Small Business Owner? Tips To Make Things Easier For Your Accountant At Tax Time
Posted on: 26 January 2016
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If you are a small business owner, it takes a lot of hard work and determination to keep your business going. Part of doing this is hiring an accountant, like one from Bliss & Skeen CPAs, to take care of your taxes. You can make things much easier for them, as well as yourself, by handling your paperwork successfully throughout the year, and keeping your books maintained. Follow the tips below and you should have no problems at tax time.
Stop Using Paper Receipts
If you currently keep a paper receipt for everything, such as from office supply stores, taxis you may use, and restaurants you take clients to, it can be difficult to keep up with all those receipts. Because the Internal Revenue Service will accept electronic copies of receipts, you should be using a receipt scanner to take care of all of them. With this type scanner, each time you have a receipt, put it in the machine, it scans it, and creates a digital file for it.
In most cases, you can organize the receipts in any way you wish. If so, consider putting the receipts into different categories. For example, put travel, restaurant, utilities, and office supplies into separate folders. Taking this approach will help your accountant when it comes to tax time.
Exactly how this works depends on the receipt scanner you purchase.
Separate Personal Receipts from Business Receipts
Your personal receipts should not be included with your business receipts, as you cannot claim anything for personal use to the IRS. If you do, the government may audit your business. Keep the personal receipts in a separate folder, and then let your accountant look them over. It may be possible for you to use some of them, but in most cases it will not be all of them.
Maintain Your Records Daily
It is important for you to keep track of all cash your business brings in, as well as the cash that you spend. You can do this by taking time to maintain your records each day. If you do not have a bookkeeper that you use, there are accounting software programs available for you to use for this purpose. Match all invoices and receipts for your expenses and business operations with your accounting program to ensure the numbers match. Fixing a problem as it happens is much easier than going back through many months trying to determine where the problem is.
Talk with your accountant, who can give you many tips to help you stay more organized with your paperwork.