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Prepare To Avoid 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.aspx
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:
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Be sure to check out Val's ebook
Don't Wake Me Up! I am Making Money! Your Guide to Achieving
Success from home!
http://www.successgroundzero.com
Val Burnett is Owner of many
responsive marketing programs
found at http://www.mbpadvertising.com
Plus publisher of MBP BizMajic News
http://news.mbpadvertising.com
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