How do you organize digitally scanned receipts for record of home renovations/etc?

[Brian Elfert]

I have hundreds of Menards, Home Depot, and other paper receipts for my house renovations and other projects that I want to keep digitally. What sort of software could I use to organize these receipts once I scan them into my Windows PC? I don't particularly want to use my iPhone or iPad unless there is something outstanding that only runs on iOS.

The home renovation receipts in particular I need to keep to prove to the IRS the value of my house to avoid capital gains tax at sale time. As a single person I only get a $250,000 exemption and I only paid $150,000, but I put at least $125,000 into renovations and upgrades in the past five years. There is a pretty good chance I will be close to $250,000 in appreciation 20 to 30 years from now.

[Jim Tobias]

Brian,
I use "Neat". There is an app and also a physical device to scan if you think you need it( but most scanning can be done with you phone taking a picture). I have used it for years and would be lost without it. I scan virtually every receipt that I think could possibly be important in the future. Manuals, warranties, repair cost, contracts, expenses, and on and on. It really is very useful. Look at it https://www.neat.com/?gclid=CjwKCAjwtqj2BRBYEiwAqfzur_cLPBk2T1oiph9ZehA epjCNIX9FrumyNqcRKA1oqEWCuPeEwnaDHRoCPtAQAvD_BwE

There can be a cost depending on how much you use it.....but it is worth it to me to be able to save a receipt/document on the spot without fear of losing it or forgetting to do it later.

Jim

[Brian Elfert]

Neat looks like a great option, but I can't justify spending $156 a year on the service. In five years I would spend more on Neat than I spent on my current PC setup including the paid software I own. I would also probably blow through the 1,200 receipt limit in the first year getting everything entered in initially. I have a two foot stack of stuff to scan in.

[Lisa Starr]

I use an app called "Wave". It is actually a businss accounting app, but works well for tracking remodeling expenses. You can either scan the receipt to your PC and email it to the app, or take a picture on your phone and it will upload to the app. Once the app has it, you can set up categories to site your situation. It is free.

www.waveapps.com (https://www.waveapps.com/)

[Jim Tobias]

I understand.. it is a convenience factor and as such it has it's cost. It is just very user friendly and works great in producing reports, etc for any business expenses you might have also.

Jim

[Brian Elfert]

I haven't incurred a business expense in years. Most IT training is now online, but my employer can't afford to have me take any training these days. The last time I went out of town for training was a dozen years ago and the last in person class was almost as long ago. A vendor did pay for a trip to Houston in 2015 and I had to expense parking overnight at the airport. That was my last business expense.

I'll have to look at Wave. I could just scan all the receipts as PDFs and file them in folders on my PC by expense type, but that doesn't make it easy to find something if I need it.

What I am finding is most of the PC software and phone apps are designed for the business person who travels or otherwise has a lot of business expenses to be reimbursed. It isn't really for organizing home receipts. I would also like to find a product for tracking my home inventory in case of an insurance loss, but I haven't found anything I like there yet. Allstate had a free service, but they discontinued it shortly after I found it a few years ago.

[Jim Tobias]

Understood....I'm retired but do sell some items through my website HJTWoods.com. When I buy a tool(big or small) , make a stop at Lowe's or Home Depot to pick up something needed, or go by the lumberyard it makes it easy to use Neat to keep track of all of these in one place. Then I can search to find a particular receipt afterwards when necessary. Can also do expense reports qtrly or annually for tax purposes.

Jim

[roger wiegand]

I track the expenses in Quicken but don't keep actual receipts, just the numbers tagged with the project they were associated with. 50 years worth of receipts from the home depot would make me insane; if some auditor didn't believe my numbers and wanted to sort through such a mess for the few thousand dollar deduction it might add up to, good luck to them. (I do have a folder with the big (over $10K) bills) At this point it will be my heirs problem to deal with an audit anyway. My numbers are pretty reasonable and really shouldn't trigger an audit.

