3 Ways To Get Organized For Tax Season As A Small Business Owner
Posted on: 6 January 2018
Even though taxes are not officially due until April 15th most years and you generally can't file taxes until the end of January, that doesn't mean you can't get to work organizing for tax season at the start of the year.
Get Your Receipts Together
As a business owner, one of the most important pieces of paper that you need to get together are your business receipts. Your business receipts are what allows you to take full advantage of all of the deductions that are available to you as a small business owner.
If you have just been throwing all of your receipts together all year, this is the time to get organized. Take all of your receipts and start by organizing them by month and within each month, by the business that they are associated with.
From there, go through each individual receipt and make a separate record of what you purchased as a supply that can be deducted as a business expense and a record of what you purchased as equipment that has a long-term depreciation value.
Then, be proactive about next year. Create a file system for your receipts for the new year or consider investing in a receipt-capturing app so you can keep better track of your receipts this year and avoid going through the yearly receipt reconciliation next year.
Get Your Payroll Together
Next, you need to get your payroll together. You need to make sure that you have records of how much you paid each employee this year, and the specific taxes that you paid for each employee that you have. You are going to need to review your payroll and ensure that you paid the right amount of taxes for your employees. This is best done if you have solid records that will allow you to easily look with a glance and find out how much you paid each employee for the entire year and the taxes you paid for each employee for the entire year. Your accountant is going to need this information in order to complete your taxes.
If you want to get ready to sit down with your accountant and complete your taxes, you need to make sure that you have receipts that show all of your expenses and assets that you acquired this year, as well as detailed payroll records. If you sell products that are taxed, you also need records that you properly paid and collected sales taxes for all items that you sold. Contact a service, like Blueback Accounting, for more help.
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