Save Time and Money
with the Simple Expense Tracking System

This is a simple outline of how the Tax Receipts Expense Tracking System works. We believe that with just a little advice and some simple rules, you can implement a robust system to both protect yourself from an audit and maximize your deductions.

The premise behind the Simple Expense System is to collect and archive business expense records as you make the purchases, instead of trying to figure out what you spent money on months later. By collecting and saving all the information you need at the time of purchase, you save time normally spent trying to reconstruct your expense records, you save money by ensuring that you take every possible business deduction and you give yourself peace of mind knowing that your business expense records are in order.

The best part of the system is that it won’t cost you a dime to get started. Each of the companies and services we recommend have a free trial where you can test out the service before you buy it, so there is little to no risk for you.

So, let’s get started!

Step 1: Sign up with Shoeboxed – Free 30 day trial + 100 Free Bonus Scans

Business receipts are easy to lose. Since you’ve checked out our deduction guide, you’ll know that a lost receipt is lost money.

To help you prevent losing your receipts, we recommend Shoeboxed. Shoeboxed allows you to email, snail mail, scan, and even use your mobile phone to easily keep track of your receipts – wherever you are.

The best part about Shoeboxed is that we’ve set up a sweet deal with them, where you get a 30 day Free Trial and 100 bonus scans to get you up to speed in a hurry.

So, if you are like most business owners who don’t have a system, now is a great time to get caught up.

Get your receipts in order and sign up for your Shoeboxed Free Trial.

(If you decide not to use Shoeboxed, we recommend that you manually scan and create a log of all of your receipts on your computer. We think this is a lot more work and isn’t really a great system unless you are dedicated to it. The tough part about scanning receipts locally is making sure you capture all of those expenses you incur while out and about. If you are thinking of doing it all manually, give the Shoeboxed free trial a try first. If you don’t like it, you can go back to scanning.)

Step 2: Sign up for Quickbooks Online – Free 30 Day Trial of QuickBooks Online

Now that you have an easy system for organizing our receipts, it is time to pick an accounting software. While different businesses have different needs, QuickBooks Online is one of the most robust tools on the market for tracking the financial health of your business.

This is the tool we use in the example, but we will be posting detailed guides for other accounting tools in the near future.

To get started with the system, sign up for a free trial of Quickbooks Online Essentials.

Note: Make sure to sign up with Quickbooks Online Essentials so that you can import your bank account information. We don’t recommend the basic plan as it doesn’t suit the needs of most users.

Step 3: Setup Shoeboxed: Email Addresses, Contacts, and Categories

Now that you’ve signed up for a free trial with Shoeboxed, it is time to go over how it works. Before moving onto the next area, make sure you have two contacts added to your address book. You should have one contact to which you email your attachments and one to which you email inline receipts.

Step 4: Setup Categories in Shoeboxed

Step 5: Send Receipts to Shoeboxed

Step 6: Process Receipts in Shoeboxed