How to Get and Organize Electronic Receipts

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Preparing for Electronic Receipts

Setting up an Organization System for Receipts on your Computer

I find it useful to collect electronic receipts whenever I make a purchase, rather than waiting until it’s time to submit them, but you might prefer to collect them monthly. Regardless of your process, organization of the receipts is important.

I store electronic receipts on my computer in a folder structure that looks like this:

As I collect receipts, I put them in the “To Submit” subfolder. When I submit a receipt, I move it to the “Done” folder for the month. If you prefer not to move files between folders as you submit them, another option is to change the file name of the receipt to include “done” (e.g. Corbrook_45_done) and keep everything in one folder. This may seem like over-kill, but I find that I have significantly more receipts in this time of COVID, and that, combined with the change of getting interrupted frequently, led me to adopt this system.

The key thing is to capture receipts as you go rather than trying to collect everything at the end of the month.

With COVID-allowable expenses such as internet costs or streaming service subscriptions that are typically paid automatically at a specific day per month, you might consider creating a “placeholder” text file for each and copying it into each month’s folder, as a reminder. So, for you example, you might have, in your “To Submit” folder, with names like Internet, iTunes, Netflix, Apple TV, etc.

The files would be empty, they’re just there to remind you to track down a receipt and you can delete them when you have the actual receipt.

Setting up a Naming Convention for Receipts

The names of the electronic receipts provided by organizations vary and are sometimes not particularly descriptive. Where possible, I rename files to make them easier to recognize. In particular, I try to Include as much identifying information in the file name as possible, including the name of the program, the dollar value, and the date range (all of this information will be required when you do your submission). For example, Corbrook_March 6_12_45 or Worker_March1_20_250.

The time it takes to do this is more than compensated for in the time it saves me when doing a submission.

Getting Electronic Receipts

Below are some suggestions for ways to get electronic versions of receipts, in no particular order. Note that My Direct Plan supports pdf, jpg, jpeg, gif, tiff, and png files, and presumably other systems such as eClaims do the same. If the site you are uploading receipts to imposes size limitations for a month’s submission and you submit a lot of receipts at a time, you might want to use .jpg format, which is relatively small.

Getting Electronic Receipts Directly

Your service provider might send you electronic versions of receipts directly. Support workers may also provide you with electronic receipts.

For Programs Registered for In My Community Hub

1. 1. From the home screen of My Community Hub, click Receipts. You see a list of all available receipts.

2. 2. Click on a receipt number to display the receipt on your screen.

3. 3. Click on Printer Friendly Version to display the receipt in a separate window in a form that is suitable for printing.

4. 4.Click Save and save the file in a graphic file format.

For Netflix:

1. 1. Open Netflix.

2. 2. Click the down arrow adjacent to your name in the top right corner, then click Account.

3. 3. Click Billing Details.

4. 4. Click on a date. The bill opens in a new tab: use one of the methods described earlier to capture it electronically.

For iTunes

I get a monthly receipt emailed to me and I print it to a graphic file (more on this later) and save it. The process for viewing your account details in iTunes requires setting up two-factor authentication, which I figured was more effort than it was worth for an $11 a month expense, but we’re not purchasing any items, just paying for the streaming service.

For Disney+:

1. 1. Hover the mouse pointer over the icon representing your login (top right corner) and click Account.

2. 2.Click Payment History.

3. You see a list of monthly invoices.

3. 4. Click on the date of the invoice. The invoice is shown in a pop-up window, which includes a Print button.

4. 5. Click Print and choose the printer destination (or save as PDF.

Producing Electronic Receipts from Paper Versions

Take a Photograph

Place the receipt on a plain white sheet of paper and take a photo of it with your phone. I find this difficult to do from above, so I sometimes use sticky tac to attach the receipt to the paper and then use a magnet to attach it to the fridge so I’m taking the picture face-on, as it were. Email the picture to yourself, then save it to the appropriate folder.

Scan the Receipt

Many home printers include a scanning feature. Be sure to save the scanned image to the appropriate folder.

Create a PDF Version Using a PDF Printer Driver

If you find you can’t save an electronic file in PDF format, add a PDF printer to your computer and then print the online receipt to that printer. There a bunch available, such as Bullzip (https://www.bullzip.com/products/pdf/info.php) and Cute PDF (https://www.cutepdf.com/products/cutepdf/writer.asp). As with any software, make sure it’s legitimate before downloading it. Once you have one of these drivers installed, when you click “print” you can print to a PDF file, which you can then save to the appropriate folder.

Use ALT+Printscreen

Display the receipt on your screen, then press the ALT key and the PrintScreen key simultaneously. This copies whatever is on the screen to your clipboard. Open another application, such as a graphics program or even Word, then press CTRL_V (paste). That pastes the image into the application. Save the file you pasted the image into with an informative file name, and save it to the appropriate folder.

Use a Graphics Tool

There are many of them out there, including antiques like Microsoft Paint. Windows 10 has a built-in “snipping” tool that’s pretty easy to use: just run it, click New, then drag the cursor over the text you want to save as a graphic, then click Save and save the file to the appropriate folder in one of the allowed file formats.