Is your home office paperless? Tips?

[beaucoup]

For those that are paperless at home, I have some questions. Currently, on my paper bill, I cross-reference by jotting the date paid, check # or if paid online, and the amount paid.

How do you record those notes when you are receiving an e-statement instead of paper?

What naming system do you use for the e-statement files?
And how are you organizing them in your computer?
Tagging at all?

It took me a long time and many do overs to get my photos organized, and I would like to get it right the first time with paperless if I decide to completely convert.

Are you receiving e-statements or are you receiving paper, writing notes on it, scanning it & shredding it?

My back-up executor does not touch or own a computer at all, so the switch to completely paperless concerns me, but I would love to get rid of the paper or at least some of it.

Tell me your system. Thanks.

 

[beaucoup]

Another question. Right now, when the paper bill comes in, I put it in a pile of bills waiting to be paid or waiting for money.

How do you handle this is there is no paper? I would be afraid I might forget to pay it otherwise.

 

[golfgal]

Every bill I pay online that has an ebill has online access to those for at least the past 12 months so I don't save any of the files unless I need something specifically. I don't need to clutter up my computer with that when I have easy access to them online.

The few paper bills just go in a file in my filing cabinet, usually unopened, in a file marked "bills". I still pay them online. At the end of the year when I am compiling things for taxes they go in a box in the basement. Every few years we clean those out and use them for kindling for a bonfire .

All my bank statements are also available online for 3+ years so if I needed I could go back through those to find something.

 

[msjprincess]

All of my bills are paid automatically every week.

 

[beaucoup]

thanks. but I write things on my paper bills. Like on the credit card statements, I write what the purchases were & break it down into budget categories. The year-end credit card statement, I move those notes over on the large purchases, and then shred the monthly bills, keeping just the year end statement. I've referred to those more than once when needing to know when we bought an item.

I guess I need a PDF editor that allows me to annotate the PDF file to make my notes.

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

All emails that I receive saying the payment has been received goes into a file in my email.
Anything paper gets scanned through my Neat Receipts and gets shredded, except for tax stuff. That gets one file in the basement after being scanned.

 

[beaucoup]

All emails that I receive saying the payment has been received goes into a file in my email.
Anything paper gets scanned through my Neat Receipts and gets shredded, except for tax stuff. That gets one file in the basement after being scanned.

There was a thread maybe a month ago asking about the Neat Receipts. Do you like it? Any problems with it or things you wished it did differently? Someone said its really the software, right? I mean its just a normal feed through scanner but its the software that's doing all the work of filing. Is my understanding of it correct?

How long have you owned it?
which model do you have?

 

[SueInBoston]

thanks. but I write things on my paper bills. Like on the credit card statements, I write what the purchases were & break it down into budget categories.

you may want to look into Quicken. We're not paperless because hubby still wants to see the bills, but we pay our bills online and I download all our statements into Quicken and sort into categories.

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

There was a thread maybe a month ago asking about the Neat Receipts. Do you like it? Any problems with it or things you wished it did differently? Someone said its really the software, right? I mean its just a normal feed through scanner but its the software that's doing all the work of filing. Is my understanding of it correct?

How long have you owned it?
which model do you have?

It's basically a scanner, and the software sorts everything. I'm not really sure how DH has it set up, I just scan stuff and it drops it into files.

We have both the desk top scanner and the portable. DH uses the portable for expense reports.

Also I have had issues with my desk scanner lately and their customer service is pretty good too.

We've had both scanners for maybe 3-4 years. DH got his first, he's actually talked 3 of the companies he's worked for to switch to neat receipts for expenses.

(OH and we run Macs if that makes any difference)

 

[tvguy]

I insist on paper bills, but pay almost all my bills online, and print a receipt.
Okay, my son's college only does electronic billing, and I have been fighting a mistake they made over a year ago that cost me $800. They say they sent me an e-mail, to which I requested a copy. They can't produce a copy.

Actually, I work for a large corporation that only does business with companies that do paper billing. We don't have TiVo anymore because of this, and every few months they call and want us to come back, and every few months the boss says, if you will sent us a paper bill, you can hook us back up right now.
Mind you I work for a TV station, we had 10 TiVos here, and I suspect that many in the other 22 stations our corporation owns. That's a lot of units TiVo could be making money off of if they would only send a paper bill.

 

[beaucoup]

I insist on paper bills, but pay almost all my bills online, and print a receipt.
Okay, my son's college only does electronic billing, and I have been fighting a mistake they made over a year ago that cost me $800. They say they sent me an e-mail, to which I requested a copy. They can't produce a copy.

Actually, I work for a large corporation that only does business with companies that do paper billing. We don't have TiVo anymore because of this, and every few months they call and want us to come back, and every few months the boss says, if you will sent us a paper bill, you can hook us back up right now.
Mind you I work for a TV station, we had 10 TiVos here, and I suspect that many in the other 22 stations our corporation owns. That's a lot of units TiVo could be making money off of if they would only send a paper bill.

I hear ya. I've got a financial background and I really like to see statements, cross reference transactions, keep records. Its taken me a very long time to even think about getting rid of some of the incoming paper. Going completely paperless does concern me. I do want paper bills so if something happens to me, someone will still know there is a bill that needs to be paid even if they haven't learned how to turn on a computer yet, never mind how to navigate email and so forth.

 

[prncess674]

If you really want to annotate your credit card statement every credit card I own allows you to download a copy of all your transactions in excel format. You can then make notes next to each transaction in Excel. I keep electronic copies in electronic file folders by each vendor. Files are labeled like this. Using the naming structure of Year, Month, Day this automatically sorts in the correct date order

2011.01.31 Corporate Amex.pdf
2011.01.31 Corporate Amex Details.xls
2011.02.16 Corporate Amex Online Payment Confirmation.pdf

For example my folder structure looks looks like

Bills
-2011
--Credit Cards
---Corporate Amex
---SPG Amex
--Housing
---Gas
---Electric
---Telephone

 

[beaucoup]

If you really want to annotate your credit card statement every credit card I own allows you to download a copy of all your transactions in excel format. You can then make notes next to each transaction in Excel. I keep electronic copies in electronic file folders by each vendor. Files are labeled like this. Using the naming structure of Year, Month, Day this automatically sorts in the correct date order

2011.01.31 Corporate Amex.pdf
2011.01.31 Corporate Amex Details.xls
2011.02.16 Corporate Amex Online Payment Confirmation.pdf

For example my folder structure looks looks like

Bills
-2011
--Credit Cards
---Corporate Amex
---SPG Amex
--Housing
---Gas
---Electric
---Telephone

NICE! Thanks for those tips!!

 

[arminnie]

I have a financial and an IT background. I don't do paper at all. I don't think I've used a stamp in over a year (okay maybe one or two).

Because I have two residences I usually leave my mail at the post office. I pick it up every few months - but seldom open it. I did notice yesterday that I have some Christmas cards that I hadn't seen.

Most of my friends know to contact me electronically.

I have my bills set up to be paid automatically - especially my credit cards. I never have to worry about them being later.

I hate paper. I always lose stuff. My electronic stuff is there forever. But I think I've mentioned before that I am a huge believer in backups of backups of backups.

 

[Acklander]

I run everything through my checking account and keep track of what's paid on mint.com (works the same way as quicken)
It does the breakdown for credit card bills/bank statements etc.
Now, whenever I get a paper bill in the mail, it's either an automatic payment or I pay it on line, and then throw out the bill. E-bills are just paid. If I need to look something up, I just go online to look it up.