Receipts have a peculiar talent for getting lost, fading and crumpling in the pocket of your work trousers. Yet every lost receipt is a lost expense — and a higher tax bill. The solution isn’t more discipline, it’s fewer steps.
The one-minute rule
Photograph the receipt as soon as you get it. At the petrol station, the building supplies store, the parking machine. It takes ten seconds — in the evening it would take hours.
What an expense should include
- Date, supplier and company ID.
- Amount and VAT (if you are VAT-registered).
- Category — materials, fuel, tools, services.
- The job the expense belongs to. Only then do you know whether you are really making money on it.
Assign expenses to jobs
Materials bought for a specific job should be visible with it. In the end you see the real profit — and find out which types of jobs pay off and which don’t.
How to hand records to your accountant
- Once a month, check that every expense has a document.
- Export the documents in the format your accountant uses.
- Send one file instead of a box of paper.
Tip: Agree a fixed date with your accountant (say, by the 5th of each month). Regularity beats perfection.
How to do it in Homeearly
Take a photo of a receipt or invoice with your phone and the details fill in automatically. Assign expenses to jobs and export records for your accountant to Money S3, ABRA Flexi or CSV for Excel. More on the Quotes, invoices and payments page.