Flash forward to 2013, when cloud-based accounting software has made it easier than ever to track expenses, generate reports, and create budgets – all without ever having to hit the print button.

The key to creating a flawless expense report is to accurately track your expenses. If you have a solid system in place, generating a report based on those tracked expenses is an absolute breeze. Here are a few of our favorite ways to ensure accurate expense tracking:

Shoeboxed

In the above scenario, one of the biggest pains of creating hard copy expense reports was having to staple piles of receipts to the report itself. Well, no more!

Shoeboxed is a receipt scanning service that digitizes hard copy documents and maintains them in a cloud-based account that can be accessed from anywhere. Every individual receipt is transformed into a digital document that can be searched for by date, location, or individual item.

You can also keep track of receipts when you’re out of the office with the Shoeboxed app for iOS7 and Android. Snap a picture of each receipt and watch as your account is instantly updated with the new information.

When it’s time to create an expenses spreadsheet, Shoeboxed does it for you. Create one-click expense reports by selecting the applicable expenses within your Shoeboxed account. You can then download the spreadsheet, email it to your colleagues or employees for editing, or upload it to a secure, shared server.

Budgt

Budgt for iPhone is an app that lets you track your spending via virtual spreadsheets. This option is great for those concerned with privacy because Budgt doesn’t require any banking or other personal information. Simply buy the app for $0.99 and begin tracking expenses. You’ll have a handheld digital spreadsheet that will help you manage your finances and stick to your budget.

Freshbooks

On the other end of the spectrum, Freshbooks is cloud-based accounting software with the ability to link directly to your personal or business bank account. Freshbooks intuitively knows which items should be added to your expenses spreadsheet. It tracks income as well as expenditures, and displays the data on your account dashboard in the form of charming graphs and easy-to-read charts.

Freshbooks also offers a variety of reporting options that can be customized by client, invoice, expense category, profit and loss, and tax summaries. Simply click the “expense report” option to view and download an instant snapshot of your expenses for the month, quarter or year. You can also assign categories to certain expenses, making reporting come tax time a cinch!

Whichever application you choose to help create your weekly, yearly or monthly expense spreadsheet, the benefits of going digital are clear. So forget the paper print out and scrap the stapled mess – use Shoeboxed, Budgt, Freshbooks or the app of your choice to digitally track your expenses.

A bill paying organizer is an online or offline system that helps you keep track of various due dates, payment addresses, account information and balances. Here are a few of our favorites!

Digital

• Manilla is an online bill paying organizer that helps you manage all of your accounts within a single dashboard. Manilla lets you sync everything from credit cards and loans to utility bills, and delivers all of your statements directly to your secure account. Manilla will also send you automatic reminders before your monthly payment is due, preventing late fees and penalties.
• Zumbox is a bill paying service that replaces physical, mailed bills. With Zumbox, you can synchronize all of your bills for free, whether you send payments through your bank or use your vendor’s autopay option. You’ll also get emailed reminders when it’s time to pay and account updates whenever a payment is made.
• AceMoney is another great choice for personal finance management and bill paying. Track spending, create and manage budgets, and import online banking data with AceMoney’s reporting tools. One drawback to AceMoney is that it’s not cloud-based and requires a download. It’s also unable to automatically sync with other online accounts, making it necessary to import data into the program via spreadsheet.

Hard copy

If you prefer to track payments the old fashioned way, you can use a physical method to store, organize, and update your finances each month.

• The bill paying organizer from Simply Organized has a variety of graphs and charts for tracking payments made and payments due, as well as handy pockets to store hard copies and envelopes.
• Home Storage Solutions has a great printable calendar that can be used as a bill paying organizer, with sections for the amount due, due date, interest paid, balance, method of payment, and payee.
• Creating your own bill organizer can be a great way to keep track of due dates and never miss a payment. Sometimes the act of writing down what’s due and when can be the most effective memory jog!
  Use an Excel spreadsheet or a spreadsheet in Google Docs to create your own personalized bill paying tracking system. In addition to the above-mentioned categories, you can include a section for confirmation numbers, payee addresses or phone numbers, representative names or contact information, and a place for notes.
  If you use Google Docs or another dynamic online collaborator, you can easily share your bill pay document with your spouse, partner, or anyone else who needs to be privy to your finances.

Whether you use a cloud-based organizer or coffee-stained napkin, utilizing some kind of bill paying organizer is the best way to manage your personal finances and ensure payments are made on time, every time.

How do you track and organize your bills?

The benefits of capturing receipts via your smartphone or desktop scanner include:

Instant digitization

When you scan your receipts or snap a picture of them using a smartphone app like the one available from Shoeboxed, all of the information on the receipt becomes instantly digitized. This means that you’ll be able to search for purchases and transactions by date, amount, category, and even individual items. Cloud-based applications like Shoeboxed ensure that all of your expense information is available at the touch of a button.

Never lose another receipt

It’s easy to lose track of paper receipts when they’re stuffed in your wallet, purse or briefcase. By capturing your e-receipts and uploading them to the cloud as soon as you get them, you’ll never lose another receipt. You’ll also be able to search for and find receipts as needed when requested by your tax professional or the IRS.

Easy reporting

When the time comes to send information to your accountant or create an expense report, software that captures e-receipts makes the process seamless. Instead of shuffling through receipt after receipt and manually recording each total, simply select the date range or category of receipt you’d like to report, and voila! A comprehensive report created with the touch of a button.

