Audit-Proof Your Taxes with Evernote
March 24 2025 | Issue 36 | Link to this issue | Subscribe
Hi Reader –
In the first two parts of this series, I shared how Evernote transformed my tax season and how I structured my financial dashboard to make tax time simple.
Today, I'm diving into the practical steps that make my tax deductions fully defendable: using Evernote to organize 100% of my receipts. It's a huge part of my "practically paperless" lifestyle and a great way to use Evernote.
Because here's the truth about taxes: No receipt = No deduction
If the IRS (or any tax authority) ever questions an expense and you can't produce documentation, that deduction vanishes.
And, paper fades, takes up space, and is easy to lose.
A receipt saved in a random folder — or worse, lost in an overflowing email inbox — won’t help you when you need it. As we’ve seen for victims of wildfires, hurricanes, and tornadoes, even well-maintained paper records are at risk of destruction.
This is why every receipt in my world goes into Evernote, where a digital copy can be organized, stored, and retrieved, whenever (and wherever) needed.
Why Taxes Are Perfect for Going Paperless
If there's one process that drives a ton of paper, it's taxes. From receipts to forms, we're gathering documents that accumulate over an entire year from dozens of sources.
A receipt here, a refund or reassessment there — before you know it, you have piles of paper of various sizes accumulating throughout your home — your office, on the kitchen counter, in your wallet, photos on your phone, email — it’s a lot.
How would it feel to know that you can find any receipt from anywhere? Even if you need a receipt from five years ago while you’re sipping a double espresso in Paris and only have your mobile device with you. The comfort of logging into Evernote and seeing a tidy list of business receipts, grouped by tax year, clearly labeled and identifiable — that feeling is freeing.
This isn’t a fantasy; this is my reality. And the reassurance it brings me is a milestone in my business — alleviating the stress and concern of an audit.
My Practically Paperless Receipt System
1. Every receipt and bill goes into Evernote. No exceptions.
If you can’t prove the expense, you can’t write it off.
The moment I receive a receipt, it goes into Evernote.
For paper receipts: I scan them using the built in Evernote camera on my phone.
For digital receipts and statements: I forward emails directly to my Evernote email address or clip them using Web Clipper.
For bills received in the mail: I scan them to Evernote using my desktop scanner and use an Evernote sync folder to automatically save them to Evernote.
2. Title & File
Every captured receipt gets a simple note title assigned to it ("Title") and then moved to the proper notebook ("File").
Every receipt I capture gets titled and filed. If you aren't doing this, I'm betting you don't consider your account organized. The Title & File method is essential for maintaining an organized account across all use cases. For receipts...it's very simple making it a good use case to develop the habit with.
Title: Stick to a simple naming convention for your note title.
My format is: MM/DD/YY
For example: 03/21/25 Southwest Airlines
File: Then, the receipt gets filed in one of two dedicated notebooks (I create these each year):
2025 Receipts - Business (for tax deductions)
2025 Receipts - Personal (for my records and tax-related personal expenses)
🔥 Tip: Use the "Move" keyboard shortcut to speed up the process of filing the note.
This process makes receipts easy to skim, search, and retrieve, whether I’m reviewing last quarter’s expenses or pulling up a receipt from five years ago.
This means if my CPA asks, “What was this expense from May?” — I can pull it up right away. If an auditor questions a deduction, I have everything documented and ready to go.
My receipt archive in Evernote
Start Now. Don’t Wait Until Next Tax Season.
The biggest mistake I see holding people up alleviating tax stress? Delaying getting started and saying "I'll get organized next year.”
Waiting means receipts go missing, deductions get lost, and tax time becomes a headache again...and again...and again.
If you want an audit-proof system that keeps your financial records secure, searchable, and stress-free, start today. You don't have to start Jan 1, or have it all figured out to begin.
Simply:
create the two notebooks I list above, and
start capturing your receipts in Evernote
It's easy.
Want support in building an Evernote-centric financial system that eliminates tax-time stress? Inside the Academy, I’ll show you how to digitize and organize receipts, set up an audit-proof workflow, and stay on top of tax season year-round.
Here’s to making tax time simple, organized, and stress-free.
Stacey
PS: Next week, in part 4 of this series and I'll show you how Evernote acts as the central hub for my tax prep and financial records — tying together YNAB, my bookkeeper, and my CPA into a system that keeps everything aligned. Stay tuned...
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