Many people who operate as sole traders and even some salary and wage employees get overwhelmed with paper receipts and keeping track of these.
Technology has progressed and cloud based utilities have become easily accessible which provides an easy paperless solution to your pile of documents and receipts.
Here at Nixer were are completely paperless and we advise our clients to adopt a similar attitude. Not only is it sustainable, but it is efficient and this efficiency is something that you can easily obtain.
We have put together an example of how you can get your books paperless!
1. Sign up for a free cloud based storage system such as dropbox or alternatively download the ATO’s My Deductions app
2. Take a photo of each receipt you receive and store it in your cloud base storage system
3. Create a spreadsheet with all of your income and expenses.
4. Update this spreadsheet once or twice as week
If you follow those four simple steps, you will have a paperless business/personal tax situation very quickly. This will increase your efficiency and will also ensure you don’t have a pile of messy workpapers when it comes to BAS/Tax time.
Other benefits of going paperless are as follows:
– It is sustainable and great for the environment
– You have a much lower risk of losing workpapers or receipts
– Your workpapers will be neat and tidy
– Tax time will be a breeze and you will not waste hours trying to find receipts etc.
– You have sufficient evidence of your claims if the ATO was to ever audit you, this could save you hours of time and stress
