How I use Evernote to Keep My Taxes, Budget, & CPA Aligned
March 31 2025 | Issue 37 | Link to this issue | Subscribe
Hi Reader –
Back in part #2 of this series I shared an image of my Tax Dashboard, which acts as the hub for my bookkeeping and tax process management all year long.
Today, we’ll take a closer look at how I use this Evernote Space to keep my entire tax ecosystem organized. The structure is about much more than storing receipts. It’s built to manage multiple projects and vendor relationships from a central location.
🧠 Academy Members: Learn how to using Spaces for managing projects like taxes in our Feature Tutorial: Spaces training.
Let’s take a tour of function for each Notebook I keep in this Space:
1️⃣ 2024 Tax Documents
As my investment accounts, vendors, Stripe, and banks send me end of year documents that are needed to compile my taxes, I “title & file” them here (taught in part 3 of this series). The naming convention on these notes is purposeful. Here’s an example that shows notes that hold the supporting tax forms I receive and are required for compiling my tax returns:
2️⃣ 2024 Tax Preparation
This notebook is where I keep all that’s needed to manage the project of preparing and filing my tax returns for that year. This is a collaborative process between me and my CPA. I pin key notes to the top of the notebook that help me to manage the process of working with my CPA.
As this image shows, I’m forwarding in email correspondence, tracking my questions as I review my financial statements, storing drafts of key documents, and more:
3️⃣ Collective: Monthly Bookkeeping
Collective is the financial firm that handles my monthly bookkeeping all year long. I store reports and questions for completed months here.
Since this is a regular, ongoing process that I manage all year long, I keep it segregated in its own notebook so that the notes don’t get co-mingled with the other areas I work with them on (tax prep, S Corp reporting, etc).
I store the monthly financial statements I get from them here, as well as a checklist of monthly recurring tasks I’m responsible for related to bookkeeping to support me in managing my responsibilities in the process.
4️⃣ Receipt Tracking Notebooks
These two notebooks store my business and personal receipts and act as a digital filing cabinet for all expenses I incur during the year that I need proof of expenses. Each note represents an individual receipt and has a specific naming convention applied to the title of the note (learn more about this in part 3).
At the end of each year, I rename the notebooks, then move the Notebooks to a tax archive Stack where they act as supporting evidence for any deductions I’ve claimed.
These notebooks do more than act as a storage bin for receipts. The information is an essential support for my bookkeeping process all year.
For example, when I get a question from my bookkeeper like:
“Categorization Question: Please identify the nature and business purpose of this bank transfer: 09/30 $1,739.24 Online Banking transfer to CHK XX11 Confirmation #XXXXXXXX46”
Or, when an Amazon charge appears in my YNAB and I’m not sure if the charge was for protein powder or office supplies.
I’m able to do a quick search in these notebooks — either by dollar amount or vendor name. Being able to see the original receipt helps me keep expenses properly categorized for taxes and — just as importantly — for better budget tracking, expense, and cash flow management in YNAB.
5️⃣ HE Vendor – Collective:
As my CPA and bookkeeping vendor, I retain a lot of information regarding my relationship with the firm and the services they provide for me.
This notebook holds all items related to my relationship with them — except for the specific sub-projects of monthly bookkeeping and annual tax preparation, which are significant enough projects and processes to warrant their own dedicated notebooks.
This notebook name reflects a common naming convention I use in my account. For every vendor I work with, I create a notebook that starts with “HE Vendor –” (HE is my abbreviation for Harmon Enterprises…this helps me keep my business notebooks separate from my personal ones). In this way, all my Vendor notebooks sort together in my Notebook List which is outside of this Space:
6️⃣ Notebook – Retirement Plans:
As my business grows, my retirement planning is evolving too. This notebook holds research, notes, and documents tied to long-term planning and investment strategy decisions — all of which are tied to tax implications.
🧠 Academy Members: We’re talking about exactly how to create your own Tax Dashboard here. Join the conversation and get your Evernote-centric tax process in place today.
Remember, it isn’t that Evernote is the only part of my tax and financial system process. It's the command center for managing both the ongoing processes (e.g. bookkeeping, budgeting) and projects (e.g. tax prep) that happen every year in support of filing my taxes. I use tools and vendors outside of Evernote to help me accomplish this. But, I’m the manager of this process and Evernote offers me everything I need to organize and stay on top of all the details that need to be done all year long.
It's the foundation for how I maintain trauma-free taxes with Evernote, this year and every year.
Stacey
PS: Sharing with vendors is an important part of my process. But, it’s rare that a vendor is also an Evernote user. Next week we’ll take a closer look at how I share data I keep in Evernote with vendors who support my financial and tax management processes in part 5 of this series.
🧠 Academy Members: We’re talking about exactly how to create your own Tax Dashboard here. Join the conversation and get your Evernote-centric tax process in place today.
Remember, it isn’t that Evernote is the only part of my tax and financial system process. It's the command center for managing both the ongoing processes (e.g. bookkeeping, budgeting) and projects (e.g. tax prep) that happen every year in support of filing my taxes. I use tools and vendors outside of Evernote to help me accomplish this. But, I’m the manager of this process and Evernote offers me everything I need to organize and stay on top of all the details that need to be done all year long.
It's the foundation for how I maintain trauma-free taxes with Evernote, this year and every year.
Stacey
PS: Sharing with vendors is an important part of my process. But, it’s rare that a vendor is also an Evernote user. Next week we’ll take a closer look at how I share data I keep in Evernote with vendors who support my financial and tax management processes in part 5 of this series.
PPS: If you're feeling inspired to better use Evernote to manage projects like this, join me inside the Academy. You'll get all the support, training, and community needed to implement your own trauma-free taxes dashboard (and so much more)! Join today.
* This post contains affiliate links for tools I personally use. If you purchase through these links, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.
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