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Keeper - never miss a write off
p/keeper-never-miss-a-write-offKeeper monitors your purchases for tax deductible expenses.
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Kat Manalac

Keeper - Automatic tax write offs for freelancers

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Stop overpaying on taxes! Keeper helps US freelancers and 1099 contractors automatically find tax write offs throughout the year. We monitor your purchase history in real time to find business expenses, and notify you via text.

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Paul Koullick
Hello Product Hunt! We started Keeper (YC W19) because freelancers and contractors are paying waaay too much in taxes. Unless you go to an accountant, it's so easy to miss simple write offs like phone bills, home office, or business travel. Keeper automatically finds tax write offs for you, by monitoring your bank statements. We monitor your purchases in real time to identify business expenses and notify you via text. We'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback on Keeper! The future of work is increasingly freelance and self-employment, and we're excited to help out on the tax front.
Chris Messina
Top Hunter
@paulkoullick congrats on the launch. What process do you use to determine whether something qualifies for a write-off? How do you build that list over time? How do you use the data that you collect from people's bank accounts? Do you plan to mine and monetize or sell insights about that data to third parties? Also — what about travel-based expenses? For example, most travel expenses can be written off (I think?), so are you able to consistently capture expenses incurred while traveling?
Paul Koullick
@chrismessina great questions! We sweat over every detail and build custom mappings of job types to deductible expenses on two dimensions: across a contractor segment, and specific to the customer we're working with. Here's the write offs we track for rideshare drivers, for example: https://blog.keepertax.com/tax-w... Let's do an example: if you are a rideshare driver, you can write off part of your spotify subscription if you play the music in the car with your passengers. We then ask you: "Do you play spotify in the car to your passengers?" and if they say yes then we auto-add that monthly subscription charge to that customer's tax write offs henceforth. We aren't in the business of disclosing our customer's data. It's against our privacy policy, and they pay us so it's not like we have to do it to monetize. Re: travel expenses - great question! We are launching an app where you can give Keeper location permission. When we know you're traveling (IRS defines it as >100 mi from home as crow flies), Keeper will ask you if you're traveling for work and if yes then automatically write off meals, transportation, and lodging expenses!
Chris Messina
Top Hunter
@paulkoullick very helpful, thank you!
Ryan Hoover
As freelancing continues to grow in popularity, something like this is increasingly useful. @paulkoullick, I'm curious what's next on the roadmap beyond tax write offs. This seems like a strong wedge into other financial services for contractors.
Paul Koullick
Hey @rrhoover! Longer term, we see ourselves as the modern financial advisor. Lots of financial services suck for contractors -- loans, mortgages, insurance, retirement accounts -- when you try to walk into a traditional bank, they see any employment that is not W2 as a RISK and give you shit terms. At Keeper, we know that 1099 income can be just as consistent. Our users know how to hustle when they need to! That said, we have to start by being awesome at taxes. Taxes are a HUGE painpoint and an opportunity to put money back in people's pockets. We earn the right to do more once our customers already love us.
Justin Mabee
I've been using Keeper for the past couple of months, and I love how seamlessly it works. It's easy to get set up, I had no problems during the entire setup process getting my accounts connected, and then Keeper got to work! I get regular text messages asking me to confirm if something I spent was a business expense or not, and over time, those questions will become less and less important, because they'll learn my behaviors. Several items on my bills that they see, they don't even ask about because they know what I do and how I do it, and they understand my systems. Keeper really works!
Paul Koullick
Hey @jmabeebiz ! Yep, once we ask about a recurring bill once we know how to categorize it in the future :) Thanks for the comment, and thanks for using Keeper!
David Kang
Maker
Hey everyone, we're super stoked to be featured on product hunt! Let us know what you think of Keeper. Paul and I will be hanging out here all day.
Ash Ketchum

Great company to use. Highly recommendable.

Pros:

Great company and you talk to a real person! Awesome service. I’m recommending to all the small business owners I know.

Cons:

None

David Kang
Maker
Thanks Ashli! You're been a great user for us and I'm glad you're enjoyed the service!
MEGA

This is my first year as an independent contractor and Keeper Tax has definitely made me feel more confident when it comes to taxes! Besides tracking expenses, they send out really helpful, relevant blog posts.

Pros:

Super easy and to the point! Tracks my spending and creates an organized platform for tax write-offs.

Cons:

None

Paul Koullick
Thanks for the review! Glad you like our blog posts also :) We put a lot of work into making taxes simple and easy to understand
Nic Ilieff
THIS IS THE MOST VALUABLE SERVICE FOR MY BUSINESS I HAVE EVER SIGNED UP FOR! Minus the fact that the service at KeeperTax is beyond amazing and it's super inexpensive the sheer time and headache it saves from not having to keep track of receipts or figure out what is a write-off and what is not is beyond any numeric value for me. I can honestly say that this service is and will be the most valuable service I have or will ever sign up for. Bottom line. And if you are a contractor or 1099 freelancer and you're not signing up for KeeperTax then you're shooting yourself in the foot and you might as well just take a stack of cash and light it on fire, because with these guys you'll save so much time and we all know time is money!
Paul Koullick
@homelessnickle Nic! Thanks so much for hopping on and saying these nice things :) "you might as well just take a stack of cash and light it on fire" 🔥🔥🔥
Daisy Tee
great!
David Kang
Maker
@daisy_tee Give us a try and let us know what you think!
Yoshi Yokokawa
Congrats Paul David!! Our freelancer team members would love this too !!
David Kang
Maker
@yokokawa244 Send them our way! We'd be happy to help them out.
Christopher Madsen

Keeper is great! They make doing contract work so much less of a hassle by letting me not sweat the small stuff because I know they’re keeping track. All I have to do is occasionally answer a text about my spending. They found write-offs I didn’t even know about! It’s also incredibly affordable, making the decision to use it an absolute no-brainer.

Pros:

Keeper is easy to use, which saves me time and energy, and they've shown me more possible write-offs, saving me $

Cons:

Keeper only had big corporate banks as options so you're out of luck if you don't use one of them

Joshua Priebe

Keeper is the tax certainty that I need in my life. There isn't anyone as thouroughly dedicated to their product as Larry and David.

Pros:

Automated write-offs. Easiest interface. Great customer service. Phenomenal implementation.

Cons:

If I could dream up something wrong with Keeper it would be a lie.

Samantha Segrest

I have enjoyed this program.. being a freelancer, taxes can be daunting

Pros:

Super Easy and Helps with daily upkeep of expenses.

Cons:

none so far!

Adam Tony
nice one!
Emily Tran
It's so great!!!
Alma Lucero Acosta

I actually noticed a fraudulent charge on my card before my bank even noticed because Keeper texted me first. I love this service!

Pros:

I love that their service is a mix of humans and bots that have very personal language. They respond very fast too!

Cons:

They’re still working on their online dashboard

Upasna Sharma

N/A

Pros:

I love getting text messages from keeper - each time I learn that I've saved some more money $$$ ! :) Little burst of dopamine every time

Cons:

I would love to see a business version

Liana Herrera
As an accountant, I absolutely recommend this product. I’ve worked as an independent contractor before and it was a complete hassle trying to get the most out of my taxes. Keeper does all that legwork for you at a reasonable price so you can focus on other things.
Victor Pontis
I tried out Keeper early on and it was really easy -- just connected my bank accounts and they started finding and suggested deductions. I'm also recommending Keeper to users of scootermap.com and we haven't had any complaints so far! :)
Anna Filou
This is USA only, right? I assume it is but it would have been nice of yours to mention it somewhere.
Daisy Tee
great