ShareThis1 |
I will do my bookkeeping chores whenever there is a new receipt. Every day I will enter any receipts into my Excel table. |
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There will be no more receipt pile in my inbox. I will be able to do my VAT tax computation/submission for the IRS any time. |
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There is no done state to this expepriment, since receipts will keep flowing in. But I could maybe call it done if I feel much better about my taxes after 3 months of abiding by this new routine. |
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I will allow myself to pile up receipts during the day so I don´t need to start Excel for each and every one. Other than that the enjoyment will come from the feeling of satisfaction that there is no growing pile in my inbox. This will be a very relieving sight, I hope ;-) |
Created Aug 22, 2010
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Comments & Observations
James Bishop Good luck! Reading about your experiment gives me a good chance to procrastinate. Right now I'm catching up on 12 weeks of bookkeeping...and not enjoying it.
Aug 22, 2010
Ralf Westphal I empathize with you, James. Your situation sounds like mine - up to now. That´s why I´m switching the mode.
Aug 22, 2010
Matthew Cornell I use something similar, and it was a major improvement in efficiency, and made reconciling a snap. During the week I collect my receipts in a holding folder at home. Every Monday I process each one and enter it into my checkbook program along with its category and memo. When my statement for the month comes, it's just a five minute process to reconcile. That is unless there's a mistake. Incremental works great for this application. Good experiment.
Aug 24, 2010
Ralf Westphal Yeah, sounds like how I´m doing it now. But a week for me is too long. Then I´d likely to leave the receipts in the folder for a month or two... No, I need to hack them in every day. But this period sure can be different for everyone.
Aug 24, 2010
Ralf Westphal Need to force myself a bit to enter a couple of receipts. It´s already late. I wanna go to bed. But, no, I must not leave them sitting in my inbox longer than a day.
Aug 25, 2010
Ralf Westphal I feel better. It just took me a minute to enter the receipts.
Aug 25, 2010
James Bishop It's interesting that something that takes a couple of minutes gives you a real feeling of relief and/or achievement. My guess is if you're still entering receipts every day in a year's time you will still be feeling that sense of achievement immediately afterwards. Perhaps it's just the nature of bookkeeping!
Aug 25, 2010
Matthew Cornell I bet the habit kicks in pretty soon, especially when you continue to feel the relief, as James mentions.
Aug 25, 2010
Ralf Westphal @James: I´d say the relief is not proportional to the time an action takes but to its perceived effect.
Aug 25, 2010
Ralf Westphal I have to admit I had started this experiment a couple of weeks before I entered it here at Edison. I did not want to cheat by doing that, though. It just seemed a topic appropriate for an experiment. And had I known Edison back then, I´d have started with it right away.
Since I have done my bookkeeping in the described way for some time now, I call the experiment complete. The outcome is positive. I´ll continue in this mode.
Aug 31, 2010
Matthew Cornell Congratulations, Ralf! And no, it's not cheating to create an experiment after it's done. It allows us to learn from your work. Thanks for being here on edison.
Aug 31, 2010