Budgeting question

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Cathan

Silver Knight of the Realm
410
52
I traveled for work the last year or so and found it difficult to set a budget. Being paid per diem for lodging and meals daily I didn't really need to budget because there was always a surplus.

I moved to New York permanently for a new job and I definitely need to start budgeting again. The problem I see is I still travel quite a lot and I run all of my travel expenses through my personal cc/accounts. I'm liable for the expenses whether they go on the work cc or not and if I run them through my cc at least I get points for using them.

My bank has some auto budgeting tools but the results are incredibly skewed every month. These aren't real figures but they're relative. Let's say I make 10,000/month. The travel expenses I pay through my accounts would be something like 2000 to 5000 varying. I don't know how to easily separate the travel expenses from my personal expenses.

Does anyone know how to pull the raw data from my bank account and dump it into a budget software that can separate the expenses so I can track my personal funds better or should I just leave it lumped together and start tracking the travel expenses as income also and leave it lumped together?

Thanks for the help.
 
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Kedwyn

Silver Squire
3,915
80
Really what you need to do is document your expenses properly as they are incurred. Any system will work once you do that. Trying to go back over a year of data is going to be a pain in the ass at best.

IIRC Quickbooks would download or import the raw data and you could set accounts for transaction descriptions which would then go to your ledger and your income statement properly expensed.
 
Rangoth

Rangoth

Blackwing Lair Raider
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Are you asking how to be able to tell what was for work and what was personal? I travel constantly for work and also use personal CC for points....use receipts man, not cc statements to trck it
 
Palum

Palum

what Suineg set it to
23,484
33,797
Enjoy your 480 fading thermal paper scraps rustling around in the laptop case do you?

I always keep receipts but I scan them ASAP and get rid of them. Every once in a while go back rummage through receipt scans and move them to the right cost center.

The only thing I could think of and I'm not sure if your bank would do it but maybe you can get a separate issued card to the same name that they will differentiate on the site like an authorized user card for yourself that you can toggle? No clue if they'd do that, though you might be able to automatically get one mailed - like 'Mr Dave W Smith' vs. 'David Smith' or something. Don't even know if they req SSNs for auth users that aren't liable on the account?
 
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Opimo_sl

shitlord
85
0
There's a ton of mobile phone apps for taking photos of receipts and logging the expenses.

I just use Evernote, and take photos of everything, then convert to PDF to send to Oracle.
 
Rangoth

Rangoth

Blackwing Lair Raider
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Palum_sl said:
Enjoy your 480 fading thermal paper scraps rustling around in the laptop case do you?

I always keep receipts but I scan them ASAP and get rid of them. Every once in a while go back rummage through receipt scans and move them to the right cost center.

The only thing I could think of and I'm not sure if your bank would do it but maybe you can get a separate issued card to the same name that they will differentiate on the site like an authorized user card for yourself that you can toggle? No clue if they'd do that, though you might be able to automatically get one mailed - like 'Mr Dave W Smith' vs. 'David Smith' or something. Don't even know if they req SSNs for auth users that aren't liable on the account?
Click to expand...
I scan and file them too man, im just saying use receipts to track exact dollars spent on work related things, not your cc statement
 
P

Poster

Lord Nagafen Raider
119
24
Opimo_sl said:
There's a ton of mobile phone apps for taking photos of receipts and logging the expenses.
Click to expand...
I second this. We do our expense reimbursements for work through Concur, I use Genius Scan on my phone to convert to PDF and email them directly to the Concur system this way.
 
OU Ariakas

OU Ariakas

Diet Dr. Pepper Enjoyer
<Silver Donator>
6,987
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Get a second checking account at the bank and use that debit card exclusively for your expenses. If at all possible get the new debit card with a different face so that you don't confuse them. Put a few months worth of average expenses in the account until you get a good bead on your average expenses. Most banks will let you transfer freely between checking accounts in the same name through online banking so there shouldn't ever be a point where you don't have money in the account you need it in.
 
Rangoth

Rangoth

Blackwing Lair Raider
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lol, man you guys are rookies at this. So much effort for something so simple.

Go out to eat, take receipt and "file" it in whatever mechanic you prefer. It could be immediately scanning into quickbooks under "work expenses" or even better "UAT trip for client X" as something specific so you can expense project AND trip based. This becomes pretty important at some business as I can have a customer where I work on multiple projects for them concurrently and my rate and expense regulations are different for each project(per diem vs receipts, etc).

Or maybe you just like putting the paper receipts into a little ziplock bag and manually entering it and taking a picture when you get home.

The separate bank accounts, cards, and trying to filter a CC statement monthly are insane and hugely suspect to inaccuracy.

EDIT:

Plus as you travel more it becomes extremely beneficial to use your own CC. The amount of points you wrack up can be insane, then you get the airline/rental/hotel points on top of whatever CC point card you choose to use. Which is all the more reason to dump all of the expenses on your card and deal with the receipts.
 
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