Pay your bills on time, and find those receipts when you need them. Here's help with getting your paperwork organized.
Some people are very organized, always pay their bills
on time, and essentially manage to remain on top of things constantly.
But for some of us life seems to be one constant crisis after another.
We throw all bills
in one drawer together with receipts, never remember to pay or collect
anything, end up paying hundreds of rupees in penalties for late
payment, and are constantly panicking as we try and locate some
important paper - which is very likely at the bottom of a trash can -
in a garbage dump. If you fall into the second category and have a
life, here's help.
Consider getting a thick folder that has
different compartments, which can hold different folders. You could
then label each compartment according to your needs. Alternatively, you
could get a bunch of different folders and stack some around your desk,
others in a shelf, depending on how accessible you need them to be.
To Be Paid
Keep all the bills
that need to be paid together in one folder, and make sure this folder
is not only easily accessible, but that you access it often and don't
forget all about it or where you put it! You don't need to further
categorise bills that need to be paid, or you will just waste more time and will need to keep searching through various folders to find various bills that require payment. Just dump all bills that need to be paid, in a single folder, irrespective of whether it is the insurance, electricity or credit card bill.
Once the bills have been paid, remove them from the 'to be paid' folder, and place them in another 'bills paid' folder.
Receipts
Make sure you keep a 'Receipts' folder, so you have receipts and proof
of all payments made. You can keep receipts of payments made separate
from receipts of pending matters. For example, keep the receipt stating
that you have paid the newspaper or club bill in one folder, and your
dry cleaning receipt - which tells you to pick up your laundry next
Monday - in another folder. Similarly, if you have signed up for a
class a month before the class begins, you may wish you keep the
receipt stating that you have paid the class fees, in second receipts
folder. Keep going through this folder on a regular basis, to make sure
you have collected all your dry cleaning, followed through with that
advance you made on the lehenga and used your gift certificate in time.
Once the matter has been dealt with, transfer the receipt to the
regular receipts folder.
To simplify matters even further, you could simply make a
'receivables' folder which can hold cheques you need to cash, refunds
you need to get, gift certificates and so on, in addition to receipts
of advances made.
In a nutshell, if your electricity bill and insurance bills
require payment, they should be in the same folder. But once payment
has been made, you can transfer the insurance bill to the insurance
folder, and electricity bill to the utilities folder. This
classification takes place at the second stage, if you feel the need.
Otherwise, they can all go into the 'bills paid' folder.
Name:
Sabitha
Country: usa
good article. the only only way to keep organised is just by paying as soon as the bills arrive and what works best for me is i just have one thick folder which is separated by months and simmply every important paper for that month goes in there. that way i just have one file to maintain! and just by looking up that month, can pull out any paper. hope this helps.
Name:
prita
Country: kuwait
i have one thick folder also, which is not separated by months, but has various sections... also, i keep all pending bills to be paid in the same section of that folder.
