Being Financially Organized

We are fairly organized when it comes to bills. But I don’t clearly understand what it means to be financially organized.
There are various things we do to stay on track

1) Monthly bill payments – We use a simple excel sheet. It contains a list of bills that we would need to pay on a monthly basis. We look at the sheet twice a month and pay the bills that are due. Most of our bills are online. We update the sheet with the payment date, the amount, confirmation numbers for online payments or check numbers. We calculate the total bill amount paid and make sure our bank balance has money for this plus an allotted monthly spending amount. We have been doing it for almost 3 years now and it has helped us to avoid late payments.

2) Analyze monthly spending – Until recently, we used a tool provided by my online bank account to categorize my spending and compare with an allotted budget. Last week, I went and bought Quicken and we have just started using it. Will update you later on my experience with Quicken.

3) Taxes – For most part, I let my husband do the taxes. But this year, I am going to be involved. This year is crucial because we need to itemize our deductions. We are expecting that we would owe some money to IRS. We need to be more careful about this for the year 2008.

4) Documents – We are very careful about our documents. They are pretty well organized. But we do not file our account statements or receipts. I don’t know the pros and cons of doing it. Any information with regards to this would be helpful. How long to store statements and receipts? Why do we need to store these? Is it okay if we scan and store soft copies? etc.

What are the ways in which you keep your finances organized?