| Organizing Financial Records The basis of good financial management is keeping track and knowing what and how your money comes in and what and how your money goes out. On a regular basis, you collect and generate financial information, and there is usually some paperwork or electronic image to support your financial transactions. These include:
Keeping your records in one place will help you be ready to take action when you need to; you won’t be confused or distressed about wondering where certain pieces of information are located. Organizing records is best done on a consistent and frequent basis, not on an emergency basis. Your financial records system can be maintained in files in a specific storage container. Files could include:
Your financial records system also can include electronic files. Using a bookkeeping software program is a method for not only keeping track of financial information, but generating specific reports to help you organize and manage all that financial information. (Be sure to back-up your computer financial data regularly.) As an adoptive parent, you also will have a paper trail of adoption documents to keep readily available:
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