Tip of the week: Make expense reports a little bit less painful

Nobody likes expense reports. Even if your company has implemented a slick process for submissions and reimbursements, it can still be an organizational nightmare. You have to save all those receipts, remember what expense was for which trip or vendor, and track whether you’ve been paid back or not. But with a little creative Dropboxing, you can get your business expenses in order — and keep them that way. The first step is getting your receipts into your Dropbox with an app like Scanbot or Scanner Pro. Both of these apps integrate with Dropbox, so it’s easy to scan any receipt and quickly save it to a folder. Start with a folder named Expenses, then create sub-folders for each stage of the expense report workflow: To be submitted, Submitted, and Reimbursed. If you’d like, you can create other folders inside To be submitted that correspond with trips or events, such as Boston 2015. So the folder structure would look something like this:

Once you've got your folder structure set up, you can move your receipts around as they move along in the expense report process. For added detail, you can put screenshots of confirmation pages, emails, or deposits in these folders. That’s it! You now have a tidy, repeatable process for keeping your expense reports together. No more lost receipts, missed deadlines, or trying to remember if you ever submitted that taxi ride to the airport last month. If you’re looking for more ways to stay organized with Dropbox for Business, visit our User Guide.