[Brian Elfert]

I have to keep my Home Depot, Menards, and other receipts in one format or another until I sell my house. I would prefer to digitize them to avoid keeping huge piles of paper. Those receipts represent over $30,000 in work done to my house. If I have to pay capital gains when I sell my house that could be close to $10,000 in tax I otherwise wouldn't have to pay.

[Kev Williams]

I do everything possible by debit card. For years I've just let the bank keep track. Of EVERYthing. I just download the entire checking account history (the dates I need) into Excel. I've learned just enough of excel to know how organize columns to where I can organize the whole account history by customer name. I don't even keep track of expenses in quickbooks any more. Receipts and invoices get filed and stored away every year, never to be seen again (so far :D )

The bank also generates a year end itemized spending report, but I prefer Excel...

[Dan Friedrichs]

If you have a gmail account, google's cloud service (Google Drive) has a really neat phone app that lets you do one-click "scanning" of a picture (taken with your smartphone) to PDF, which then gets uploaded to Drive. Makes it super easy to store receipts.

[Charlie Velasquez]

Microsoft Excel can do this.
You can set up a budget spreadsheet with various fields for plumbing, trim, roofing, whatever. Just like you would do with any budget.
Scan your receipts put them in a folder.
Add a column for receipts.
click in the appropriate cell
go to “insert” a pic
select the receipt.
select....

never mind the directions, watch this...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L31JlWj9dwo&feature=emb_logo

I made an inventory of all my tools with data about purchase cost, year, stuff like that for insurance. I added a pic of each to my spreadsheet.

[Brian Elfert]

Excel would be the cheapest I guess since I already own it, but I think most of the world would be vaccinated for COVID-19 by the time I put in a line entry for each receipt I have and attached a scan of the receipt.
This might make the most sense even though it will take days of time to enter all my receipts.

I have a personal gSuite account so I could certainly go that route. I assume I can make folders in Google Drive since I have barely used Google Drive at all.

[Curt Harms]

Brian, I think you're an IT pro so you know about proprietary file formats and abandonware. The archival version of pdf would seem pretty future proof, not sure how to index it.

[Larry Frank]

How about adding tags to each file?

I am organizing a gazillion photos and tagging each with year, namers, event, etc. Makes it easy to find pictures.

[roger wiegand]

I'm curious how many people actually get audited based on a ~$30K increase in basis on their home for home improvements. Has it ever happened to you or to anyone you know? I know that I've never heard of anyone being questioned on such a thing.

It's only in an audit situation where you might be asked to produce actual receipts, even then, do you know of anyone who underwent an audit where producing a list of expenditures was insufficient? Even with a receipt, how do you prove that that box of screws from the HD was employed for an "improvement" rather than a non-eligible repair?

[Brian Elfert]

Brian, I think you're an IT pro so you know about proprietary file formats and abandonware. The archival version of pdf would seem pretty future proof, not sure how to index it.

I am planning to scan in as PDF. I am trying to find something to help me track them although it might be good enough to put them into folders by different categories and maybe by year.

[Brian Elfert]

I haven't been through an audit for a house sale, or know anybody who has been, but I have been through a sales/use tax audit. I have no idea if just a list of of expenditures would have sufficed for that audit, but I doubt it unless sales tax was listed. I had all my receipts for purchases so I was able to show where sales tax was paid as part of the purchase.

It just makes sense to me to keep all the receipts (or digitized version) although a list might be a good thing so I can keep a running total instead of having to add up hundreds of receipts at sale time.

[Mike Null]

I haven't kept up with real estate tax law but my recollection is that after a certain age capital gains tax does not apply to personal residential property. Also, if memory serves, selling the existing property and buying a more expensive one negates CG tax on the original residence.

As I said, I haven't kept up with this so check before taking my word.

[glenn bradley]

My old Canon multi-function printer has a flat bed and auto feed scanner on it. Rather than let things build up to where there is a mountain of stuff to do (ugh!), I scan them as I go. Many receipts are still printed on thermal paper and do not last very long. It is easy enough to scan them into sub-folders under a project-name folder or whatever sort of 'tree' works best for you. Once you have a shoe box of stuff to deal with, a combination of drudgery and fortitude are the only way to plow through that I know of. Good Luck.

