Ask the Readers: How Do You Organize Your Account Information?

All me accounts have an online summary page (most establishments do now) that gives all the info I need about accounts such as interest rates, date established, and when things are due.
I then have a list of the usernames to each site. The passwords are all different based on the account but I log into each of them fairly regularly so I have no trouble remembering the password.
For most of my info I use Mint.com though. It tracks all my accounts and I can find most of the information I use regularly on Mint. For more in depth info I go to each online summary.

I also have a KISS method.

My desk has two drawers.

I put all the debits in the left drawer…

In my increasingly large budget/finanace excel workbook, I have the names/passwords to my various bill payment accounts saved in hidden columns (the excel workbook is also locked for viewing, so you have to know a password to get into that…kind of counter intuitive but whatever). Most of my big accounts I know my passwords for.

I’ve been digging Mint.com lately. It’s missing a few things, like manual transaction entry. Quicken Online does similar, has manual entry, but isn’t as well polished.

I would agree that using a money software or online app is a great way to manage all of your accounts in one place which offers you a snapshot.
One idea that may help you is an idea from Jim@Bargaineering.
http://www.bargaineering.com/articles/financial-network-map.html
Once you map out everything you have you can easily see how things are connected and then decide your appropriate actions for simplifying if you need.
I liked the map idea. It helped me remember why I set up accounts long ago and made it clear which accounts I could do without.
Finally, make a cheat sheet for yourself or spouse that lists where the accounts are and how to access them.

I use GNUCash. I am a big fan of the free software and works perfectly for my needs.

Hey JD – I know you’re a tech geek, so you should check out Evernote. While it’s not specifically designed for financial materials, it keeps everything in sync across multiple computers, and even an iPhone. It’s what I use for all of my important stuff, and it could be helpful in this situation.

Budgeting:
YNAB appears to be my perfect solution for tracking spending and budgeting. I have tried Quicken and MS Money but were too involved and cumbersome (I would always be about 3 months behind). I used Pear budget for a while and really liked the simplicity of it, but it failed the test of time for me. I thought Mint.com was the answer to my prayers, but then I found that it wasnt really useful to me (anyone else feel this way?). Also I switched from credit to cash so it doesnt really help with tracking expenses if you are on a cash based system.

I guess I always “knew” I needed to be organized with my finances, but never really asked myself WHY. Now that I am clear of my needs, I found YNAB to be perfect (only started in December, so will see if it last for me, but I feel like it will – I actually enjoy using it rather than dread it).

Passwords: I use a .txt file to record most of them and have a master password on my firefox. Not the best security but its simple.

Banking and Investing: Yes! KISS! This is what I am working towards. Right now my money is all over the place.
Ideally:
1 expense (checking) account
1 high-interest savings account
1 taxable investment account
1 roth
1 current 401k

Lastly I just wanted to say thanks for the the tip on the Financial Planning Organizer Kit. It looks well worth the investment to have peace of mind that the important papers are where they should be.

I, too, check my accounts almost every day. I have all of my personal financial info on an Excel spreadsheet, with account numbers, contact numbers, and web addresses. The income and expenses are time phased by week, and I’ve been keeping this up for about 14 years. It’s simple, and I like having all of my history in one place.

Stuff I’m always forgetting: I have a separate address book where I have account numbers and passwords (in code like Ivan, #61). I’m more afraid of systems crashing and people hacking other sites than of people breaking into my house, so that’s why I go with a hard copy (somewhat camouflaged). If automatic deposit or withdrawals are involved, I note that and the usual date. For credit cards, I enter the usual due date. My significant other knows where this is.

Stuff I have to do in a timely manner: I take care of some things with automatic deposits (paycheck into savings account) and withdrawals (mortgage, Netflix). And at the end of every month I double check that I have paid my three utilities bills (electricity/water, gas, and phone) and my two credit cards.

Stuff I have to store: Bills go in envelopes in a shoebox until the end of the year when I start a new envelope. So do my will, pay stubs and receipts for donations. Receipts from buying stuff go in a separate envelope for each month. User manuals (stapled to the receipt) go in a box in my closet. Investment records go in a file cabinet. Income tax stuff goes in the booklet and is stacked in my closet. My significant other sort of knows where these things are.

