Keep these tax tips in mind when you review your 2017 taxes with your Accountant and Bookkeeper.
Gather all fiscal records.
Gather all of your documents for your purchases, business expenses, income and records of transactions, and pull all of your receipts, bank statements, cancelled checks and paid bills. Your bookkeeper can be your right hand man at this time. If you currently have a bookkeeper or accountant maintaining your QuickBooks or QuickBooks Online this will be a simple process.
If you are a small business owner who occasionally puts some expenses (like a home office) on personal credit cards, then make sure to bring this paperwork with you as well to ensure all business costs are captured. A few forgotten expenses can result in taxes paid on a few thousand dollars of alleged income, when in fact the income was really expenses. Most successful business owners highly recommend getting a professional to keep the bookkeeping records.
MD Bookkeeping & Internet Services LLC professionals are ready to help you at any time. Our professional bookkeepers are at your disposal. We will gladly help you with your books and records year round.
*Don’t forget that Tuesday, April 17th is the Filing Deadline for 2017 1040 IRS Tax Returns.
Sort and categorize financial documents.
After your financial statements have been gathered, you will need to sort and categorize each business expense into different categories, such as auto expenses, home-office expenses, utilities, etc. This way the tax preparer can easily access the right numbers and feed them into a system to figure out the deductions you may be eligible for. Many businesses and sole proprietors procrastinate and leave too much of this important work until the end of the year. At MD Bookkeeping & Internet Services LLC we are ready to help. Our highly trained bookkeepers will help you prepare your records for proper tax preparation and filing. MD Bookkeeping & Internet Services can also save you money by catching expenses that you might not realize you are able to deduct.
Make sure all income is documented.
Tracking income is an area where small business owners can really get into trouble. You need to be able to tell your tax preparer, “this is how much money I made this year” and be confident your numbers are accurate. Otherwise, the Internal Revenue Service can audit you and the figure must be 100% accurate. The IRS doesn’t care if you fail to report all your business expenses, but they will pursue you if you fail to report your income properly.
After Tax Day is behind you and you’ve filed your return, sit down and try to identify a better way to maintain your financial records- year round. Waiting for tax season to come around before you organize your records will continue to haunt you and give you feelings that you really don’t need. This way you don’t have to be in the same situation again year after year. If you don’t have time to do a little bookkeeping each day, when will you find the time to record a month’s or a year’s worth of records? Each business owner has their own system. You need to find out what works for you. What matters most is that you have a system and use it on a regular basis-bookkeepers and accountants are the preferred way to go if you can’t afford the time to dedicate to record keeping and the daily demands of your business.
The best way is to let MD Bookkeeping & Internet Services LLC handle your books year round so that you will be ready to file come tax time.
Give us a call today or fill out this form for a free consultation to see how we can solve your accounting, bookkeeping and tax preparation problems!