Im finding im archiving most statements by pdf The great thing about AMEX is that it has a good description of where it was bought online, and you can access all statements in PDF going back to 2005 I have an ANZ visa and the best they have is 120d - online - view on screen, no printable pdf statements I was wondering if any of the other banks - had pdf statements available going back at least a year. Its the worst thing when doing taxes when you cant find a few statements.
I have a Canon DR-2050C document scanner ... any paperwork that comes in gets scanned to PDF and archived on my network storage server (with redundancy and backups). The paper then gets "filed" into old Reflex paper boxes. I use the Amex generated PDFs too. The PDF files are named in chronological order and filed in a separate folder for each account and are very easy to locate come tax time or if I need to go back and check on some old transactions. I also cleared out 2 filing cabinet drawers and 2 shelves of my bookshelf which were previously full of lever-arch files with bank statements and such in them. I can't tell you which non-Amex credit cards have PDF statements - but I can tell you which don't: - Commonwealth Gold VISA - National Mini VISA - BankWest Gold VISA
Thanks Sim I have a scansnap 5110eox - that works well - duplex scanning but ive been slack and havent scanned stuff for 6 months It would be better if the banks provide PDF, not only the VISA's but banks too I can tell you ING does do this - saves me scanning, infact I dont even ask for a paper bill and save the environment. ANZ doesnt - and their recording is teribble - eg when you have 10+ loan accounts - and money gets deducted from your savings - its very hard to tell which account it came from unless you go to each separate account and match up amounts.
I use Quicken to track my personal finances and Quickbooks for Trust/Business finances. When it comes to reconciling loan statements and transaction account statements I'll go through each loan and make sure the payment details are correct, which automatically puts the correct details in the transaction account - which I can then more easily reconcile.
I hope you have good backups of you PDF data. Offsite copies too if possible (in case of fire/theft).
One possible `offsite' location you could consider is gmail....... They currently give about 6G of space. This should only be one of several layers of backup. For the really paranoid zipping and encryption can also be used. Tailcat
I need a decent shredder too - they are really expensive for a good one. My last cheapo one has jammed for good.
I ditched ANZ when they said to me they couldn't tell me who had pending authorisations against my credit card. I told them to take a hike and now have a NAB visa and they are very helpful telling me any pending authorisations. Cheers, Dan
Another useful tool is a PDF 'printer driver' such as PDF creator. That way you can create a PDF out of anything you can print. For example, Westpac lets you view statements online, however not in PDF form. By printing via PDF creator I get a statement which is in a more appropriate form to archive. I also use it in conjunction with my Doc feeder/scanner so that the copy function actually does a multi page scan to pdf (ie the doc is scanned then printed to "PDF creator" rather than an actual printer). All this is windows-centrix of course.
Thats interesting - I have an option for PDF statements on my CBA Gold Visa account. This is available from the "view online statements" option under the "accounts" menu. Might be worth checking to see if this is available for you - I only noticed it quite recently.
Ahh brilliant - thanks for pointing that out - exactly what I needed ... there was probably an announcement about it a while back which I completely ignored.
You can also go back with bank accounts with CBA as well..... I found its a fantastic feature. I admit i dont even open the paper bill anymore...
Westpac let you go back six (6) years if you change to the online billing format For PDF's I use Cute PDF which is free (actually prefer it to Adobe as it seems faster) We also have a 120GB Hard Drive which we use to routinely "back-up" the computer and store photos etc to save space
CutePDF Writer I just view the online transaction history and then print it (Ctrl + P) to a PDF printer. There are about a dozen or so available. A great free one is Cute PDF Writer available at www.cutepdf.com
That's fair enough, but did you know that pending authorisations are only valid for 7 days? At least that's how it works with my two merchant accounts - I run two for my company, one in AUD and one in USD, and both only allow a 7 day "pre-auth", any longer than that and I need to create a new transaction on the client's credit card.
Sure did Mmerlin, my issue wasn't about how long they are valid for. I was upset that ANZ couldn't tell me who did a pending authorisation on my card whereas NAB could (they were both Visa cards). I personally want to know who is staking a claim on my hard earned money and this told me which bank wanted to give that extra customer service. Cheers, Dan
