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Receipts and Freeagent - what's your workflow?

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    Receipts and Freeagent - what's your workflow?

    Hi All,

    I use Freeagent and have the bank feed enabled. When the transactions come in, I categorise them and add the description.

    I also keep all my receipts.

    The painful part is reconciling the big pile of paper receipts to the transactions in Free Agent.

    I'm interested to know:

    - do people here photograph the receipt and add them to the transacations in free agent. This is what my accountant has recommended I do. (slow)
    - leave the receipts in a big pile somewhere and not add them into free agent at all (fast)

    or some other workflow completely?

    Thanks,
    Untouachable1

    #2
    I am using Xero, and my accountant recommends / dictates that I should photograph the receipts and add them to the Xero system via an app. Each receipt requiring a chapter and verse explanation...

    Painful, but I am told this is the MTD 'way'.

    As for keeping the receipts, is this still for seven years? If so, and what I have done to MTD date, is just to photograph them all in batches and save the files to Months and Years in an Explorer folder. Backed up to a flash drive. So if someone really wanted to go through them, they can pour over umpteen JPGs. And I would wish 'em luck.

    Comment


      #3
      i don't have a vast amount of expenses, so my experiences may count for toffee compared to you big rollers....

      i pay my expenses out of my own pocket and add them to free agent as an expense.
      and then once every so often i make a payment from the company to myself for the running total of expenses.

      these results in a single bank transaction that can be identified as an expenses payment which in turns resets the exspenses running total within free agent.

      i find it far easy to upload a photo and enter an expense the same day or following day.
      leaving them all in a big pile until you have a right good bundle is just too much work.

      Comment


        #4
        In theory - you need to keep receipts for all business costs for ~7 years. Digital copies are fine. Uploading to your bookkeeping software is a nice way of ensuring you can easily find the relevant receipt if HMRC were to ask (as compared to trawling through a bit pile of unfiled receipts).

        In practice - HMRC are extremely unlikely to ever ask to see copies of receipts for a £10 train ticket, or £2 coffee. As long as you're not taking the Michael with subsistence, I'd forget about the small ones. Do ensure you keep receipts (and ideally upload to your bookkeeping) for the bigger, infrequent, or contentious costs. £1k+ definitely. £100+ probably most of them...though if it's a consistent monthly cost for something non contentious (eg accountancy fees), no need.

        Confused by the comment re MTD above...I don't think there's any link between MTD and having receipts?!

        Comment


          #5
          I don't understand the creating digital copies idea. It just adds more work IMO. Every other week I staple mine together, tot up the totals, write them on the top of the pile and enter them in to FA. Generally only food and tram, maybe consumables. Needs two or three entries into FA and file the pile in a file.

          Takes minutes. I'm happy to keep the filing time to a minimum and spend the time digging them out if/when required. No point spending time dotting the i's for something I haven't had to do in 10 years.
          'CUK forum personality of 2011 - Winner - Yes really!!!!

          Comment


            #6
            Hi Everyone,

            Thanks for the input.

            I've spoken to my account and here is the upshot:

            Must keep all receipts for 7 years
            There is not law that states you need to upload to your accounting software
            There are some types of transacations that he'll ask me to upload receipts for. Namely big ticket items and christmas parties etc.

            This is a good outcome for me.

            @Northern lad

            If you enable bank feeds you should need to upload any transactions. Comes at the cost of having to provide you security details to a company that you don't really know though......

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by Untouchable1 View Post

              @Northern lad

              If you enable bank feeds you should need to upload any transactions. Comes at the cost of having to provide you security details to a company that you don't really know though......
              Yep. I get that so needs a level of diligence applied to get to a point you understand and are happy with the risk and I'm fine with it. If you don't want to use the time saving features due to your risk approach you have to take on the extra workload I'm afraid.

              I'm more concerned about throwing paperwork in the bin and not knowing where it goes than my FA bank feed TBH.
              'CUK forum personality of 2011 - Winner - Yes really!!!!

              Comment


                #8
                I have very few paper receipts. Most of my business expenditure is online. I keep all my receipts in Evernote, along with all my other company documentation. It's really easy to just forward your receipt to Evernote from your email inbox. One click does it.

                If I do get a paper receipt, I scan it directly into Evernote using the Scansnap software and then shred the original.

                I do use FreeAgent, so I could attach my receipts there, but the Evernote workflow is much smoother and I like having all my company documentation in the one place.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Most things that go on the company card are online, so they get an email to PDF attached in FreeAgent.

                  Cash / personal expenses I take a photo of the receipt on my phone there and then, and add it into FreeAgent.

                  Everything in one place, takes seconds, nothing to get lost, nothing to bother with lying around the office.
                  I'm not fat, I'm just fluffy.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    I used to scan the receipt on my phone, upload to google drive in yyyy/mm folder (for long term storage) then attach image to freeagent submission. Chucked paper receipt.

                    Comment

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