Often many businesses leave the task of organizing their paperwork for year-end. Businesses need to have the proper paperwork to complete compliance reporting and filing.

Keeping your business documents in order is not a difficult task if you follow a process.

Here are a few tips to make this a little easier:

• One or two accordion filing folders with a minimum of twelve dividers can be used to organize receipts in their expense categories.
• Label the accordion section by expense categories: advertising, auto expense, licence & memberships, insurance, cost of sales purchases, employees, sub-contractors, office expense, rent, maintenance, telephone, utilities, capital purchases, general supplies, Canada revenue agency correspondence, bank statements, credit card statements, sales invoices to customers, cheque book stubs and any other category applicable to you.
• On a weekly basis, set 10 minutes to file all receipts for the week in the appropriate categories.
• If your business is project-based, indicate on the receipt the name of the project. (This may be very useful later to account for each project expenditure and profitability analysis).
• If you are incurring meals & entertainment expenses, indicate on the receipt the name of the client.
• If you feel comfortable with excel; list your expenses by category in an excel sheet. Each expense category should be listed in its on a column. This will not only help you organize better but also would save you on bookkeeping costs.
• Listing your expenses will provide you with a sense of your company expenditures and areas you may want to examine further.
• Set up separate credit cards for business expenses; this will segregate business expenditures.
• If using a personal credit card for business expenses; review your credit card to ensure you have not missed any business expenses. Deducting business expenses effectively saves taxes owed.

Now, year-end is not as daunting as you are prepared.

You will now feel more in control of your paperwork and the daunting task is now behind you.

By organizing your paperwork, you are able to manage your business finances successfully.