You will set up a file for all your financial documents and a checklist for reading any new one.
At the start of this course, Priya's documents lived in five places: payslips in her work email, CPF in an app she rarely opened, card statements in another app, her contract in a drawer, and her notice of assessment somewhere in myTax Portal. When a landlord asked for three months of payslips, it took her an evening to find them. Every check in this course started the same way, with a search.
This project fixes that once. You'll set up one file for all your financial documents and write a one-page checklist for reading any new document that arrives. Allow about 40 minutes for the setup, plus time to move this year's documents in.
The brief is short. Build a document file, digital, paper or both, organised so you can find any document in under a minute. Save this year's documents in it. Write a one-page checklist, drawn from this course, of what to check in each type of document. Book a yearly date to review the file. The result should be something you'd still be using in five years, so keep it simple enough to maintain.
Create eight folders: income, CPF, banking, tax, insurance, employment, housing and loans. Those eight match the modules of this course and the documents each one covered.
Inside each, use subfolders by year where documents arrive regularly, such as payslips, statements and tax notices. For documents that last for years, such as a policy contract, an employment contract or a tenancy agreement, use one subfolder per policy, job or tenancy instead.
Name files so they sort themselves: the date first, then what it is. "2026-03 payslip" sorts correctly. "Payslip March" doesn't.
If you keep the file digitally, use storage that's backed up and protected, because these documents carry your NRIC number, your income and your account details. If you keep paper originals, keep them in one place, and scan the ones you'd need quickly.
Not everything needs keeping forever, and a file that only grows becomes one you stop using. Set a keep-until rule for each folder.
Some periods come from official sources. IRAS sets how long you must keep records that support your tax return and any reliefs you claim, and states the period on its website. Your insurer's policy documents and the policy contract itself should be kept for as long as the policy is in force, and your insurer can tell you if anything needs keeping longer. Check those sources and write the periods down.
Others are common sense tied to what the document proves. Keep an employment contract and its payslips at least until you've left the job and everything owed has been paid, including CPF. Keep a tenancy agreement, your inventory and photos until the deposit is back. Keep loan documents until the loan is fully repaid and you have confirmation that it's discharged. Keep monthly statements long enough to cover any dispute, and longer if they support a tax claim.
Priya wrote a keep-until rule on a single line at the top of each folder, so the rule travels with the documents.
The checklist is one page, with a short section for each document type, drawn from the lessons you've done. Its job is to make sure the next document gets read properly, even when you're busy.
Under payslip, Priya wrote: required items present, additions match the contract, CPF recalculated on the right wages, net pay matches the bank credit. Under CPF history: one contribution per wage month, amounts match payslips, outflows each matched to a loan or policy, interest credited each January. Under bank and card statements: every fee and its trigger, bonus interest lines present, statement balance paid in full, foreign currency charges checked. Under notice of assessment: income matches IR8A, reliefs complete, due date and objection deadline noted. Then insurance, employment contract, tenancy agreement and loan offer, each with three or four lines from modules 5 to 8.
Keep each line short enough to read in a few seconds. If a line needs explaining, it's too long.
Choose one date a year to go through the file: archive or delete what's past its keep-until date, check that every policy and contract is current, and run the checklist on anything that slipped through. Pick a date that already means something, such as just after your notice of assessment usually arrives, so it's easy to remember. Put it in your calendar as a repeating event now.
You have eight folders, each with a keep-until rule. This year's payslips, CPF statement, bank and card statements, notice of assessment, insurance documents, employment contract and any tenancy or loan documents are saved in them, named by date. Your one-page checklist is saved at the top level of the file, where you'll see it every time. And a yearly review date sits in your calendar.
Priya's file took her an afternoon. The next time a landlord asked for payslips, it took her two minutes. Yours starts with the eight folders, so create those first and work outwards from there.
Set up the document file, save this year's documents in it, write the checklist and book the yearly review date.
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