I should have figured this out years ago

Every year at this time, I pull out my file bulging with receipts for my real estate business to begin the tedious process of separating them into the IRS categories for Schedule C in piles strewn on the floor around my desk.

It dawned on me–how could it have taken so long?–that the pieces of paper were useful only for my calculations and in the dreaded event of an audit.  There had to be a better way.

Rather than toting up the numbers in various categories on a legal pad, I belatedly realized that entering the figures on an Excel spread sheet would make sense.  Lo and behold, so it did.  I finished the task in a couple of hours, and the computations were done when the last number was entered or even changed. Continue reading