3 years old expenses receipts.

[pscont]

How I take a picture of my expenses receipts on my phone. This is a recent practice and I have 3 years old receipts which are completely faded out, just white pieces of paper. And many, many of those. While I must keep all company documents for number of years, these are meaningless as they are.
What do you do in such case?
In case of inspection I can show the expenses in my accounts but not the receipts, but this is hardly my fault.

[northernladuk]

Some people take pictures as part of their normal routine but you don't need to do it just because of faded receipts.

You can imagine everyone has this problem, not just you and HMIT will be well aware of it. From what I'm told when they investigate they tend to check you've been doing your diligence and it will start off fairly high level. They most certainly won't be going through it receipt by receipt unless they are actually believe you've done something wrong and out to prove it. Normally a stack load of receipts will be enough to prove you've not ripping anyone off and they'll move on. I've got 4 or so folders full of them. I intend to drop them on his desk and if he wants to try and make sense of every faded receipt then they can fill their boots.

If all your other affairs are in generally good order and you've not been taking the piss they won't care about some faded receipts. File 'em and forget 'em, particularly that old.

P.S. Might want to be a bit more careful which section you post in.

[Paddy]

Buy one

[WTFH]

Your accountant should be keeping them all for you.

[SandyD]

If you paid using your company card, there should be a statement record of the payee, the amount, and date etc...

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Bank statement as a last resort. It's a proof that you spent something and I think HMIT would be lenient if it reasonably looks like a business expense.

The real answer is take photos at the time of purchase, file digital copies and destroy originals as you no longer need them. There are very few things that need to be kept in their original format (off the top of my head dividend vouchers are one).

[Whorty]

If you paid using your company card, there should be a statement record of the payee, the amount, and date etc...

This ..... always use a CC for expenses so even if I lose a receipt I can prove I made the payment. I only use the CC for expenses anyway so it's a 1-2-1 match (except mileage!). If for some reason I can't use a CC, then the spend is likely small anyway so I just write it off.

[pscont]

This ..... always use a CC for expenses so even if I lose a receipt I can prove I made the payment. I only use the CC for expenses anyway so it's a 1-2-1 match (except mileage!). If for some reason I can't use a CC, then the spend is likely small anyway so I just write it off.

I never use CC for expenses (or 99% ot the time), for security reasons. A cloned CC is a real nuisance when there are £XXX XXX in it.
I am not overly worried, just interested in what others do.

[SandyD]

In fact I always think how will you proof that expenses have actually gone out to whoever is on the receipt? I remember when I was a consultant claiming expenses taxi drivers used to give us a bunch of receipts to use willy nilly (obviously I never did) but how can the HMRC make sure the payments gone to the right person and not refunded afterwards unless they see the statement?

I personally rely on bank statements either payment by CC or via direct bank transfer

[DeludedKitten]

I never use CC for expenses (or 99% ot the time), for security reasons. A cloned CC is a real nuisance when there are £XXX XXX in it.
I am not overly worried, just interested in what others do.

A cloned credit card is a lot easier to deal with than a cloned debit card, or a lost wallet with cash in it.

If my credit card has dodgy transactions on it, it's not my money. I ring the company and flag the dodgy transactions and they remove them. If necessary they give me a new card with a new number and block the old one. But it's not my money that someone is stealing so I don't care.

If my debit card has dodgy transactions on it, it's my money that's gone missing from my bank account. It's me that has to try to fight to show that they are dodgy. It's me that has to pay up while I fight the battle to get my money back. It takes me time and effort to do that.

The idea that having someone clone your credit card and rack up lots of dodgy transactions is a pain is laughable. Watch some of Frank Abagnale's videos on YouTube about it.