photo credit: moppet65535

The past few months have been a challenge for me to say the least. I’ve spent some time away from this website to focus on some other endeavors and am very happy with the direction my life is taking. I really enjoy organizing and love to help people get their stuff in order and I want you to know how much I appreciate your support and will make a solid effort to keep giving you useful tips.

How is your year going so far? Are you staying caught up on your business and personal paperwork? Have you been filing weekly and keeping up on your bookkeeping? If you haven’t had the time or inclination to do paperwork, what are you waiting for?

It’s only April 1 and if you set aside some time each week you can get caught up and stay up to date with that dreaded paperwork. One easy time saver when keeping records (you know, the ones the IRS might want to see) is to purchase an accounting program. I use Quickbooks for my personal bookkeeping as well as my business bookkeeping. The nice thing about Quickbooks and many similar programs is that you only have to buy them once then you can set up as many personal and business accounts as you need.

I would like to give you a push or maybe a shove to get the first quarter of the year’s paperwork in order. This may take you an hour or a day but you don’t have time to wait. Tax time is right around the corner and next year is coming at you faster than you can imagine. Take an hour this week and see how far you can get with balancing your checkbook, categorizing your first quarter expenditures and filing. Three months is more than enough time to have accumulated a pile of paperwork and if it isn’t filed, next years taxes may be taxing.

Your Daily 15 Minutes – Get a box or a bag and put all of your 2009 receipts in it that haven’t been logged or filed. Then take 15 minutes each day and either enter them in you accounting software or your checkbook and file them. The accounting software or even a spreadsheet will help you with categorizing your expenses so you know how much you spent on food, utilities, entertainment, etc. and gives you a solid starting point for next years taxes. If you are at a loss as to where to begin, contact me and I would be happy to help.

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photo credit: bionicteaching

Let’s face it, there is certain paperwork that you must keep like insurance policies, tax returns, leases, mortgage documents, etc.  These items can pile up fast and keeping them organized is very important. If your paperwork is stashed in drawers, boxes or in stacks, finding these items can be difficult.  Check with your accountant and attorney to see what items you should keep in your permanent files.

Imagine if something were to happen, would you or your loved ones be able to find your insurance policy or mortgage paperwork? What if you are in a car accident and need to find out what your health or vehicle coverages are, could you find your policy?   Don’t delay, you need to get these items filed.

Your Daily 15 – Start this year off right by getting your permanent files in order. Get some file folders and labels and make a separate folder for each type of item. I like to make my permanent files a different color or have different colored labels than my monthly or yearly files just so they don’t inadvertently get misfiled. Make one folder for each tax return year, one for health insurance policies, one for vehicle insurance policies, one for lawyer agreements, etc.

Gather all of your documents and get started filing. Usually you will only get one copy of these documents so if you can’t locate a copy of your life insurance policy, don’t waste a lot of time looking for it, call and get a copy. This will more difficult with things like tax returns and mortgage documents so you will really need to try to find the originals.

While you’re at it, let a loved one know where you keep these documents in case something should happen to you.

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photo credit: buba69

Well 2009 is here and after I got home from running errands today I realized I hadn’t made my new year files.  I usually do this weeks in advance of the new year but somehow it just got away from me.

There are many different ways to set up your files and I actually use two different methods; one for personal and one for business.  My yearly personal filing system is really easy.  I use just thirteen file folders with a label each month and one for bank statements.  I scan most of my paperwork in digital form but I always keep my original bank statements, ATM and credit card receipts until the statements come in, receipts needed for warranties, receipts for charitable tax deductions, copies of rebates I have applied for, and anything else I think I may need the original of.

Here is the process I use is for my nearly paperless office:

1. Once per week I take all of the receipts and paperwork that I have accumulated and scan them and name them according to the naming conventions I talked about in a previos blog post.
2. I open my accounting software and enter the transactions.
3. I shred all of the cash and check receipts unless I need them for a possible return or for warranty reasons.
4. I put all of the receipts for credit card and debit card purchases in the appropriate monthly folder to hold until the credit card statements and bank statements arrive.
5. When the statements come in, I scan them then match all of the receipts to them.  If there are no discrepancies, I shred all of the credit card receipts keeping only ones that I need for tax deductions, warranties, etc.
6. Once I pay the credit card statements I shred them too.
7. I keep the bank statements in the folder I set up just for these statements.

This whole process takes approximately 30 minutes a week for my personal filing and everything is easily accessible since I scanned it.

