Are you ready to file your taxes? Most people would rather visit the dentist, which is why many people put it off until the last minute. But do yourself a favor… don’t put it off. Get everything together NOW. Almost every accountant has a story about a small business client showing up in the second week of April with a shoebox full of receipts expecting to get a tax return done.

You don’t have to be in that position… as long as you start getting things in order right now. If tax time is chaotic for you as a small business owner, chances are your books are as well. If you fall into this statistic, you probably don’t have a good sense of your cash flow, accounts receivable, or profit/losses either.

If this is you, you need to GET ORGANIZED, and you need to do it now while you still have some time.
If you don’t already have it, you need to get an accounting software package. There are some really great ones out there at very reasonable prices.

A few of the more popular ones are:
QuickBooks from Intuit
Peachtree from Sage Software
Simply Accounting from Sage Software

Buy an accounting package, set it up, and start entering all of your financial information. Use bank statements, check registers, credit card statements and any receipts. Get those hard-copy documents into the software. If you start this now, you can get it done before that April deadline… you should already be doing this for 2008 anyway.

If you aren’t organized when you go to file, there is a strong chance that you are paying more taxes than you should. If you just don’t have the time to keep your books current, hiring a part-time bookkeeper will probably save you money in the long run.

If you don’t start doing this right now, and April sneaks up on you and your shoebox of receipts, don’t be surprised if your accountant tells you that they will be filing for an extension instead of your return. An accountant will be reluctant to file a return quickly like that if your records are in disarray. If you hand your tax preparer a chaotic set of records, it’s going to be more expensive. It costs more to have someone else clean up your mess.

So get organized and take a clean, easy to follow set of books to your accountant… not a nightmare in a shoebox.

If you are a diehard, do-it-yourself kind of person, there are many online options for filing your taxes... some are even free!

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