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Transport Payables© For members, the following are suggestions for managing your database locker: 1. This paragraph concerns tolls. Don't do toll receipts individually (there are too many of them if you run the Northeast of the United States regulary, and it isn't necessary); treat a stack of them as one receipt. Group them for the entire week or month, whichever you prefer. Most members group them for a month. Select a category that suits you, choose the date as the day you are entering the total, and type in the sum of all the selected receipts. Band the receipts together and note on the top receipt the sum amount for your hard copy. 2. Food receipts should also be grouped in the same manner as described for tolls in paragraph #1. They are numerous, and as a suggestion, grouping them by the week or month would be the easiest way to manage them also. Remember, the IRS only allows you to deduct a percentage of your total food bill on the road (50%). Enter them as 100% into the database locker; they'll be calculated at 50% in your taxes. 3. Lodging is a relatively infrequent expense for over-the-road drivers as they have sleepers. The miscellaneous category is the area most members use for their lodging receipt entries. Lodging receipts are 100% tax deductable per the IRS. 4. Always enter the odometer and state for fuel purchases. This allows you to track fuel for gallons purchased by state for any period of time. You'll also be able to track mpg numbers. 5. Enter odometer readings for purchases you'd like to mark, such as tires, oil changes, and repairs. Should the purchase fail before a reasonable amount of mileage has passed, you'll be able to document the exact mileage the product lasted. 6. Entering the state name for every purchase is an option many drivers decide to do, enabling them to total the purchases made in each individual state. 7. Be consistent with labels. If some receipts are entered as "Flying J" and others are entered as Fly-J", reading your printout will appear less organized. 8. Receipt numbers are the numbers that are marked on your receipts at the purchase moment. It is important and required that store receipt numbers are entered into data lockers. For items that have no receipt number, such as grouped tolls, unloading labor, etc., simply put in an "x" for the receipt number. This will satisfy the database entry rule and also mark the receipt as one with no official number. DO NOT MAKE UP YOUR OWN RECEIPT NUMBERS! 9. Receipt numbers, also known as invoice numbers, can be very long. If you purchase a box of pens at Wal-Mart, you'll notice the very lengthy receipt number on your sales slip. Many drivers enter only the last four or five digits of the receipt number, followed with the detailed information into the database. 10. After entering a receipt into your database, mark a "check" at the top of the hard copy (original paper copy) of your sales slip. This tells you you've entered it, avoiding duplicating the entry. Note: When you enter your database locker on the first day of a new month, no receipts will be displayed. This is because the first picture of your database only displays the current month's receipts. Being a new month, they don't show, but are still stored in your locker! Use the "sort by date" feature to pull them up. 11. Store your hard copies by grouping them together. For example, for the first quarter of the year, keep all fuel together, all repairs together, all misc., etc. It is suggested you group them for physical storage by the category you entered the receipt on your database. Keep each year's hard copy receipts for a period of 7 years, storing them with a printout of your online database, matching those receipts. Five year's worth of hard copies are the norm, but the extra two years wont hurt anything, and will not take up much extra space. The extra effort to go a little beyond the limit is a good safety buffer. 12. Federal and state auditors will accept the printout of your database, no matter how you've sorted it, to satisfy their questions. Stored physical receipts are extremely rare to be called up by an auditor. 13. Change the "occupation" label on your tax returns to read anything other than trucking, transport, hauling, etc. Owner operators should enter "equipment leasing" or something of that nature, thus steering clear of auto-flags in the computer systems of government computers. 14. Keep up with your receipts, mark them, then mail them home should you be on the road for lengthy periods of time. This gets the receipts out of the truck, securely logged into your database, and keeps law enforcement unable to cross-check your logbook with toll receipts. When you get home, go fishing or something other than fretting over the accounting of your receipts. 15. Your data locker can be printed by hitting the Printable Version button. You'll notice that after hitting the Printable Version button you can further sort the data by state. Sorting can be accomplished by first selecting the dates to/from followed with "Go", then hit the Printable Version button, followed by the state sort, if you'd like. This gives you the ability to narrow down a search by date, then again by state. This is covered in the demo, and allows you to narrow a search of your data even more than by a date search alone. Drivers use this feature to calculate totals for fuel expenses by the gallon and dollar amount for particular states, narrowed to specific time periods (generally quarterly). 16. Always enter your database via dsutton.com/power. This will enable you to view notices written for our members. 17. Your username must be your current email address. As email addresses are very unique (no duplicates, as with telephone numbers), this truly individualizes your username. 18. Your password looks like this to our system: ****** Should you need to have your username or password changed, click the "contact us" button and explain your request. For security reasons, we will advise you of the manner in which you can prove your identity, enabling us to be certain it is you. Remember, since it isn't easy to change them, the "plus" is on your secure side! 19. Transport Payables and its parent company, Sutton Power, LLC. never discloses information about either your database or your identity. The reason for this is simple: We cannot physically enter your database, and we do not know any of your personal information. You are renting your own storage locker, and what you have inside of it is not of our discretion. 20. All payments are annual, and are made through PayPal, the very trusted and extremely secure financial unit of eBay. You do not have to be a PayPal member to make a credit card payment via Pay Pal. If you'd rather make your payment for membership with a check, please contact us (contact button) and we'll make the arrangements to set up your database. 21. Connection speed: Cable, and DSL are faster than dialup. You can work your database with dialup and be naturally slower than the faster speeds available. Should you have dialup, just be patient for the loading as you would if you were on a large site such as eBay. Dialup is still around for many of us, and it works fine. 22. Our member referral program is very popular! If you refer a non-member to join Transport Payables, you get 3 months added to your subscription. As an additional thanks, the new member receives 1 additional month added to their subscription. How do you refer a new member? Simply email YOUR member ID and sign- up date along with the new member ID to billing@dsutton.com and we'll verify the information. You'll see the added time in your data locker at the top within 24 hours. It's that easy! 23. Do you have a trusted accountant? Let them have access to your locker, and you'll take the step of printing and mailing reports to them off your schedule. This will enable them to do quarterly and year-end tax filings, provided you keep your locker up to date with your receipts and expenses. Changing accountants? Simply change your password with us. 24. Thanks for your trusted membership, and don't forget to include your database subscription as your first expense entry! Click here to sign up now if you're not already a member! Questions? Contact us by clicking the "contact us" button at the top left. © 2005-2008 Transport Payables, Sutton Power, LLC. |
