Okay, deep breath - it's THAT time again! Despite your best intentions, here is it, tax time and you have all your receipts in a big box! Look on the bright side: At least it's all in one place!

Don't despair - often we make a bigger deal of getting organized than we need to.

Here's a simple way to take a year's worth of paper and in a matter of an hour or two - get it organized for the tax guy or gal:

1. Grab a yellow sticky pad and find yourself a large piece of floor space (preferably one the cat won't be walking across for an hour or so!)

2. Put your main categories on the sticky notes, such as Charity, Interest Paid, Office Supplies, Utilities, etc. and lay them out on the floor with space inbetween. (If you can lay them out in alphabetical order, even better!)

3. Take that pile of receipts & stubs and start plopping them down by the yellow sticky that defines its category. Don't worry about organizing by month - your tax guy doesn't care when you spent the money, just the year you spent it in!

4. Once you get every receipt and bill stub in its proper category, take each pile and use an adding machine to create a tape total that you will clip to the receipts with the yellow sticky on top.

5. Transfer that information to one sheet of paper: 2007 Utilities: $497.56; 2007 Office Supplies: $171.72, etc. DONE!

What to do about the credit card statements? Well you have 12 statements and you now know your categories:  Take each statement and on a sheet of paper write your categories - then quickly transfer each item charged to its proper category - at the end, add them up and voila - DONE!

Here's another thought!: This year, contact us and we'll show you how to organize as you go!