Financial planning stuff: I keep track not only of checks written but also automatic deposits and withdrawals in my checkbook register. I also use some of the other columns to keep track of credit card spending (is if all the money is coming out of the checking account, which it will). Then at the beginning of every month I enter various totals in a spreadsheet. For example, I keep track of how my retirement accounts are doing and how much is available in my different savings categories. (I do this right after my direct deposits and automated stock purchases because then I get to see at least some of the numbers going up!)

As far as how to get thorough—I wouldn’t have thought of using the credit report as way to remind yourself of all your accounts—that’s cool. Another idea is just to record all your automatic deposits and withdrawals (see bank statements) and then keeping adding more whenever new statements arrive. After one month, you should have most things; after 1 year you should have everything.

As for what to record for each of these, it’s hard to say. I used to have a big notebook with everything, but it was too hard to maintain. Now I figure that if I ever need to change my address or something, I’ll go to my financial address book and just check every single website to see if they’re keeping track of my address. But you could go to each website, log on, and look up your preferences.

As for letting someone else into your accounts, you can add a second user to a credit card without putting it in their name. I’d check directly with other financial institutions for what options are available.

A power of attorney is also good but not as perfect as one might hope (hard to actually use sometimes). And of course if you tell someone your userID and password, they can pretend to be you online at least. You’d only want to do things with someone you trust. If there’s some reason other than maintaining your own credit record why you don’t want their name on the account, you might also not want them to have access.

While that binder does look nice, why on EARTH does it use Comic Sans? Bllaaaaaaahhh!

If you are going the binder route, you may be interested in Life.doc by Buttoned Up. I’ve seen these binders in various places (Target, Barnes & Noble, Franklin Covey).

I didn’t see anyone mention it but I use LastPass. This solves several problems:
-Remembering passwords
-Sharing access to password protected sites but not the password itself
-Creating strong passwords
-Having access to it at anytime

It’s a great program and I’ve been looking for something that does what this does for a very long time.

I’m a big fan of paperless….can’t stand having it around, storing it, finding what you need, etc. If I can’t download it from the bank, CC company, insurance co, etc for archival purposes, I scan it in.

Those archives are maintained both in a TrueCrypt encrypted volume stored on a local backup drive & securely in the cloud (see DropBox). For good measure, I also copy it all to a thumb drive & swap those out at the bank safety-deposit box periodically with a note telling generally how to access & then the important people know the master password.

I also put a lot of data into Evernote (more every day) which can copy a secure local DB to whatever machine it is used from & that also offers encryption for sensitive info as needed. I really can’t say enough good things about EverNote so try it if you haven’t already.

Mint is also a tool I use a great deal now since Quicken insists on trying to charge me $80 every 3 years or so in order to continue functioning. With the improvements in Mint, plus the fact that you can export out everything to a
spreadsheet, it’s a no-brainer. The only exception is that I do keep all stock transactions broken out into a simple bought/sold spreadsheet for use at tax time. That together with Mint & the actual statements from the financial firm (paperless again) provides all you need.

I know it all sounds very geek, and of course there are exceptions, but it makes for almost zero paper to maintain, everything you need is instantly accessible from almost anywhere, and I’m fairly certain that one of my relatives could insert a thumb drive & type a password in order to get to all the details in a critical situation.

I use password wallet to store secure account pins, etc.

You might also like to try evernote – it’s pretty cool.

ACCOUNT ORGANIZATION
I organize my account information by having a simple Word document that gives details about each account and what my executor would need to know if I were ill or dead. The pertinent people have a copy of this document.

I also keep paper files with one year of bills except for things that you should keep longer. Every account has its own folder.

TRACKING CASH FLOW
I track cash flow with a zero-sum budget on paper every month (actually with every paycheck, so twice a month.) I have a list of all expenses that need to be paid and all amounts that need to go into savings. I don’t really bother to keep a record of each budget, since they all pretty much look the same. I have a single “master budget” in a Word document that I use to record all the regular expenses I need to keep track of. When one of those changes I modify the master budget. (For example, I know what my rent is every month and when it is due, and which paycheck to take it out of (my second paycheck of the month) to ensure I’ve got the rent in my account on the 1st. It’s auto-deducted from my account on the 2nd. This amount only changes 1x a year.)

A copy of the master budget resides with my account information, but it’s simple enough that I carry the details in my head.

