Last October - October 26, 2016 post I posted on the usefulness of having a printer and a scanner to help one get organized and keep papers organized. Here’s an additional thought on that subject.
I am good - really good - at keeping track of bills to pay and paid bills, after all, I am an accountant. I have a paid bills file next to my desk - one of those large wallet things with sections in it. When I pay a bill I post it in my Quickbooks program, mark it paid, attach any charge slips, etc and then file it in the appropriate section of the paid bills file. I generally have a section for each credit card and type of bill. The credit card we use most often actually has two sections - bills paid January through June and bills paid July through December as there are a lot of charge card slips. The sections for taxes have folder in them to further divide the bills. I will not go into all of the sections right now as I am already digressing too much.
Early in January I pull out all of the paid bills from the year before. Other than tax related bills, the bills are put into an old manila folder box which is redated with a black marker for the year of the bills in it. These bills will sit in this box until around May when I go through my other files for last year, add the paid bills, tax returns, etc and box them up in a box in the top of my office closet. I pul out the oldest box up there - when I do this for last year I will be pulling out the 2007 box - basically shred what is in the box, relabel the box with the new year and store it all in the box, which is returned to the top of the closet.
The tax related bills when pulled in January for the prior year I combine them all in one folder which will generally not be used until towards the end of the following year and put them where I will be putting clients’s tax information. The remainder of the tax info folders, now empty, go back in the paid bills file.
Okay, that is the background of my paid bills.
We have a VERY small RV. We have a contract from a company for road service for the RV in case it breaks down, has a flat tire, etc. Sort of like the Automobile Association of America (of Canada, etc.), but for RVs. (Yes, these companies often also cover one’s cars and AAA will cover some RV problems but one will not have a specialist in RVs come if one calls AAA.)
When paying bills late last Friday (after business hours anywhere in the lower 48) I noticed that I have the renewal for this RV road service policy is due April 25. I double checked that I did not have the bill and then did what any wife would do - I asked my husband if “we” (meaning he) has an online account for the company. He did.
He attempted to sign in and was told that since the account was expired more than 90 days ago, he no longer had an account. He tried to sign in with their alternate method, in case he made a mistake in his sign in info. This required the RV manufacturer’s name from a list and the RV’s VIN number. The list of RV manufacturers was rather short and our RV was not on the list. Husband starts to get upset.
As usual his first reaction is that I did not do something I should have done - or did it wrong. “Are you sure you paid the bill last year?” I told him I did and would get the paid bill for him. I climbed up and took down the box of last year’s paid bills. I went through all of the bills - I could not find it. So - what do we all do? I went through them again. No paid bill.
Perhaps it was with the tax related papers? The RV is not tax related, but our car and van are partially so and I tend to keep the car related bills together. No, not there - again I checked twice.
I looked the payment up in Quickbooks Yes! I did pay it - on March 31 and it cleared the bank on April 7 last year. I found the copy of the canceled check in with the bank statement. (This was in the drawer in the file cabinet for personal items - having the info from Quickbooks made it easy and, well, quick to find.) Proof I paid it and it was not my fault.
But a copy of the bill? Then I remembered. Last year I scanned in one of each type of bill to the computer with the idea that if something happened to me, husband could bring up the scanned copy of a bill of that type and see what I did when I paid it. (The bill is scanned in, and then the items I send - check, stub, envelope - are scanned on the last page of the file.) So there was a scanned copy of the bill in that file. I printed out the first page of the bill - showing all the info needed and set it aside to telephone the company on Monday.
Thinking about this over the weekend I decided two things. First, I would create a separate folder in the paid bills, tax related sections for all car related items. Second, it was so convenient to pull up the copy of the missing bill that I will scan in all paid bills in the future. Understand, I will still keep the hard copy as they have the assorted credit card slips and other supporting papers attached to them and I will not scan in all these attachments, but I will scan in the bills themselves for quick and easy reference if needed. I plan to set up a folder for “paid bills” with 12 folders in it - one for each month - and label the scan of each bill with the check number which paid it. I hope this will make it easier in the future to quickly find bills for reference.
Oh, in case you are wondering - I telephoned this past Monday and had a terribly odd conversation with an employee of the company. He first was confused as our plan ended April 25, 2016 - huh? I told him that I had our canceled check for the year ending April 25, 2017,which cleared our bank on April 7, 2016. (See how useful the payment info is.) “Oh, yes. There is an error, I see the payment. I’ll update the computer. I then asked him if this means that we have had no coverage for the past year - despite paying for it. He, of course said no. When I pushed him as it what would have happened if we needed service - “Service would have called us and we would have found the error and fixed it.” What if I needed the help, say last Friday - they keep business hours in the office? “Oh, you would have just paid for the service call and we would have reimbursed you.” The fact that I would not have known who to call and would have needed to have money to pay them for the tow, well that did not make sense to him. He wanted me to renew by credit card over the phone. “Do you even still deal with my brand of RV, since it is not on your list of RV companies?” Of course they do, just that if one gets a new policy it has to come through the RV company - which makes no sense as to why the company is not on their alternate ID for sign in list. I asked him to mail us a bill to pay.
He seemed a little too quick and pat with the answers and husband went looking on the Internet, Yes, this has happened to a number of people. Our RV company has it’s own road service company now - so they would not be signing us up with them. In addition they have dropped the inexpensive basic policy we had for one which is more than three times as much cost. So after all this we are looking for a different company - but at least I will be able to find the paid bills as we go forward as they will be scanned into the computer.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
I feel odd about this thought it is different than my usual posts for same and it is not intended to be religious or political, although it is a bit of both, but I intend it to be more of a any person to any person idea.
As the Jewish people celebrate Passover and the Christians celebrate Good Friday and Easter this week, please take to heart the idea of all of us being siblings. Be a little nicer to people in your daily life - strangers as well as those you know.
Say please and thank you a bit more - even in situations where you might not normally think to do so. Hold the door open for someone - even if they capable of doing so on their own. Help a mother who is juggling child, purse and lunch tray as she tries to move a high chair. Smile at someone who looks a bit upset - it is an amazing feeling when one does this and the other person smiles back and then, at least, seems a little less upset - a bond between two people of only seconds. (These are all things I have done during the past week - and try to do when I can.)
Let us - even those not of a religion celebrating these holidays - be a bit more neighborly to those we see during the day. Not only will the other person feel better, it is amazing how long the memory of the smile from a stranger lasts - no matter which of us initiated it.
Our world is in a state today that I, for one, find scary. Perhaps the more of us who show small kindnesses to others, the better the world can be.
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