Organizing bills and bank papers

[lucille]

I was going through old bills, payment slips and such last night. I currently keep a folder for each ongoing account we have and drop payments and bills into the front of the folder after it has been dealt with. This got me thinking that there might be better ways to manage, organize and process all those accounts you have for bills, loans, bank accounts and medical bills. So I am curious what other people do to stay organized.

My current strategy is to open mail hopefully twice a week, sometimes that ends up being every other week (yea bad). I am working on a sorting system to make dealing with opening mail a bit easier and less of a pain. Does anyone have a system for doing this that seems to work well? I thought it was a bit odd that there isn't some sort of definitive system for dealing with domestic finances, sort of like Fly Lady for bills.

I started working on a spreadsheet for our mortgage. The main reason being that our being that our bank keeps making mistakes. Catching and proving them would be easier with a detailed tracking. Do other people go this far? Is there a better way of monitoring these kinds of things rather than wasting time updating a spreadsheet?
I did try Quicken at one point and found it consumed more time than any benefit and it was too specific about how it wanted to deal with information. Adjusting something was a complete pain. So far using google spreadsheets and clearcheckbook have consumed less time and had more flexibility. Maybe I am missing a better solution?

Do other people file all of their documents? Do you put them in folders or a binder? Places I have worked filed bills in binders. Has anyone found that to help if you have to go back through old bills?

What about bill payments? Do you have a system for scheduling or remembering payments? What about other organization? Currently I keep them all in a vertical file and put post it notes on them for what day to pay each one. I have started putting notes in our google calendar for some as reminders. Others we have as recurring payments set to auto pay from our bank. Has anyone found better ways?

[gt0163c]

Here's what I do:

Open and sort mail each day when it comes in.
Bills to be paid or other similar things to be dealt with are put in a basket on the counter right next to where I deal with the mail.
Once a week I go through the basket and deal with anything that needs to be paid, filed or otherwise dealt with that week. If there's a bill/contribution that sits for a bit (like quarterly charitable contributions) I write the date (or at least the month) when I need to deal with it on the envelop and put it back in the basket. My checkbook and a pen lives in the basket too. Makes it easy to organize everything.

Once the bills have been paid, I file them in a plastic shoe box kept in the office. I discard any unneeded extra paper (like ads, extra blank pages that seem to always print out with my phone bill, etc) and then group the bills together by type. so, all the credit card bills go in one envelope, all the phone bills in another, etc. Generally I use the envelopes from the first bill of the year and just add to those envelopes. If all goes well, the bills are then organized by date as well.

I have some of my bills (phone/internet, electricity, gas) set-up to charge to my credit card. When I get those bills, I look over them to make sure that everything looks right and then file them. I get airline miles on my credit card and always pay off my balance each month, so this works well for me.

I pay as many of my bills on the web as I can. I use the same procedure as the few that I write a paper check for. (Once a week, save the statement, etc). I always make sure that I save the payment screen. I just print it as a PDF (easy to do on a Mac) and save it to the individual folder for that bill (one for each type of bill, same as my envelope system). I name the files the same thing, appending the date (year-month-day so that it's easy to sort) that I paid the bill on (or scheduled the payment in the case of things like my mortgage. For that one, I schedule the next payment as soon as I get the email that says that my current payment went through.).

I also keep my receipts using a similar envelope system. I organize those by month of purchase. So, one envelope per month. If I need to go back to reference a receipt or to return something, it's usually pretty quick and easy to find. All the envelopes go in a second shoe box that's kept with my bills shoe box. I also have a special envelope in that box for donations. Since I itemize deductions for my taxes, I need an accounting of the donations throughout the year. So, I put any receipts or other information about donations in that envelope. That makes it easier come tax time.

For me, the system works. It strikes a balance between highly organized but takes a lot of time to maintain and takes not time to maintain but is impossibly to find anything quickly.

[pidgeon92]

I keep my checkbooks balanced in Quicken.

I scan all of my bills and financial statements with my Fujitsu Scan Snap ($425, but I took it off as a small business expense), and archive everything as PDFs. Makes it so easy to make sure I have caught everything at the end of the year, and I make one CD of all receipts per year that then go to the accountant and then gets filed.

Small business income and expenses are recorded in an Access database.

Pay all bills either as autopay or via the bank's online bill pay. This is done daily as the bills arrive. Billpay gives me the option to choose which date to pay, so no need for me to remember which bill to pay which day. Since most bills are autopay, I only pay 3-4 bills per month anyway.

[jdp]

I simplified my life to where I get everything via email. My utility bills, my insurance papers, my eobs for health insurance/medical appts, etc. Things that couldn't be ebilled were things I do NOT get a bill for anyway (rent, YMCA monthly membership $).

When I get the ebill/ewhatever I just look at it, hit label "bills" and hit archive. If I need something later I just search my email.

To pay it all - use online banking (also get my statements via email), most payments are on autopay. Ones that fluctuate greatly I get ereminders to pay before due dates.

The only things I have to file at home are ds's kindergarten papers and I have an accordion file for those.

The only things I print are my car insurance proof and put them in the glove box.

[skeet]

I manage all my finances through excel. It is actually working out pretty well. Any charges, bills, etc are summed up through it. Also, I manage my budget this way as well since I list my weekly / monthly budget and then subtract from what I have currently spent. This lets me make sure I do not overspend and sometimes helps me use less than my budget!

[arkadofbabylon.org]

Like so many of you, I also use a spreadsheet to stay on top of my bills. It also helps me keep track of my net worth as it fluctuates up and down.

I've signed up for auto pay on every bill that I have (hurrah!) and I keep a small chart in the front of my checkbook that lists when all of the auto pay items are scheduled to come out of my bank account. When I get my paycheck, I debit all of the auto pay items immeadiately from my checkbook register and that way I never miss a bill payment or get overdrawn on my account.

[amyschiff]

I haven't created a spreadsheet yet, but I can definitely see that happening once I have a house and many more bills to pay.

The best thing I did was invest in a filing cabinet. I had started to get REALLY overwhelmed with the amount of papers just loosely floating around. I have hanging folders for things like utilities, medical bills, pay stubs and tax info, retail store CC's, bank statements, and other CC's. I pretty much pay all my bills online and when I do that I print out the receipt and file it in the appropriate place and staple it to the paper bill if I have one. It also makes things really easy to find later if you need to.

[sprettyman]

This may not help with all the physical paperwork, however I use Mint.com to track all of my spending and debts. I heard about it on here a while back and thought I would give it a try. It lets you connect to all of your accounts and will give you notices when you go over your set budget and when an upcoming bill is due. I really like that it automatically categorizes my spending so that I do not have to do it (saves time!) I'm not sure how it would work if you use cash a lot, but I have heard that you can specify where that cash went, I use my bank card all the time so dont normally have very much cash.

For all my paperwork, I have a fireproof/waterproof box that I keep the policies and yearly reports in then just a file cabinet for the copies of the bills and things that are easily replaceable.

[lucille]

I had an idea related to the filing I wanted to share. I have all of our bills in our large lateral file. I spend quite a bit of time trying to find the right one since they are all squeezed in together and you have to read the name on each one.
In place of the handwritten business name on the file folder tab I am going to cut out the company colored logo and name from the top of an old bill for each and use that to put in the name tab holder. It will make them easier to visually select when filing bills.

[gtdagenda]

I like Quicken.
About a month ago they released their online version, which is FREE.