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It's no secret that keeping track of your finances can be a total headache. Although most documents, such as bank statements, are kept online these days, it can still be overwhelming to decide how to organize your files, and more importantly, how long to hang onto things.
When it comes to bank statements in particular, you're probably curious as to just how long to keep them in your filing cabinet, or whether you can simply rely on a digital copy. Well, according to Roshawna Novellus, CEO and founder of EnrichHER.com (a company aimed at giving women financial advice and helping them build businesses) all bank statements should be kept online where they're easily accessible for years to come.
“All bank statements should be kept electronically for as long as you can be audited,” Novellus tells Woman's Day. “Now with scanning and services like Dropbox, it's not really a huge task to keep documents for a longer period of time.”
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In other words, the longer you can keep bank statements, the more organized you’ll be. Although you most likely won’t need current bank statements 15 or 20 years from now, you really never know, so it's better to be safe than sorry.
Organizing like a pro means being methodical.
Curious how a professional keeps their own bank statements organized? Novellus says she has a digital filing system and methodically adds her bank statements to it every month.
“Every month I either download the PDF of each statement or use my scanner to add each statement to the correct folder on my computer,” Novellus says. “Not only can these be used for tax purposes, but you can learn from your own financial trends, decision making, and have reminders for the future.”
Even if you’re not quite sure how you're going to use the organized statements yet, just having them filed in a way that makes them easy to access (think by month, year, etc.) will make your life a lot easier in the future if and when you decide to do some financial analysis.
As for other organization tips, Novellus suggests organizing financial statements by the name of the bank or organization they are associated with.
“Everyone should create a new folder for each organization such as Chase or Wells Fargo," Novellus says. "If you have multiple accounts under the institution, create a different folder for your Home Equity Line versus your credit card. Next when you label each document use year-date. This way the folder is automatically organized by the date of the document.”
The bottom line.
Keeping bank statements for as long as is possible is best practice — and is made a lot easier by electronic apps and banking services. As for what you can do to make the most of those bank statements, it seems the key is organization and labeling. Just remember: The more you know about your finances (and the easier that information is to access quickly), the better off you’ll be.
