American Express makes my life even easier
We finally received all of the necessary documentation to complete our taxes last week. I like to have them done early in the tax season that way I can take advantage of contributing to a 529 plan or some other investment by April 15th that earns us tax credits if necessary. Every year though, I have dreaded the hours I would have to spend going through past credit card statements, bank accounts and receipts to determine business expenses for the past year. However, that all changed this weekend.
We’ve had our American Express card now for about a year and a half. We charge every possible purchase we can to earn the points; we’ve even charged things for friends to earn the points on the purchases they would have made with cash. Originally, we became interested in earning rewards on a credit after we had used a cash back credit card to make all of our purchases. Deciding to switch to the American Express card was easy because we spend a considerable amount of money at a wholesale club that only accepts American Express.
I have lost several good hours of my life going through credit card statements, bank accounts and receipts to find expenses for the previous year’s tax preparation. That all changed this weekend thanks to American Express and the year-end statement they provide. American Express conveniently categorized all our 2007 expenses for me so I can quickly navigate through them to find the appropriate expenses for the year. The statement is available online and since we charge everything on our credit card, no more searching through bank accounts or receipts! We even used Quickbooks for several years previously, but found it too tedious to classify every expense and break down a single credit card payment into multiple spending categories.
Using the provided year-end statement from American Express saved me several hours in finding all the expenses for our tax preparation. It saved me so much time that I spent an additional hour of time adding up how much we had spent at specific retailers and other important information relative to our spending. American Express is not the only credit card issuer to provide a year-end statement, but this weekend I gained an even greater appreciation for my American Express card and the services it provides. The year-end statement is just another time-saving and convenience tool provided by credit cards for tax preparation and other needs.