Your Daily 15 – Today go and get a box of file folders and file labels if you want them.  Write, type or label the folders with the name of the month and one for Bank Statements.

Making folders will get you on track to organize your paperwork.  Even if you aren’t scanning your receipts, you can put all of the months receipts in the appropriate folder and have everything in files, not piles.

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I have put together the first book in my series My Neat Life. The book is called My Pet’s Neat Life and contains 10 pages with fill-in-the-blank forms to keep track of everything about your pets. Keep a complete record in one place of all of your dog or cat’s vaccinations, weights, veterinary visits, contact phone numbers and more.

Just print out the book either one or two sided and put the pages in a slim binder with a pocket folder or envelope to store your pets medical and vaccination receipts.

My Pet’s Neat Life is $9.95

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photo credit: wlodi

I hope as we ring in the new year that you take time to reflect on last year, dream about the years ahead and be thankful for everything you have. I am very thankful for all of you for making my dream come true with my Neatology site. I hope I can continue to offer tips that you can use to create a more organized home and life.

Being disorganized is not the end of the world but wouldn’t being organized give you a little better outlook on life? I hope you will visit my blog often to read my tips and share your tips and tricks for making your life neat.

Thank you all and have a very Happy New Year!

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I know it has been a while since I posted but life kind of got in the way.  Everyone has ups and downs so I won’t bore you with my challenges the past 30 days.  Everything is going better now so it’s time to help you be more organized.

One thing that happened a couple of weeks ago is that my husband borrowed my car and was in an accident with a deer.  My husband didn’t get hurt and the deer ran off.  My car on the other hand wasn’t so lucky.  It’s amazing how much money it costs to fix what looked like moderate damage.  Our estimate came in over $6,000 just to fix the bumper, hood, fender and a little metal underneath.

The insurance company wanted to settle with me for an amount far less than I expected the value of the car to be.  I asked them why they valued my car so low.  They told me that the mileage on it was too high.   I told the adjuster that the engine in my car wasn’t the original one.  We had to replace the engine last year because it wasn’t repairable.  Well, the adjuster wanted proof of the new engine.  I was able to go to my computer and pull up a scanned copy of the receipts for the engine and for the engine installation that showed there was only 43,500 miles on the engine when it was installed.  I have only driven 20,000 miles on the newer engine so my engine really has only 63,500 miles on it.

After reviewing my case the adjuster added $1,000 to the settlement.  Ka-ching!  I am so grateful that I kept the copies of the receipts and was able to find them because I am organized and all of my documents are scanned.  The lesson I learned from this is to keep all my receipts and keep them organized because you never know when they will pay off.

This weekend I will be shopping for a replacement car. Wish me luck!

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Car Seat Organizer

Yesterday I wrote about cleaning out the garage and making room for the car. Today I’d like to touch on organizing your car. Do-it-yourself website Instructables has an easy, detailed tutorial to make your own Nifty Car Organizer.  The organizer is designed to hang on the back of the seat and is made to hold all of the many items your family brings along in the car. It even has loops on it so you can take it indoors and hang it on the wall in the kids room. All you need is a little fabric, some velcro, seam binding and a sewing machine to get started creating your own auto organizer or if you aren’t handy with a needle and thread, there is a link to buy these premade on Etsy.

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I read a statistic today that says the average worker loses one hour of productivity each workday.  That is a horrible statistic.  That means that a company of ten people is potentially losing 2,500 hours a year because people can’t find something.  That’s crazy.  Translate this to your home life and you begin to see that being disorganized can be the reason you don’t have enough time in your day, week, year, or life.  Putting a system in place that allows you to take little steps each day can make you happier because you have more time to do the things you love.

Going paperless, or mostly paperless, involves a commitment on your part.  You don’t want to get half of your documents scanned and electronically filed then suddenly stop and go back to the old ways of piles and files.  Remember, it is much easier to grab a disc or thumb drive to take with you in case of an emergency than to try to think about which documents you need to grab if you are faced with an evacuation situation due to fire or weather.

In previous blogs I covered getting the right equipment and setting up naming conventions or rules on how documents should be named.  Let’s get on with actually scanning the documents.  I have two different scanners; one that only has document feeder at work and a combination document feeder / flatbed scanner at home.  I prefer to use the document feeder because it is faster since multiple page documents can be scanned at one time.  My Fujitsu scanner at work came with a clear plastic “carrier” sheet which is really cool because it allows me to put a small or odd sized receipt through the document feeder.  The carrier sheet is simply two clear plastic sheets that are sealed together on one end.  You place the receipt between the two sheets of plastic then insert the sheet into the feeder, sealed end first.  The receipt is held in place and scanned without moving or getting jammed.  I understand that you can buy this accessory for most document feeder type scanners but my HP scanner at home didn’t come with a carrier sheet so I just use the flatbed scanner.

