Preparing your taxes is not an easy thing when you own a business. Depending on how you run your business and what type of business you run, it may be really difficult and require an accountant to do it for you. One thing that’s sure to make things easier is to work on preparing your taxes all year long.
There’s nothing worse than not preparing and spending days or weeks gathering information and stressing over things you can’t collect because it’s too late. Not being able to add things to your taxes because you waited until it was too late will only cause you problems and the loss of potential refunds. You certainly don’t want that to happen, so it’s best to know ahead of time what you need and then work all year long collecting this information.
Tax laws change every year, but certain things don’t change, so those are the things you can keep track of each day. You can research or ask your accountant about the things that changed so you can include those, but it’s important to do the ones you know for sure.
Your income and the things you pay for are two of the things that never change when it comes to business taxes, so those are the first two things you need to keep track of each month. The best way to do this is to use a program like Quickbooks, but a spreadsheet will do the same thing. The best thing to do is update it each time you get paid or pay for something. That way you don’t forget anything.
If you outsource tasks to others, you’ll need to send out 1099 forms, so you must keep track of the payments made to these people so that those forms are accurate. You’ll need to include these on your tax returns, so it’s crucial they be accurate and your program or spreadsheet will help you make this happen.
Advertising is the next thing you need to keep track of in your program or on your spreadsheet. This is a write-off for you so you’ll want to include every penny you can. This includes logoes on your vehicle, business cards, flyers, thank you cards, or any online option you pay for.
While this will take time each week or month, it is a task you can outsource to your Virtual Assistant. You can give her access to your program or spreadsheet and she can do the updates for you. All you have to do is send her emails with receipts or documentation showing what you did and she can add it for you.
Keeping track of income and payments regularly will save you time and stress when the New Year comes along and it’s time to prepare your business taxes. You’ll also find you won’t forget to include things which are sure to cause you to lose money when it comes to your refund. Don’t let that happen!
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