How to Organize your Bills and Be Compliant

It is important to keep your obligations taken care on a timely manner. If you do not have an assistant, you will need a system to keep things in order. Today, there are many apps that can help you deal with many demands that life brings on a daily basis. I am sharing with you a primitive system I use to deal with my own bookkeeping and it works for me.

1) Open all mail at least once a week – When I get my bills, I check the due date, write outside the envelope the due date and organize on a pile of accounts payable based on the due date from the earlier to the latest.

2) Choose a date to pay your bills – Every Friday I pay my bills. If I happen to have a commitment on Friday, I pay it all on Thursday. I go on the designated area and choose all bills that are due within the next 7 business days. Why? The accounts take at least 2 business days to be updated. If I pay it on Friday for something that is due on Monday, the payment may not be on time.

3) For business – I would recommend exactly the same system. You will enjoy peace of mind by following this simple system and avoid unnecessary cost such as penalties and interest. If you adopted making payments by using online banking, then you can follow step 2. Otherwise, write your cheque and mail it with the corresponding pay stub the vendor provides you with.

4) Remember no invoice = no payment – Do not send payments till you have an actual invoice. Do not rely on emails or verbal conversations. In case of an audit, if you do not keep compliant documentation, you will lose the claim.

5) HST: pay or not to pay – If the invoice has no HST number, refuse to pay it. If a vendor is charging you HST and he or she did not add the HST number, you are not obliged to pay it. To verify if an HST number is valid or not, check it by going to the CRA website. http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/esrvc-srvce/tx/bsnss/gsthstrgstry/trms-eng.html

Follow these 5 steps and say goodbye to late payments and extra unnecessary costs.

“Reduce risks, pay on time, be efficient and save money and time. “ Renata Magalhaes