Store Your Receipts Electronically

March 2019 — Tip of the Month

In 2015, I recommended going paperless. If you've already moved to 100% electronic statements and bill payments, the next step is to go paperless with your receipts.

When offered the chance to have a paper or electronic (emailed) receipt, I encourage you to choose the emailed version. It's better for the environment and it's also a better solution for you. It is far easier to look up a receipt from an email folder on your phone than it is to find one in a pile of receipts at your house. You can access eReceipts from anywhere with your phone, which means no more worrying about losing receipts or forgetting them when you return an item.

Unfortunately, it will be a while before all retailers offer emailed receipts. In the meantime, you can download an app like QuickBooks, Expensify, or Shoeboxed to take photos of your receipts and store them electronically. Or you use the "old-fashioned" method of scanning receipts into your computer, which is what I do. I used Neat Receipts for a few years, but the lack of support for macOS and their move to a subscription-based model led me to switch to a Fuji ScanSnap scanner and software.

Now all my receipts are stored on my computer. With cloud storage, I can access my receipts from anywhere. I have less clutter and I can locate receipts quickly with a simple search. If you ask me, that's better than digging through a folder of old crumpled pieces of paper.

- Per Christensson