Guest Post: How To Spark Joy in Your Office

In her book, ‘the life-changing magic of tidying up - the Japanese art of decluttering and organising, Marie Kondō helps people tidy their spaces by choosing joy, and is committed to developing the simplest and most effective tools to help you get there.

Imagine yourself working in an accounts payable department that contained only things that sparked joy.

Clutter is caused by a failure to return things to where they belong. Therefore, storage should reduce the effort needed to put things away, not the effort needed to get them out.

Marie Kondō

With the help of Receipt Bank, I’ve eliminated paper and clutter from my office and embraced the paperless dream for years. My Google Pixel 2XL scans paper bills and receipts, uploads them into Receipt Bank, which extracts the accounts payable data, and pushes it into my online accounting solution, effortlessly. Receipt Bank stores the extracted data, and copies of all business receipts and bills, in a retrievable format.

Moving to a paperless office not only eliminates paper cuts − ouch! It significantly reduces the need for printers, printer ink, paper, paper clips, bulldog clips, staplers, staples, staple unpickers, binders, lever arch files, plastic wallets, filing cabinets, and reduces expenses such as service cost for printer, disposal of paper expenses, and rent and insurance for space once taken by filing cabinets and printers.

With my clutter-free desk, I have room for a tea-tray, which brings me joy during the day.

Tidy a little a day, and you’ll be tidying forever.

Marie Kondō

You don’t need to wait till Marie Kondo Monday, to choose to declutter your office and set up Receipt Bank, for yourself or your clients. You can sign up, sync it to your accounting solution, and refine the settings in around 20 minutes. Here’s a short video of how one of Australia’s leading bookkeepers, Cassandra Scott has set up her Receipt Bank file: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__bAMvaQvL8.

Once Receipt Bank is up and running, periodically review and declutter the businesses supplier list. It’s an opportunity to ensure all suppliers on the list are known. If there’s any concern, click through and review the receipts or bills associated with the supplier, which should provide information to support further investigations.

The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not for the person we were in the past.

Marie Kondō

It’s easy to review, edit and merge suppliers in Receipt Bank. To do this, click Supplier on the Menu bar, then click the All Suppliers tab. Notice that the number of suppliers is included on the All Suppliers tab. Click on the column headed up Name, to sort the supplier list alphabetically.

To merge suppliers, click in the check box to the left of the supplier name, scroll to the top and select Merge, sitting underneath the All Suppliers tab. A window opens up, and you are given the option to select the supplier name you wish to keep.

If you’re tidying the Receipt Bank supplier list be aware if it’s synced to another solution, such as your accounting solution, you may need to make the changes in both places, and use the Reload button on the All Suppliers menu bar to update the suppliers.

The decluttered supplier list can be the foundation for developing a Preferred Supplier List (PSL) for the business. Suppliers have an important relationship with the business, and if a supplier is not bringing joy, it may be time to let them go. When shopping around for a new supplier, the supplier list is a useful source of information of where money has been spent in the past and a breakdown of the expenditure.

Changing habits acquired over many years is often extremely difficult

Marie Kondō

Once you’ve gone through ‘the life-changing magic of tidying up’ your office, through implementing Receipt Bank file, clean data is easy to access and useful information surfaces. For example, look at the Top 10 Suppliers tab on the Suppliers dashboard, this lists top suppliers by volume of transaction, not the size of the transaction. For my practice, the list triggered a review of petrol and parking expenditures and implementing new strategies, such as pre-purchasing parking, using discount coupons, and public transport when convenient. This resulted in a 40% reduction in expenditure in these categories.

I’m not sure if Receipt Bank contains Marie Kondo Magic, but I know it eliminates paper, declutters the office, and energises the accounts payable workflow. You may not feel compelled to post your #postkonmarikomono Receipt Bank file on Instagram, but I’m sure you will appreciate the joy of a paperless office!