Keep Your Receipts Ready With A Text File, Dropbox, Your Phone

When you receive an online confirmation for a movie ticket, an air flight, an in-store pickup, or anything else where you may need to present your receipt, here’s a quick way of always having it easily accessible on your smartphone.

This is a very simple process, but I’ve started doing it lately and it’s kept me from searching for the information I need every time. Basically, you create one text file that syncs with a service like Dropbox. It doesn’t have to be Dropbox — I actually use SimpleNote — but it needs to be a service that will immediately sync information and has at least one mobile app on your smartphone. Dropbox is a good choice because there are many text editors that support it and it’s best to grab a separate app for your smartphone just for this purpose.

First, make a new text file in Dropbox and call it “The Only Receipt” or something you’ll remember. Next, download a Dropbox-compatible text editing app for your smartphone and load this text file. Leave it open in the text editor and set that app in the background. Next time you need to take a receipt with you, copy the text into the text file, save it, and then reload the note in the app on your phone. This will reduce the amount of actions you need to take to get to that information quickly when you need it. This is also really helpful for taking addresses with you to the post office or a shipping store.

While there are certainly apps and technologies that send data between your desktop and smartphone (we’ve looked at plenty of options for iPhone and Android), what’s nice about this trick is that you don’t have to worry about losing the information after it has been sent. Once you sync the note, it’s there until you delete it. You don’t have to worry about pushing the information, but rather just pasting it into a note on your desktop and saving it. Once you’ve done that, you can pull it up any time in the future.

If anyone knows of an app specifically designed to do this, please share it in the comments. If it doesn’t exist, please feel free to make it!