Tax season can be very stressful time for small business owners. Even so, you’ve probably spent the year maintaining and growing your business and doing all the right things. As an entrepreneur focusing on your vision, keeping track of accounting back office functions sometimes takes the back burner. But, you filed an extension, which is great! Now its time to organize all your financial records for tax preparation.
With these five tips and some breathing relaxation, you can get through it!
- List all your bank, credit card and payment processing accounts, for instance PayPal, Square and Shopify. By listing these accounts, you can be sure to have all the key information to prepare your taxes. These are the first items you will need if you are using a professional bookkeeping service to help with your tax preparation.
- Organize all forms of payment received from the accounts in point number 1. For this, be sure to include any 1099-K and 1099-MISC forms, etc. This reflects your income.
- Outline all expenses, including contributions made to your business that did not go through any of your financial accounts. This is important because it will reflect on your bottom-line. These expenses can include incorporation costs, business travel and meals, personal computer and office supplies used for business including Amazon orders. The best way to do this, for instance, is to maintain a simple spreadsheet. Remember to include any expenses before opening up your business accounts!
- Collect your personal bank and credit card statements for review with your tax adviser to check the “deduct-ability”. You want to be as thorough as possible to avoid leaving out any expenses that can be deducted from your tax return. In other words, an accurate record of business costs will be valuable later when assessing profitability.
- This is a great time to start thinking about systems. Do you need to consider a web software to help you stay organized? There are several free services such as WaveApps and other paid options such as QuickBooks Online and Xero. You don’t have to go through this selection of financial systems alone.
DCC helps guide these decisions and incorporates the systems to help businesses thrive.
