That fading thermal paper receipt from a business lunch is the only thing standing between you and a legitimate tax deduction, yet it’s likely currently dissolving in your cup holder or buried under a year’s worth of car registrations. By the time tax season arrives, the ink is gone, and so is your refund.

The Philosophy: Real-Time Audit Readiness

Expense tracking is not a monthly task; it is a transactional one. The "Expenses" template is designed for the immediate capture of financial data at the point of sale. It moves your bookkeeping from a "reconstruction" model—trying to remember what you spent three weeks ago—to a "documentation" model, where every dollar is accounted for before you even leave the merchant's parking lot.

The Blueprint: Categorical Clarity

The structure of this archive is built for clean export and effortless reporting.

  • The Triage System: The Type field allows for a high-level split between Business, Farm, and Rental expenses. For individuals with multiple income streams, this single dropdown eliminates the need for three separate spreadsheets.
  • The IRS Alignment: The Category options—Supplies, Equipment, Transportation, and travel meals—align with standard tax deduction categories. This means that at the end of the year, your data is already pre-sorted for your accountant.
  • The Visual Evidence: The Receipt Photo field is the core of the system. A digital image of a receipt is legally recognized by most tax authorities, providing a permanent, un-fading record that is much harder to lose than a scrap of paper.

Usage Scenarios: The Business Trip

You are traveling for a conference. Every transaction—the Hotel bill, the Dinner with a client, and the Transportation from the airport—is logged in Memento the moment it occurs. You enter the Amount, tag the Merchant, and snap a photo of the receipt. When you return home, you don't spend hours sorting through your wallet; you simply export the library as a CSV and link it to your master expense report.

Power Feature: Cloud Export for Reporting

While the data capture happens on your phone, the heavy lifting of reporting happens in the cloud. By linking Memento to Google Sheets or exporting your data via CSV, you can create professional expense reports in seconds. You can group by Category to see your total spending on meals versus equipment, or filter by Date to isolate expenses for a specific project. It turns a week of administrative dread into a five-minute export.