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Digitizing Old Receipts

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MajorTom

Free Member
Aug 30, 2018
21
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Hi All,

I've got drawers full of old accounts from the last 10 years - like most of you will have :)

I've just got a new scanner - and I was thinking about scanning everything into it - and keeping my old receipts and accounts on a few pen-drives.

My question is - can I just scan them in, un-named, or do they need to be kept in order, with folders, and file names?

These are old accounts - where they have all ready been filed (We use QuickBooks now - so going forward everything is digital anyway)

It would take too long to put the last X years into quickbooks.

Can anyone who has done this process of digitizing old receipts and accounts let me know how you did it.

Many thanks!
 
You can keep your records however you wish, but surely the point is that of reference.

How are you going to easily find an invoice if you have no system/order in place?
 
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Think about why you want to keep them. If you want to be able to find something later you need to organise everything into folders and name everything you scan. If you don't want to be able to find somethng, why are you scanning them?
 
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MajorTom said:
Hi All,

I've got drawers full of old accounts from the last 10 years - like most of you will have :)

I've just got a new scanner - and I was thinking about scanning everything into it - and keeping my old receipts and accounts on a few pen-drives.

My question is - can I just scan them in, un-named, or do they need to be kept in order, with folders, and file names?

These are old accounts - where they have all ready been filed (We use QuickBooks now - so going forward everything is digital anyway)

It would take too long to put the last X years into quickbooks.

Can anyone who has done this process of digitizing old receipts and accounts let me know how you did it.

Many thanks!
Click to expand...

Is their really any advantage to spending time scanning old records?

Depending on what records they are you probably don't even need to keep some of them anymore.

I'd look at a good system going forward but I really wouldn't rely on pen-drives alone. Its so easy to loose them or for them to get damaged. Some good online storage to back up the saved documents would be much better.
 
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I would start from now, and save the receipts for 7/9 years, dispose of the old ones when no longer required. Going forward I would suggest buying some cloud storage, plus a hard drive backup, photo pdf each new receipt as they arrive, place into folder which auto backs up daily, weekly etc.
 
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At least pen drives are not a continual drain on the earth's fossil fuel reserves like the cloud.
 
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It would take ages to scan them all in, and then you'd need to have some system whereby you could find the receipt again should you need to. Plus USB drives are not ideal for this sort of thing, so an external hard drive would be better, but bear in mind that any device can fail so ideally you'd need it backed up on another device too. Personally I'd just keep the receipts until the statutory amount of time has passed, then you can dispose of them.
 
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I recently scanned all my old receipts/invoices stretching back 7 years, then shredded the documents. Yes it took a while, but it felt good afterwards.

I'd already digitised receipts from earlier than that, but wanted to be rid of the more recent paper ones apart from the last accounting year, now that digital is an accepted archive medium.

I named each file YYYY-MM-DD-SupplierName.pdf - and saved them into folders according to accounting year. These are then included in my normal backup strategy (several external hard drives + dropbox). You really do need to make sure you've got multiple backups.

I don't yet run accounting software so can't comment on importing them in, but if your folders are well organised, it may not be necessary.
 
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Some of you have got too much time on your hands! I have receipts in a filing cabinet drawer till about four years ago, when I started photographing them and storing them in the cloud with my accounts. Once six years (or whatever it is ) is up, I'll bin the paper ones.
 
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MajorTom said:
Hi All,
My question is - can I just scan them in, un-named, or do they need to be kept in order, with folders, and file names?
Click to expand...

Entirely up to you but all the scanning software I have ever used applies incrementing numbers to the file name. Default is often the date of scan plus uniquifying string. You should be able to add a prefix for the invoice year and work from there. Scan them in date order then rename them to add supplier name if you really fee the need.

No need to keep more than 6 years worth. Why do you expect to need 10 year old receipts?

Personally, I have better use for my time, like earning money :)
 
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DontAsk said:
Entirely up to you but all the scanning software I have ever used applies incrementing numbers to the file name. Default is often the date of scan plus uniquifying string. You should be able to add a prefix for the invoice year and work from there. Scan them in date order then rename them to add supplier name if you really fee the need.

No need to keep more than 6 years worth. Why do you expect to need 10 year old receipts?

Personally, I have better use for my time, like earning money :)
Click to expand...

I agree with you.:)
 
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