3 Steps to Automating Your Receipt Organization in Real Estate (And an EPIC Bonus Section...)

Last week I posted about how I have integrated Evernote into my real estate business and personal life to organize and automate some functions. This makes my wife happier, my CPA happier, my business partners happier, you get the drift!

This week I’m going to give you a detailed hack that any real estate investor can use, no matter what type of real estate investor you are. Heck, even if you haven’t gotten started and visit Home Depot on a regular basis you can use this hack.

Before we get started I want to let you know I HATE RECEIPTS! You have to keep them for refunds, tax purposes, reimbursements, etc. But they are the absolute worse thing to keep track of and organize.

How to Automate Your Receipt Organization

That is why I wanted to show you the hack I’ve come up with in terms of making my receipt tracking hassle free. Let’s get into it!

Step #1

When you buy something at HomeDepot get them to just email your receipt. If you don’t use Home Depot, when you get the receipt, immediately have them email it to your business email.

Step #2

Hopefully you use Gmail, (and if you don’t start!). Set-up a filter for emails from Home Depot receipts.

Step #3

If you are an Evernote power user like I am, you can have the filter forward them to your evernote email and to a receipt folder.

If you aren’t, no worries, just filter them into a receipts folder. This way if a contractor, CPA or your spouse has questions about a receipt.

This is how you do it in Evernote:

1. Select a destination notebook for your email by adding @[notebook name] to the end of the subject line.

2. Add tags to your note by typing #[tag name] at the end of the subject line. This feature works with existing tags in your account.

3. To designate a destination notebook and add tags, be sure to list the notebook name before the tags.

An example subject:

Fwd: Receipt from Home Depot @Receipt #taxes #realestate #businesspartnership1

So there you go with the steps above you can automate all your receipts, expenses, etc.

BONUS SECTION!!!!

If you really want to automate your real estate investing and you get a ton of phone calls, from sellers, tennants, contractors, buyers, et cetera, use this strategy:

1. Get an account at IFTTT.com

2. Get a Google Voice number

3. Get an Evernote account – if you don’t already have one.

4. Set-up the trigger in IFTTT between Google Voice and Evernote.

This way you have a data stored behind every call. The best part of this strategy is when your business grows enough to support an assistant it is very easy to integrate an assistant and their calls using this strategy.

Summary

If you have any questions about the above strategies let me know in the comments. Also, feel free to share any time-saving hacks of your own!

Be sure to leave your comments below!

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.