Prepare To Avoid Tax Time Crunch

Have you prepared all year for tax time? Organization is the key to avoiding Tax Time Crunch.

We all know that time of year will
come! Yes, Tax Time! Many of us
will be gritting our teeth at
the sound of those words.
With being business owners, we
all find ourselves spending a
lot of time in the beginning of
the year gathering receipts, and
preparing the financial statements
for the previous year to complete
the taxes and year end.

My business has grown substantially
over the last few years and this
makes the year end even larger to
prepare and so many details to
attend to. Thank goodness for our
accountant and the knowledge they
can provide us with! Even with an
accountant, we have found the more
that you can do yourself the less
the accountant has to do. This
then does save $$ but does it
really in the end?

We all know that time is money.
With year ends, financial
statements, tax returns and
calculation of tax payable; the
larger the company, the larger
amount of details that need to
be considered, reviewed and
processed. Accountants that
deal with businesses and/or
internet companies have knowledge
and are trained for this area.
Tax laws change almost daily,
and they are up to date on these
changes. They truly can save you
time and money if you are prepared.

The best advice I can give anyone,
is to make sure you are prepared
and organized throughout the year.
Do not wait until January to start
gathering your receipts. If you have
your balance sheets done, expenses/
income accounted for each and every
month, this will save you time when
it comes to the preparation work for
your year end. There are many handy
programs now that will help you do
this as well. Enter in your daily/
weekly income/expense receipts into
an accounting software, balance your
books each month and at the end of
the year, all you need to do is print
out these statements and send them
off to your accountant OR use this
information yourself to prepare your
tax returns.

A popular accounting software program
is QuickBooks, which is available for
US companies and does offer a free
trial. http://www.quickbooks.com/ This program
is not inexpensive, but when it comes
to time and preparing your income/
expenses it could save you $$ in the
end. Another great thing about Quick-
Books is that a lot of the online
payment processors offer a Quick-
Books download of your financial
transactions. By using this and
importing it into your accounting
software, you are able to prepare
your monthly statements quite
quickly and also with less errors.

Another popular accounting software
used in Canada is Simply Accounting.
http://www.simplyaccounting.com/ce/products/simply.asp
This powerful software is used by
most Canadian accountants, is easy
to learn and use and powerful
features for all your accounting needs.

NetSuite offers an integrated online
accounting application with ecommerce,
sales, inventory, shipping and support.
Free Trial is available http://www.netsuite.com/

An easy to use accounting system that
provides a total business solution to
small and medium sized companies. This
is a free accounting software system.
http://www.enablecomputing.com/index.jsp

It’s a slick little bookkeeping program
that tracks the ins and outs of your
money without all the bells and
whistles. Big E-Z has lots of cool
programming that makes good use
of your Excel program. It doesn’t
matter what your skill level is–
anyone can use it. And it’s so
affordable–it’s almost free!
http://www.bigez.com/

If you are just starting out with your
business and can not justify spending
$$ on accounting software or want to
use a very simple system, using Excel
spreadsheets is a fairly easy and
inexpensive way to organize your
income/expenses. If you were to do a
search on Google for “accounting
spreadsheet template” you will be
presented with many spreadsheet
templates, which will assist you with
the proper format of your financial
documents. All that is needed is for
you to customize the accounts and
fields for your own company, then
start inputting your financial
transactions into it.

Here are just a few I have
found through my searches:

http://www.exinfm.com/free_spreadsheets.html
http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/templates/CT011377021033.asp
http://www.excelbusinesstools.com/solutions.asp?q=Accounting&l=1
http://www.itssimple.biz/biz_tools/tools/trialb_m.html
http://www.sbsbusinessservices.com/download_page.htm
http://www.ozgrid.com/Services/profit-loss-spreadsheet.htm

If you are using an accountant for
your year end preparation, it is a
good idea to check with them to see
what type of accounting system will
work best for both of you. They may
have some good suggestions and let
you know what software they are able
to work with.

Organization throughout the year will
save you frustration and time and
definitely money when it comes to
tax time. We all know Organization
is the key to any successful business!
When you are organized, it frees up
more of your precious time , which
then can be used productively in
growing your business

About the author

Val Burnett is Owner of many
responsive marketing programs
found at http://www.mbpadvertising.com/
Plus publisher of BizMajic News
http://www.bizmajic.com/
“Our business IS our Customers“

Tags: accountant, accountants, accounting software, avoiding tax, balance sheets, business owners, financial statements, goodness, handy programs, internet companies, previous year, receipts, tax returns, tax time, time and money, time crunch, time is money, time of year, time organization, year end

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Prepare To Avoid Tax Time Crunch

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