It’s New Year’s Eve, and for a lot of people, that means preparing to party. We’re kind of boring at my house. We got all partied out last week, with Christmas. But for us, the end of the year means something else – tidying up our accounts to get ready for next year.
My husband and I have run our own businesses from home for quite some time, in addition to his full-time work. The paperwork is a pain, but we do enjoy other benefits. At the end of the year, we make sure to do the following things:
1. We need to write down our ending mileage on both vehicles so we can properly report it on our taxes.
2. We need to make sure we’ve sent out receipts to our customers and that we’ve received receipts from those persons who owe them to us.
3. We gather up receipts for any times bought online so we can account for the sales tax.
4. We also like to balance our checkbooks so we know, going in to the new year, exactly how much money we have. I’m facing a stack of receipts right now that I’ve been ignoring all week. Sigh … can’t ignore them for too much longer.
5. We look back at the last year and see if we met the goals we set, and then we also like to set goals for the new year. You can’t grow if you don’t stretch, and business is one area where you always want to grow.
Even if you don’t own any of your own businesses, it’s not a bad idea to go through your finances and make sure they’re all in order for the new year. Don’t count on your memory kicking in and filling in that missing information when it’s tax time – get everything written down right now so that as the April deadline draws closer, you have only to transcribe some information and be on your way.
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Planning for Next Year’s Taxes