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Finance & AccountingBeginner

Invoice & Tax Document Organizer

Automatically sort, rename, and organize invoices, receipts, and tax documents with consistent naming for easy tax preparation.

5 minutes
By communitySource
#taxes#invoices#receipts#finance#organization#accounting
CLAUDE.md Template

Download this file and place it in your project folder to get started.

# Invoice & Tax Document Organizer

## Your Role
You are my tax document organization assistant. You help me prepare for tax season by organizing all financial documents with consistent naming and folder structure.

## Naming Convention

All files should be renamed to: `YYYY-MM-DD_Vendor_Type_Description.ext`

Examples:
- `2025-03-15_Amazon_Invoice_Office-Supplies.pdf`
- `2025-06-22_Uber_Receipt_Client-Meeting.pdf`
- `2025-01-31_Acme-Corp_W2_Employment.pdf`
- `2025-04-15_IRS_Form_1040-Extension.pdf`

## Folder Structure

Organize into these folders:

```
Tax-2025/
├── Income/
│   ├── W2/           # Employment income
│   ├── 1099/         # Contractor/freelance income
│   └── Other/        # Investment income, etc.
├── Expenses/
│   ├── Business/     # Business expenses (deductible)
│   ├── Medical/      # Medical expenses
│   ├── Charitable/   # Donations
│   ├── Education/    # Education expenses
│   └── Home-Office/  # Home office expenses
├── Receipts/
│   ├── By-Month/     # Monthly subfolders
│   └── By-Vendor/    # Vendor subfolders
├── Banking/
│   ├── Statements/   # Bank statements
│   └── Interest/     # 1099-INT forms
├── Property/
│   ├── Mortgage/     # 1098 forms
│   └── Property-Tax/ # Property tax statements
└── Filed/
    └── Returns/      # Completed tax returns
```

## Document Detection Rules

Analyze each document to determine:
1. **Date**: Extract from document content, filename, or metadata
2. **Vendor/Source**: Who issued the document
3. **Type**: Invoice, Receipt, W2, 1099, Statement, etc.
4. **Category**: Income, Expense, or Tax Form
5. **Tax Year**: Which tax year it belongs to

## Instructions

1. Scan all files in this folder
2. Read each document to extract information
3. Show me a table of proposed renames and destinations
4. Wait for my approval
5. Create folders as needed
6. Rename and move files
7. Generate a summary report

## Safety Rules

- NEVER delete original files
- Create a backup folder first if requested
- Flag any documents you're uncertain about
- Ask before processing documents from different tax years

## Summary Report Format

After organizing, create a `_SUMMARY.md` file with:
- Total documents processed
- Documents by category
- Any flagged items needing review
- Missing documents checklist (common forms)

## Common Tax Documents to Look For

- W-2 (Employment income)
- 1099-NEC (Contractor income)
- 1099-INT (Interest income)
- 1099-DIV (Dividend income)
- 1099-B (Investment sales)
- 1098 (Mortgage interest)
- Property tax statements
- Charitable donation receipts
- Medical expense receipts
- Business expense receipts
README.md

What This Does

Transform a messy folder of tax documents into a perfectly organized archive. Claude reads each file, extracts date and vendor, renames it consistently, and sorts it into the right folder.


Quick Start

Step 1: Create a Tax Folder

mkdir -p ~/Documents/Tax-2025

Step 2: Download the Template

Click Download above, then move to your tax folder:

mv ~/Downloads/CLAUDE.md ~/Documents/Tax-2025/

Step 3: Add Your Documents

Drop all your tax documents (PDFs, images, scans) into the folder.

Step 4: Run Claude Code

cd ~/Documents/Tax-2025
claude

Then say: "Organize all my tax documents"


Naming Convention

All files get renamed to: YYYY-MM-DD_Vendor_Type_Description.ext

Before After
IMG_4521.jpg 2025-03-15_Staples_Receipt_Office-Supplies.jpg
amazon (3).pdf 2025-02-14_Amazon_Invoice_Electronics.pdf
scan0042.pdf 2025-01-31_Acme-Corp_1099-NEC_Freelance.pdf

Folder Structure

Tax-2025/
├── Income/
│   ├── W2/           # Employment income
│   ├── 1099/         # Contractor income
│   └── Other/        # Investment income
├── Expenses/
│   ├── Business/     # Deductible expenses
│   ├── Medical/      # Medical expenses
│   └── Charitable/   # Donations
├── Receipts/
│   └── By-Month/     # Monthly subfolders
├── Banking/
│   └── Statements/   # Bank statements
└── _SUMMARY.md       # Generated summary

Tax Season Workflow

Quarterly Cleanup

"Organize any new documents added since last time"

Pre-Filing Checklist

"Check my documents against a standard tax checklist. What am I missing?"

Year-End Summary

"Create a summary of all documents organized by category with totals"

Tips

  • Never deletes files: Claude only renames and moves
  • Handles photos: Can read receipt images and scanned documents
  • Multi-year support: Automatically detects and separates tax years
  • Tracks totals: Can generate expense summaries with amounts

Troubleshooting

Wrong date extracted Say: "The date for [filename] should be [correct date]"

Can't read scanned PDF Ensure the PDF has OCR text. If it's just an image, Claude can still often read it.

Documents from different year Claude flags these automatically. Say: "Move all 2024 docs to Tax-2024/"

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