 the size of a regular bankers box. I put one under the desk with the current year written on it. Throw all my receipts in and at the end of the year I start a new box and retire the old one to the shelf in the basement with the others.

A workable solution for me, but may not be ideal for all.

12

Our system is pretty complicated but works for us.

We have a firebox for passports, birth certificates, credit cards not in present use and such. Keeps all the important stuff in one place.

For bills, bank information (including statements) and mortgage/legal stuff we have a filing cabinet that is the same height as the computer desk and everything is organized into folders.

For receipts, we throw them into the in tray on the desk and go through it once a month. We sort it into things that need to be kept for warranty purposes (which are scanned into the computer and filed there), things that we may need to return (which we keep loose in a file for a couple of months) and tax receipts (which go in the tax receipt folder). These folders are also sorted through during our monthly cleaning.

If it is a receipt that either of us needs to expense for work, we keep it in our wallets until we are at work and put them in our top desk drawers there until they are to be submitted.

13

Here’s what I use and works a charm.

Y’know those plastic page sleeves, made to go into a three ring binder? You can buy a whole box at Staples for like 15$.

They are the bomb, baby. Put them into a binder, upside down - so the opening is at the top!

Now you can slide in each bill as it arrives (in front of last months), always see last months bill/payment/date, whatever, at a glance, and it’s a breeze to flip through to find what you want.

If, any of your bills are so big that the sleeve fills up, after a few months (cell phone), just add in another sleeve. Come the end of the year, everything is in one place, sorted by company, and in order from Jan - Dec. Could it get easier?

Works a charm for me, give it a try!

14

Currently, I’m scanning in bills, receipts and other important docs to computer and saving them in a notebook file. Besides the scanner, you’ll need to get an application that can import JPEG or PDF files and organize them into sections and/or by date.

15

I’m pretty sure that’s right-side-up. The other (normal) use for those sleeves is to hold papers in binders. You don’t want them slipping out any more than you want your several pages of receipts falling out :slight_smile:

Great idea, tho!

16

Quicken for all the records. Quicken even has a password vault (for stuff you can download, anyway), and you can always save other passwords in the comments area of the account information. Or mint.com, though I’ve tried that and it’s not nearly full-featured enough and it’s a pain to use.

Receipts: if you use binders, then as some have suggested, the binder sleeves (or they even, I think, make plastic envelopes that can close more securely but can be attached to a binder). Periodically, photograph / scan them and trash the originals (use your judgment as to what things you must continue to keep the hard-copies for).

Statements: Scan and store as soft copies (you may even be able to download PDFs).

If you go the file box route, which is an excellent idea: have big manila envelopes or plastic accordion folders as appropriate, one for each account that gets paperwork / requires receipts / has a checkbook. Keep all the folders/envelopes in the big box.

For us: Quicken is a life-saver. I don’t know how anyone with anything more than the very simplest of finances manages without this or something similar.

Any receipt with tax impllcations gets stuffed into a smallish (5x7) manila envelope throughout the year. In January, those get moved to a new full-sized envelope (and year-end tax statements that arrive in Jan/Feb get added to that), while the old manila envelope gets used for the next year.

The “shove it in the envelope” approach works for us: it’s simple, we reconcile it at the end of the year with what we’ve entered into Quicken. For business purposes, that could be your backup for stuff you forgot to enter into the software.

At some point I’m going to scan / shred most of our old paperwork, so it’s more easily accessible. Soon as I have time, that is :P.

17

I don’t get the love for Quicken - I’ve used it, and frankly, it seems a complete bother to me. I don’t need the reports, I don’t need it to print anything for me, I don’t see the sense in spending the bucks on it when I can whip up something more than adequate with the software I already have. I also have serious issues with a company that forces you to update to new software periodically, and makes your old files essentially inaccessible without you shelling out more money towards them on a regular basis. I already have on-line bill paying, tracking for investments (such few as I have), and so on. Really, it doesn’t do anything I’m not already doing.

Really, what I need is a way to organize the physical stuff - the electronic/on-line stuff is already under control.

other than that - good ideas.

18

In fairness, you don’t have to upgrade Quicken unless you want to continue downloading transactions, and older files do NOT become inaccessible. I don’t use the reporting capability much (though it IS helpful at tax time for example); I don’t use their billpay services either. Where it is essential - to me - is having all our financial info in one place.

But yeah, it’s definitely not for everyone.

I really like using the envelope solution. For financial statements we’ve typically made one envelope per bank / brokerage / whatever (e.g. for Fidelity we have one envelope for my IRA, one for my husband’s etc.) and just shove the new statements in the back of the envelope.

A big advantage of your “one big file box” solution is that if you’re good about keeping everything in there except when actually using it: if you ever need to “bug out”, you can just grab that one box and toss it in the car.

19

I realize you’re in the US and things work differently there (much more paper), but I do all my banking online. I only get bills on paper once (tops) from any supplier: if they let me set up e-billing from the start I use it, if they don’t I set it up ASAP.

My clients require me to send proof that I’m current with Social Security every month: I go to my “business account”'s webpage, it opens directly on “last movements”, I click on the last SS invoice, it gives me a PDF that I send. TADAAAAAAAAAAA!

For taxes, my setup does not require me to have “official accounting books”: I can just track “money in/money out”, amounts, dates and concepts. Anything I can link to my business is paid electronically so it will appear in those same “last movements” listings. When tax time comes (every quarter and once a year), I download those to Excel, curse the formatting a few times (I use two banks and their formats are different), finally manage to get things in the format I want, use a column to group items by concept and a couple of formulas to add the values for each group. The “IRS” people are perfectly happy with that approach (I once ran into a technophobe who wasn’t, but one of her coworkers pointed her in the right direction).

20

Our bank has statements online, but I haven’t quit having the paper ones sent because when I go online there are often months missing. When I asked about this they said they couldn’t guarantee they would all be there as long as I hadn’t signed up to eliminate the paper bills.

Because that just sounded odd to me I’m keeping the paper statements.