Keeping Records for Tax Purposes

Record keeping is tedious and time consuming. We all have better things to do and that's clear in the fact that I'm commonly hearing the phrase "I haven't kept any receipts" from people when preparing their tax returns. Sometimes due to forgetfulness, sometimes due to misplacing them, but often due to not being aware of the tools that are out there to assist.

There of course are the old fashioned methods of keeping the receipts in a shoebox. Personally, I used to take pictures of them and email them to myself and store them in a folder in my emails.

But as with everything these days: there's now an app for that.

A quick search of the app store on my iPhone results in many options; smart receipts, receipt lens, receipt rover. The options are endless, but there's a tool that was designed and released by the ATO specifically for this purpose - ATO My Deductions.

In this little widget that forms part of the ATO app, you can track employment expenses and business expenses, one at a time or both at once. You can track kms travelled in your work vehicle for employment or business purposes - or keep an entire log book. You can take pictures of your receipts and store them in the app. And at the end of the year there's a handy little button to 'send to accountant' which emails your accountant a summary of everything you've entered into the app for the year.

Of course it's not the only app that has all of these functions, but it's free and the more receipts you keep the more deductions you're potentially eligible for. Stop paying more tax than you need to, keep your receipts!