I moved to LA when I was 22, having just landed a job as an assistant at a boutique business consulting firm. Part of my job was driving around Los Angeles to run all sorts of errands. I'd deposit checks for clients at various banks all over town. I'd go to the post office to send tax returns via certified mail. I'd pick up lunch for the office, and go shopping for my boss. Keeping receipts for everything was easy. I didn't have very much responsibility, so whenever I got back in the office from one of my field trips, I had time to organize all the receipts. It was easy to make it a priority, especially when I had an employer who was in charge.
If you fast forward to recent years, I had gotten considerably crappier at keeping my receipts organized. For an embarrassingly long time, I was finding faded receipts at the bottom of my backpack or crumpled up in my back pocket, or the worst scenario of all - some would be lost and never found.
After a few years of running a growing consulting business, I decided I wanted to start a bookkeeping agency. Which meant I could no longer have haphazard bookkeeping. The cobbler's kids needed to have some damn shoes, and my wallet would no longer be a graveyard of faded receipts.
For my first attempt, I did what any self-respecting, phone-obsessed millennial would do. Instead of understanding the roots of how to change behavior, I researched apps. This was back when I still believed that if only I had the right app, then I could become the person I wanted to become. I think I downloaded Expensify and proceeded not even use it once.
Months later, I remembered to care about my receipts again because the bookkeeping software I was using sent me a marketing email about a new function. They had a feature that allowed its users to attach a photo or pdf of a receipt. You would think that I would have just gotten my life together, and the story would end here. Nope.
I appreciate that the creators of bookkeeping software try to make keeping receipts easy. I'm glad they are thinking about making business owners' lives less annoying, but it has its flaws. For one, transactions usually take time to post to your account and your bookkeeping software. In other words, it wasn't in real-time. So even after you snap the picture, you have to remember to upload to your software later. Naturally, I never used this function. I was still trying to change my behavior without understanding how behaviors change.
So if you're keeping track of how many times I failed at keeping my receipts, here is a breakdown: there was one non-attempt that is technically a failure to start. Then there were the two failures to implement simple, easy-to-use software. Three fails.
Understand Your Behaviors and How You Build Habits
It wasn't until I started to understand how habits work that I came up with a solution that I use today. Here's the thing: if you want to change things about your life, you will most likely make those changes by merely quitting bad habits or forming good habits (or a combination of the two). It's that simple. We're just the results of all the things we do over time.
Makes sense, right? I also realized how much of our ideas of ourselves, our identities mattered when it came to trying to change our behavior. I wanted to be the person who had tidy bookkeeping and kept their receipts. My actions needed to match my identity. I had to build a habit of keeping my goddamn receipts. Sounds silly and easy and straightforward. But I hadn't thought about it from that perspective before.
Another thing I learned about building good habits is the easier they are to do, the easier it is to keep them. I know, I know - obvious, right? It's like, instead of saying, "I want to build a habit of running six miles a day," make it way more accessible than that. Try something like, "I want to build the habit of putting on my running shoes and walking around the block for 5 minutes." Then once you get that habit down, you can build on it.
So, with receipts, I realized that using a new app was not an easy enough habit to build. Not only did I have to learn how to use a new app, but I would also need to remember to use it. I needed to find a smaller, already existing habit that I could build on. The one app I use religiously, that I'm comfortable using is email. I look at emails on my phone the way smokers go outside for a cigarette. There is no forgetting about the email app on my phone, unfortunately.
So I hypothesized this: if I used email all the time, was there a way to use email to help me not suck at keeping my receipts. I had been using an entirely separate email to sign up for newsletters - because as someone who puts out a weekly newsletter - I have to subscribe to a lot of newsletters. And all the newsletters coming in at random times, all day long, into my regular work inbox was distracting me, making an email address that I dedicated to receiving newsletters changed my life.
The Paco's Papers Method
The insight I had was to create a new email address, something like pacospapers@thehellyeahgroup.com or hellyeahgroupreceipts@gmail.com, dedicated to keeping my receipts. So whenever I had a receipt, I would send a copy of the receipt or the invoice to my receipts email. For physical receipts, like from a meal with a colleague, I'd snap the photo of the itemized receipt at the restaurant and shoot it off to that email. In the subject, I'd write the name of the restaurant, who I was having the meal with, and the amount I spent. That way, I could search for any reference - date, amount, or vendor.
And if I get receipts emailed to me, I can forward them to my receipts email and change the subject line. Or I can have the receipts directly emailed to that email. The method seems easy, right? Maybe even too easy? Like it's so simple, how could it work? That's precisely why it's worked. I made it a natural habit because I'm using an app that I get paid to use. And I wanted to change my identity. And it worked. I am now the type of person who keeps organized receipts.
If you want to become a person who keeps organized receipts, which makes your other freelance friends envious of how much you've got your bookkeeping in order, go set up your Paco's Papers email right now. Go. I'll wait.
Test it to make sure it works.
And now you're off to the races. You can even give your bookkeeper access to your email account so they can see the receipts and code your transactions accordingly.
This method works well for freelancers that provide a service. It also works well as a database for operating expenses. If you run a business with a lot more moving parts, like a production company or creative agency, this might be too simple for the operation. But it could serve as one step in your business finances procedures.
Does this method have flaws? And also, why does this matter?
You bet your ass it does. When it comes to being as organized as possible, especially if you are going through an audit, this isn't the best method for keeping your receipts. The best approach is probably to use the receipt capture function within your bookkeeping software. But the Paco's Papers method is better than not keeping any receipts at all. If you don't keep any receipts at all and you have an audit, the auditor can potentially ask you to provide itemized receipts so they can understand the transaction. And being able to eyeball an itemized receipt will help the auditor determine how much of what you spent is a business expense.
If you're a freelancer or small business owner, reading this article, I think it's safe to assume that you want to be the type of person who isn't freaking out about their finances. You want to approach and manage them from a calm, cool, organized perspective. You can. All of this bullshit is teachable and learn-able. And this is just one piece of the whole puzzle-picture.