Here are the steps I go through at home to use my HP Scanjet 5590 scanner.  Every scanner is different and every setup is different, this is what works for me.  Most scanners come with software that allows you to choose the file type the document can be saved as.  I found that it works best for me if I use the full version of Adobe Acrobat that I have on my computer to scan to.

First I gather the receipts from the day then I open Adobe Acrobat then from the file menu I choose Create PDF then choose From Scanner.  A pop up box comes up and asks me what I want to scan.  I make my selections based upon the document type (color or black and white) and press scan.  The scanner recognizes the document and brings an image of the receipt up on the screen.  I review it quickly then name it according to my naming conventions and file it in the designated folder in my electroni File Cabinet.  As soon as I am done scanning, naming and saving a receipt, I put the receipt in a box I have next to the scanner.  I usually save original receipts for 30 days in case I need to dispute a credit card charge, bank deposit or return something to the store.  Some receipts like the debit card purchases I make for gas and groceries I throw in the shredder as soon as I am done scanning them.

That’s it.  I know you want going paperless to take more steps but it doesn’t.  You can really go paperless and stay organized if you start now.  I recommend that you don’t go back and start scanning all of your old receipts unless of course you really want to.

Your Daily 15 - If you already have a scanner spend 15 minutes familiarizing yourself with its operation.  Figure out how to save documents in different file formats.  I think that saving the documents as a PDF is best but you may have some other way that works better for you.  Remember, if the system you create isn’t easy, you won’t keep up on it.  There really is some security in knowing where everything is and being able to find it when you need it.

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Here is an example of how I name my documents. I have five bank accounts and each month I receive a statement for each one. I have a money market, a joint account, my husband has his own personal and we have two we set up for our nephews. Each bank statement gets scanned and named:

Money Market: BNK MM 083108 – BNK for Bank, MM for Money Market, 083108 for the date of the statement.

Joint Account: BNK JNT 083108 – BNK for Bank, JNT for Joint Account, 083108 for the date of the statement.

Husband’s Account: BNK RH 083108 – BNK for Bank, RH for my husbands initials, 083108 for the date of the statement.

Nephew 1’s Account: BNK SH 083108

Nephew 2’s Account: BNK BH 083108

If I have a bank deposit receipt for my money market account I would name it BNK MM DEP 082908.

It is a lot of work in the very beginning to get everything named but you will see that it is all worth it. Below is the list of naming conventions I use:

• Bank Statement – BNK XX where the XX stands for the account
• Bank Deposit – BNK XX DEP where the XX stands for the account
• Receipts – RCT XX 083108 – RCT for receipt (I only use RCT for personal), XX name of company receipt is from, 083108 date of receipt
• Invoices – INV XX 083108 – INV for invoice (I only use this for business and I use RCT for personal bills that come in or purchases I make), XX for name of Vendor, 083108 for date of bill
• Bills (if you bill someone else for services or sales) – BILL XX 083108 – BILL for bill, XX for customer, 083108 for date of bill
• Tax Returns – TAXYE07 – TAX for tax returns, YE for year ending and 07 for 2007
• Credit Card Statements – CCXX use the XX to indicate which card – for example Capital One could be CCCO (Credit Card Capital One)
• Child or Pet Vaccination Records – VAC ALF 083108 – VAC for vaccination, Alfie is my dog’s name so I shorten it to three letters, 083108 date of vaccines
• Vehicle Registration – DMV 1985 Ford 083108 – DMV for Dept. of Motor Vehicles, 1985 Ford for vehicle, 083108 date of registration.
• Insurance – INS AUTO 1985 Ford 083108 or INS HOME 083108 or INS BUS 083108 – INS for insurance, followed by type AUTO for automobile, HOME for homeowners or BUS for business followed by the date of the policy
• Warranties – WAR XX 083108 – WAR for warranty, XX for appliance or items warranty is for, 083108 for date warranty started.

If you start all of your naming conventions with the type of document like INV for Invoice or VAC for vaccination then all of your documents can be sorted alphabetically keeping like documents together.

Your Daily 15 – Create a labeling plan or use mine. Write down all of the naming conventions ahead of time so you are consistent with naming your files.

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