P.s. It seems that dad picked up a flat bed scanner only for under $100 a couple of years back. The lack of an auto-feed makes for a lot of handling. Once you get your base established adding a receipt of two now and again is not a big deal.

[Edwin Santos]

I haven't kept up with real estate tax law but my recollection is that after a certain age capital gains tax does not apply to personal residential property. Also, if memory serves, selling the existing property and buying a more expensive one negates CG tax on the original residence.

As I said, I haven't kept up with this so check before taking my word.

The capital gain exemption on a personal residence is $250K for single and $500K married filing jointly. So for the vast majority of Americans it's a non-issue because they will not hit or exceed the exemption limit. But the OP is looking long term, and it makes very good sense to keep records so you have them if you need them.

Note, there may be state or local tax applicable depending on your jurisdiction.

I am under the impression that most good sheetfeed and flatbed scanners come with bundled software that should do what you want (auto size, scan to pdf, scan directly to your designated location on your network or pc). From there you can organize however you like. You should be able to find a good solution for under $300 in less time than it took you to write the original post. Brother, Epson, HP all offer good solutions.

[Dan Friedrichs]

I think those of you advocating for scanners haven't yet appreciated how antiquated those have become (already) with the advent of cell phone cameras. Snap a crooked picture, the software automatically detects the edges of the page, crops to fit, OCRs the text, and saves to PDF. Done faster than the scanner could have fed the document.

[Brian Elfert]

I already have a scanner. I am trying to figure out a way to organize my receipts after I scan them all in. I have only had my scanner for about two years and most of the receipts are from before then. I am getting sick of having a mountain of paper that is always in my way.

I'll have to try some of the smartphone scanner apps. I just figured it would be hard to scan with a phone than an actual scanner. I know the mobile app for my credit union now takes the photo of the check automatically.

[Jim Tobias]

I think those of you advocating for scanners haven't yet appreciated how antiquated those have become (already) with the advent of cell phone cameras. Snap a crooked picture, the software automatically detects the edges of the page, crops to fit, OCRs the text, and saves to PDF. Done faster than the scanner could have fed the document.

Dan,
I agree with you if you are talking about a receipt when you are out and about at Store/restaurant ABC.....but my phone , while it does all you say when doing a simple receipt or two, it does not solve doing multiple sheets, maybe front and back in a timely, efficient manner. I use my phone with Neat app for all individual receipts when I am out and about. I use it to scan and deposit a check to my bank. It's good for all of that. BUT, when I receive several documents from Health Insurance or Doctor visit or HVAC Contract or or VA documents or Social Security, or Etc, Etc. These are quite often multiple pages/front and back. It is much more efficient, IMHO, to scan them in at one time using a scanner(either home printer/scanner to App specific scanner-Neat) . 2 sided often makes the most sense.
Just my $.02
Jim

[Edwin Santos]

I already have a scanner. I am trying to figure out a way to organize my receipts after I scan them all in. I have only had my scanner for about two years and most of the receipts are from before then. I am getting sick of having a mountain of paper that is always in my way.

I'll have to try some of the smartphone scanner apps. I just figured it would be hard to scan with a phone than an actual scanner. I know the mobile app for my credit union now takes the photo of the check automatically.

Is there some reason just setting up folders in your PC will not work for you? Like a folder called Renovation, and subfolders under that for maybe Electrical, Plumbing, HVAC, Cabinetry and Millwork, and whatever else. If you've done multiple renovations, then create one folder for each renovation project, named by year or type. Then scan each receipt to it's logical destination folder using whatever file naming convention makes sense to you. Your file tree and contents can be dropped to a USB flash drive, written to CD or stored in the cloud and shared with anyone without needing proprietary software.

It seems you have a lot of receipts. You have a scanner. You have a computer that you know how to use. What exactly is it that you're trying to figure out?