Digitally sort into categories

Another major benefit of capturing your e-receipts is being able to sort and organize them into expense categories. Shoeboxed’s receipt scanning service automatically detects the appropriate tax category for each uploaded receipt.

For example, a scanned receipt from Office Depot would be automatically labeled as “office supplies,” and be available in searches for that particular expense category. If your purchase at Office Depot needs to be categorized differently, it’s easy to remove, edit, and change category labels from within your account.

Capture on the go

While a receipt scanner comes in handy at the office and when dealing with large stacks of paper, capturing receipts on the go prevents clutter from being reintroduced to your newly clean workspace.

When you receive a receipt from a retail outlet or restaurant, simply snap a picture of that receipt from within your smartphone application. The information will be instantly digitized and beamed to your account. From there, you can recycle the receipt and leave the establishment clutter-free. Since the IRS no longer requires hard copy receipts, the digital record is all you need to keep.

Eliminate stacks of paper clutter

Capturing your e-receipts in the office doesn’t have to be a painstaking process. Shoeboxed offers a service called the Magic Envelope, which allows you to eliminate enormous stacks of personal or business receipts and other paper documents in a matter of minutes. Simply toss anything you’d like to be captured into the big blue envelope, and toss the envelope in the mail. In a few days, the folks at Shoeboxed will have scanned and digitized each and every item.

Luckily, even Uncle Sam has decided to go paperless. The IRS now accepts digital receipts, which means that scanned receipts are now considered fully legitimate documentation for your taxes. Instead of collecting stacks of paper receipts in your wallet or “organizing” receipts with plastic sandwich bags, you can simply scan your receipts, upload them to a cloud-based receipt management account, and recycle those pesky pieces of paper once and for all.

Then, if you do need to pull a specific receipt for your accountant come tax time, you can simply open up or log in to your digital receipt account and either email them a screen shot of the receipt or print it out. Receipt scanning software like the programs available from Shoeboxed lets you search for receipts that have been placed into a receipt form digitized by date, amount, line item, or category.

With a Shoeboxed account, you can keep track of business receipts no matter where you are. Dump piles of paper receipts into their Magic Envelope and watch your entire office become clutter-free in a matter of minutes. The folks at Shoeboxed will actually scan your receipts for you, saving you the time and headache of scanning slip after slip of paper.

Neat Desktop Scanner

You can also scan business receipts yourself with a desktop scanner or mobile receipt scanner, or simply snap a picture of each individual receipt with your smartphone. This is a great option while traveling, and prevents receipts from getting lost in the shuffle as you head from the airport to the rental car agency to your hotel.

When you receive a receipt that can be expensed or used as a write off, simply snap a photo of it with your phone from within your account. The information from the receipt, including the items purchased, location, date, and total will be instantly uploaded to your online account.

When you return from your trip, need to generate an expense report, or need to file your taxes, simply log in to your cloud-based account and get an instant snapshot of your receipt totals. Each receipt can be categorized, labeled, and exported as a report to the email address of your choosing. You can also download reports and send them as attachments, streamlining the accounting process for you and your tax professional.

Digitizing every business receipt is a great way to get organized, save money, and save time throughout the year. By opting for digital instead of hard copy receipts, you’ll never have to worry about misplacing important financial documents or losing proofs of purchase. If you’re a small business owner, scanning digital receipts will streamline your entire accounting process, freeing you up to do what you do best – run your business!

It’s difficult enough to keep track of what you’re spending, let alone what your employees are spending! When multiple people start spending company money, organization is absolutely essential for making sure everyone gets paid back swiftly and all funds are accurately tracked for tax purposes.

Expense reimbursements may be required when employees run errands, shop for supplies, travel to meetings outside of the office, attend conferences, take clients to lunch, take the company car to be serviced, stay overnight at a hotel, book airfare, take a cab, rent a car, and more.

Luckily, many of the expenses you’ll be required to reimburse double as tax write-offs for you as the small business owner. Because of this, keeping track of your small business expense reimbursements is crucial to saving money come tax season.

Gone are the days of paper expense reporting, where employees had to manually fill out spreadsheets, submit stacks of stapled receipts, and wait weeks to be paid back. With receipt scanning services like those available from Shoeboxed, your employees can now instantly upload their receipts to a single, cloud-based account. Within that account, they can edit individual expenses, categorize their spending with customized labels, and create one-click expense reports.

Shoeboxed is especially useful during travel. If your employees are out of town for a conference, they can simply snap a picture of each receipt they receive with their smartphone. The Shoeboxed app instantly digitizes the data from each receipt and uploads it to your company account. You can track spending in real time, and your employees can recycle their receipts instead of bringing piles of paper back to clutter up the office.

When your employees are ready to be reimbursed, they can log in to their Shoeboxed account, select all of the applicable receipts, and generate an instant expense report. From there, they can download the report as a spreadsheet or PDF and email it to you for swift processing.

Once you receive your employee’s expense report, you’ll be able to evaluate individual items and track spending based on date, location, and category. If you have a question or need more information about an individual receipt, simply log in to your Shoeboxed account and search by the receipt’s date, category, or keyword.

Once you’ve approved all of the expenses that need to be reimbursed, it’s easy to pay your employees back. Services like Expense Pay allow you to instantly transfer funds from your business bank account to your employee’s personal account with the click of a button. Instead of waiting for payroll to clear, your employees can rest assured that they’ll be reimbursed for out-of-pocket expenses quickly and accurately.

With cloud-based services like those available from Shoeboxed and Expense Pay, staying on top of your small business expense reimbursements is a snap!