This is ordinary, and it's also heavier than it looks. Missing receipts mean guesswork. A year of paper in one box means a grim weekend. It doesn't have to wait until year end to be dealt with.
A habit you can start today
The next receipt you are handed, photograph it before it goes in a pocket. Use your phone, in whatever bookkeeping app you already have, or in a single album if you're starting from nothing. The paper can go in a sleeve for a month if you like, and then it can go. The photo is the record.
Pick one place for every receipt, not four. Supplier emails can be forwarded or saved into the same tool. Card payments should meet the photo, so you can see what a debit actually was. If your bank and your bookkeeping software can be connected, that matching becomes a check rather than a retyping job.
Give yourself a short weekly slot, even ten or fifteen minutes, to file anything that escaped on the day and to glance at what's still unpaid, if you also send invoices. A year is fifty-two small tidy-ups, or one miserable weekend. The small tidy-up is kinder.
If you already have an accountant, ask them what they actually need from you, and in what form. A lot of the dread is the fear of getting it wrong. A short list from them, and a pack that matches it, is calmer than a carrier bag on the 20th of January.
You don't need a new app for the sake of it. The one you already pay for will often do the filing, if you use the camera that's already on your phone.
Built around how you already run the shop
We'd set this up in the bookkeeping software you already use, fitted around how you already run the shop, rather than a system you have to switch to. You'd snap each receipt on your phone when you get it. We'd have it read and filed, and the paper can go.
We'd connect your business bank account so payments match up with receipts and invoices, ready for you to check rather than type. Invoices can go out from a tidy template, with polite reminders when they're overdue, and you'd approve that wording first. Each month you'd get a short check, with a simple checklist so nothing builds up.
We're not accountants. We'd set up the tools and the routine, in software you choose and own, and your accountant would still do your accounts and tax. They'd just get tidy records. You pay for that software on your own card, in your own name. We charge for the setup, and for monthly care if you want it. If we step back, everything stays where it is, in your account.
January then becomes a check, not a lost weekend. You still have to look. You just don't have to reconstruct a year from a box of paper.