The month before you pay your taxes can become a true hell, if you haven’t organized your paper work during the last year. Why is organizing so important? Well, just to make sure you won’t forget or lose any important receipts and pay penalties for the amounts you didn’t include in your fill or any document that might be used for deduction. Another advantage would be that once you know where to search the information and the documents, the only thing you’ll lose time with will be the forms and the meeting with your accountant.

Make some categories!

It might be easier for you at the end of the fiscal year, if you have all the receipts and files sorted out. You may even use stickers in order to separate the categories. Here are some examples of categories you might find useful:

• Office expenses – envelopes, paper, folders, pencils etc.
• Bills – all the bills you should pay
• Income – all the documents attesting the amounts of money you’ve received from all your activities
• Car – gas, distances, maintenance
• Home – rent, mortgage, furniture, recovering, painting
• Education – trainings, courses, different self-developing materials, seminaries, conferences
• Donations – charity events, donations
• Entertainment – restaurants, hotels, flights etc.

Use your computer to keep track!

Not only you must keep all the
original papers and documents, but you should also use a special designed program, in order to calculate monthly the amount of the money you spend, you win, you donate and so on. At least, at the end of the year you’ll get an idea of how much you are likely to pay.

Keep a file with back-up information!

You should also make copies from all the documents you’re collecting, just in case something happens with the “Big File” or something gets lost. Not only this saves time, but it also saves resources, for you’ll always have beside you the receipt, without having to give calls and send e-mails in order to get a copy.