Reply to: Does anyone keep Receipts nowadays?

[youngguy]

You only need to keep for 6 years don't you?

I've only just stepped away from my quadruple coding system.....give me a chance :0)

Jokes aside, they are just sat in a folder on the office shelf and when the shelf has no more space I will have a spring clean. It's less effort at the moment to do nothing.

[Fred Bloggs]

What I meant was I use freeagent on my phone to capture an image of the receipt and attach it to the relevant transaction in the accounts

Thanks for that. I understand perfectly now.

[SueEllen]

You only need to keep for 6 years don't you?

Yes unless you were doing something dodgy...

[northernladuk]

You only need to keep for 6 years don't you?

[youngguy]

Why, what's the point - have you ever had to refer back to any of your receipts ? I log my expenses in a spreadsheet and collate the physicals per month, and file with my financial year accounts. Don't see any benefit in scanning these and have never had to refer back to them.

9 years ago when I started I would scan all receipts every month, add them to a spreadsheet, categorise them, print off said sheet and print e version of receipts put in a Polly pocket along with the original receipts...I then stored the electronic versions on two computers and an external hard drive. now I use freeagent (identifies vast majority of expenses automatically ) and dump the receipts in a pocket. Much easier and quicker and my 9 yr old receipts are still very readable if HMRC come knocking

[SueEllen]

It feels weird asking for a receipt for just a Coffee
Anyway all the info is recorded (Time, Date, Location, cost) the only thing missing is their VAT number. But surely HMRC would be able to trace that info if it came to it?

I do it automatically.

[Fred Bloggs]

It feels weird asking for a receipt for just a Coffee
Anyway all the info is recorded (Time, Date, Location, cost) the only thing missing is their VAT number. But surely HMRC would be able to trace that info if it came to it?

That's right, but if you are on the FRS then the VAt number isn't needed by you.

[CloudWalker]

All journeys on tube/london network are traceable as long as you register online. You can see details of your journeys which can be used as receipts.

As for lunch, etc - surely you can ask for receipt and scan it.

It feels weird asking for a receipt for just a Coffee
Anyway all the info is recorded (Time, Date, Location, cost) the only thing missing is their VAT number. But surely HMRC would be able to trace that info if it came to it?

[Fred Bloggs]

No, if you have a lot then an add on such as Receipt Bank will scan it for for.

Thanks. I only have a few receipts and a lot of them come to me as pdf's anyway so the scanning is manageable for the few I have.

[missinggreenfields]

Why, what's the point - have you ever had to refer back to any of your receipts ? I log my expenses in a spreadsheet and collate the physicals per month, and file with my financial year accounts. Don't see any benefit in scanning these and have never had to refer back to them.

I've not needed to go back to the PDFs because the question from the accountant tends to come when they are preparing the accounts, and I still have the physical receipt in the file.

If HMRC come knocking I would expect that they might need to see copies of the receipts, and that's much easier to keep as a PDF than as a set of files on the shelf.

[Andrew@Wisteria]

Sorry if I'm a bit dim, does FreeAgent fire up the scanner and upload the receipt automatically then? Or is it a manual scan and upload?

No, if you have a lot then an add on such as Receipt Bank will scan it for for.

[kaiser78]

Paper receipt goes in a polly pocket for the month with an expenses sheet at the front of it so I can easily find it if there is any need to.

At the end of the year (or earlier if I'm bored) they go through the scanner (Fujitsu Scansnap S1300i) and saved to PDF for each month.

Once the accounts have been prepared, all paper copies go through the shredder (Fellowes Automax 130C) and the now empty folder is then used for the following year's accounts.

PDFs are backed up in case of any investigation.

Why, what's the point - have you ever had to refer back to any of your receipts ? I log my expenses in a spreadsheet and collate the physicals per month, and file with my financial year accounts. Don't see any benefit in scanning these and have never had to refer back to them.

[SouthernManc78]

Sorry if I'm a bit dim, does FreeAgent fire up the scanner and upload the receipt automatically then? Or is it a manual scan and upload?

What I meant was I use freeagent on my phone to capture an image of the receipt and attach it to the relevant transaction in the accounts

[Maslins]

Loosely related to this thread, had an interesting talk from FreeAgent a few months back about the future of bookkeeping/data verification. Where more and more people are using card to pay for even small purchases (especially since contactless), next step will likely be that your card, and hence bank, will know not only how much you spent and where, but what you were buying. Ok may sound a bit big brother...but it should make your bookkeeping easy.

Won't be that long until there'll be default codes attached to each item, and the supplier will be the one choosing what an item is, so when you buy it your bookkeeping automatically logs it to accountancy fees/computer hardware purchase etc etc. Assuming you don't manually muck about with these too much, then your data could to some extent be green flagged with HMRC.

Might be a little way off, but eventually could completely remove the need for receipts, as all data relating to that purchase will be somehow held in the background of that card payment.

[Fred Bloggs]

Paper receipt goes in a polly pocket for the month with an expenses sheet at the front of it so I can easily find it if there is any need to.

At the end of the year (or earlier if I'm bored) they go through the scanner (Fujitsu Scansnap S1300i) and saved to PDF for each month.

Once the accounts have been prepared, all paper copies go through the shredder (Fellowes Automax 130C) and the now empty folder is then used for the following year's accounts.

PDFs are backed up in case of any investigation.

Sounds like a good system. I save my pdf's to Google Drive though.