The remainder is allocated between additional savings and paying bills, with a $100 cushion unallocated until the next paycheck (that $100 will be factored into the next zero-sum budget, and then a new $100 cushion is left unallocated. The net effect is I always have an unallocated $100 in my checking account, and plenty to transfer in from savings if needed.)
Then, I do all my bill paying online and rely on reconciling my checking account and credit card statements to my receipts. I don’t keep a separate register. I just monitor those two accounts diligently and keep a backup of statements in my files.

This works since I don’t write checks unless it’s the only possible way to pay something — I either charge it to a single credit card that gets paid in full twice a month, or pay in cash. Therefore transactions in and out of my checking are kept to a bare minimum.

My system is a combination of technology and common sense. I use these concepts with my clients here in the Richmond, Va., area and find it helps keep things organized. And I’ll say to you what I say to them: “Be flexible with what I suggest, and apply it to the way you do things.”

Quick Details on QuickBooks
I use QuickBooks Pro. It is well-seasoned software for financial management. This database is designed to store all the static data, such as account numbers, addresses, and contact names, and has space for notes where you can keep information such as passwords or serial numbers. QuickBooks is flexible enough to manage financial details down to the date, invoice number, and penny, which is required in a business environment. But it is also forgiving for household finances, where there may be an account called “Mad Money” that doesn’t require such stringent tracking. And, it has a budgeting feature that will fill in a new year’s budget with last year’s numbers, providing a head start on this annual planning process. QuickBooks is a good product that can pull together a bunch of what I call “financial fragments.”

Easy Computer Backup
There is a file folder in my computer under My Documents for the QuickBooks file and paperless document pdf records. I use two computers but keep these working files on my USB thumb drive, allowing access to my finances and records on either machine. It is set to backup the file to the computer hard drive each time it is closed. And because I use two machines, this provides effortless backup to two locations. Plus, each machine is then independently backed up on a schedule.

Everything In Its Place
My paper files are organized similar to the layouts of an Income Statement and Balance Sheet. Any documents that have to do with income or expenses, like on the Income Statement, are filed by date, not alphabetically. This includes items such as the power bill, the phone bill, most debit or credit card receipts, food, gas, supplies, etc. I keep a box in the back of my file drawer and just throw such documents in as I am finished with them. That way, January documents wind up on the bottom and, as time passes, December’s documents will be on top of the stack. To look something up, I check out QuickBooks first, which is usually as far as I need to go. But if I need to find the physical piece of paper, then I know the date from the computer, and can find it easily in the stack. At the end of the year, I archive the box into storage and put an empty one in its place. A business may use 10 boxes or more in a year, whereas one box is usually sufficient for a year of household finance records.
Documents that affect the Balance Sheet are usually considered permanent files and don’t get boxed up and archived at year’s end. Instead, I label a file jacket for my assets and inside have a file for my bank accounts, real estate, and investments. There is the file jacket labeled “Liability.” This is the place to keep files on my credit card account and loans (although the monthly statements for such items—if you haven’t gone to paperless statements—are still filed by date after they are reconciled and sent to the attic at year’s end).
I have a file jacket labeled insurance and keep a folder with my auto, life, & health insurance policies. And a file jacket labeled taxes with a copy of each year’s tax returns there.

Safe and Sound
I keep one extra file jacket in my permanent files called “Safety Deposit Box.” This holds a copy of everything in my bank box, as well as the key. When I see the annual bill for the safety deposit box, it triggers me to review the contents and make any necessary changes. That means an annual review of my will, life insurance, and other insurance policies, as well.

Powered By Common Sense
Common sense makes this system work well. First and foremost, be consistent. Recognize redundant items (such as monthly bills from the same company) and handle these items the same way every time. QuickBooks has a feature that lets you memorize transactions to be entered again automatically on scheduled dates. Also, use the note section in QuickBooks to put good memos on transactions so you’ll remember relevant circumstances and information later. Another rule to live by: reconcile statements. Using QuickBooks, this should only take a few minutes each month and pays major dividends when you find discrepancies and resolve them in a timely manner. If you purchase an asset, take the time to determine basis when you enter the transaction. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done tax returns for people who don’t know the basis of the stock they’ve sold.

I’ve tried to outline here a system that works well for me. I have truly enjoyed reading everyone else’s responses and look forward to your future article.

Sincerely, Earl Kelly, Consultant, Accountant, QuickBooks Pro Advisor, Business owner, Practicing in the Richmond, Va area.

sad…just went to the website and it’s no longer there…