All individuals who are living and working in Australia are most likely paying taxes. Now with the ever increasing prices of commodities and constant pressure of maintaining a specific lifestyle, who doesn’t want to pay less tax. I am sure we all do! One of the most common methods by which one can reduce their payable tax is by maintaining a record. This not only means to keep the documents together but to keep each and every receipt safe and secure beforehand for the tax season. Just as the tax season is about to approach, all tax paying individuals are observed to run around in their houses looking for the respective receipts which they once placed ‘somewhere’.
There are some simple steps which once followed could make your lives easier in terms of tax returns. First things first, maintain a folder. It is a good practice to maintain a hard copy of all your receipts. So for this purpose, when you pay for anything that is work related, immediately keep the receipt in that folder which should be solely for this purpose and nothing else.
In case you are a self-employed individual, receipts of telephones, water, and electricity and so on must all be maintained in the respective folder. Similarly, keep a separate work diary where you enter all the details about the date and hours worked each day. This not only helps in the short run in managing and scheduling activities and tasks but also in the long run. Since you are your own boss, you can easily calculate and organize documents accordingly. It is a good practice to keep a daily business diary or a journal where you can enter your daily tasks and activities.
Secondly, write a small note on the receipt indicating the reason for the purchase of a specific item or simply a justification of that purchase. This acts as a reminder in the long run when you don’t have to overthink as to why you did a specific activity. Reminder notes are a helpful way to document data.
Thirdly, scan your receipts and store them electronically. Since the actual receipts have the information printed on it, the ink can fade away with the passage of time which can later create misunderstanding of the facts and figures. So an ideal approach nowadays is to make use of applications like CamScanner where you can scan the receipt via your smartphone. Similarly, if you do not want to invest in fancy application opt for the old school approach of taking a picture of your receipt for tracking purposes.
In the fast moving world, where everyone carries their smartphone everywhere it is not justified to say how they just could not save or document their receipt. With technology taking the toll, numerous applications and software have developed and entered the market just for this purpose. One of the most effective applications to manage receipts is on Evernote where you can scan the receipt and save it upon which later all the calculations can be done.
