Business Owners: Jump Start Your Tax Season!
We recently released our November newsletter. This month, it is called ‘Seven Steps to a Happier Accountant.’ It’s written like one of those couch to 5K training programs, and starts you with a pile of receipts and gets you to a point you don’t have to be embarrassed to visit your accountant. It was written to save small business owners money and heartache come tax time. If you haven’t done so already, subscribe to my newsletter to get the full article.
One of the points of the article is that if you start now, devoting 15 minutes a day to going through your 2008 transactions is a simple way to get caught up. Start with the first transaction is January, and list and categorize every transaction for fifteen minutes. Once the time is up, mark where you left off, and close up until the next day. Eventually, you will have gotten through the entire year’s worth.
There are two main problems I see with letting your accountant enter and categorize all your transactions for you. First, its a waste of money. Accountants are expensive- one of THE MOST expensive ways to accomplish a feat as simple as data entry. Second, you need to know what is going on with the finances of your company. For my clients, I publish a report that gives the details of the state of their business finances. If you have been out of touch with your business money all year, chances are that you are making un-educated financial decisions. Use the 15 minutes to get better acquainted with the flow of your money.
If this blog applies to you at all, chances are you are not a QuickBooks person. Telling you to make sure to enter all your transactions into QuickBooks is not going to help. If you could afford a service to do your books, you probably would. If you fit in that category, try LessAccounting It is an extremely simple yet thorough web-based accounting application for small business. I don’t use it for my clients because I like to get more detailed in reporting, but for Do-it-Your-Selfers, it may very well be the way to go for 2009.
Mike Freeman
Accounting and Bookkeeping Services in Southern Maine
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