Have a look in your bakkie.
Under the seat. In the cubbyhole. That till slip that has gone grey and cannot be read any more.
Every one of those is money you spent running your business. And every one you cannot produce is money you cannot claim.
The thing most people get wrong
You do not keep slips because SARS might ask. You keep slips because they reduce what you owe.
A slip you kept is not admin. It is money.
Once you see it that way, the ten seconds it takes to photograph one stops feeling like paperwork.
Why the shoebox fails
Everybody starts with the shoebox and nobody finishes the year with it.
Slips fade. Till receipts genuinely go blank in about six months in a hot bakkie.
They get lost. Between the shop and the house is a long way for a small piece of paper.
They are not sorted. In February you are holding a year of paper with no idea what half of it was for.
And you do it in one sitting. Twelve months of slips on a Sunday in June is why people give up and just do not claim.
What actually works
Photograph it at the till. Not later, not at home. Standing there, before it goes in your pocket.
Say what it was for while you still remember. Materials, fuel, tools, a customer lunch. In June you will not remember what a hardware slip for R340 was for. Today you do.
Do it every time, including the small ones. R80 of screws twenty times a year is real money.
What you can generally claim
The rules have detail and your circumstances matter, so this is a starting point and not advice. Typically:
Materials and stock. Tools and equipment. Fuel and vehicle running costs for business use. Your phone and data, for the business portion. Advertising. Software you use to run the business. Bank charges on the business account.
Two that catch people out. Vehicle use has to be split between business and private, so keep some record of your business travel. And if you work from home, there are rules and they are stricter than people assume.
When it matters, ask an accountant. An hour of their time usually pays for itself several times over, and this is exactly the kind of question where a Facebook post should not be your final answer.
The habit, in one line
Photograph it at the till, say what it was for, move on.
Ten seconds, standing there, while the slip is still readable and you still know what you bought.
Do that for a year and tax time is an export instead of a weekend.
The honest summary
Those slips are not paperwork. They are money you already spent and are allowed to claim back.
The system does not have to be clever. It has to happen at the till.
KatisoBiz lets you photograph a slip and tag it in seconds, and it is there when you need it. Slip capture comes with the R49 plan, which also covers 75 documents a month and your reports.