This small business year end checklist will help you organize your income taxes and get your business planning on track for 2020! 

ORGANIZE YOUR FINANCIAL BOOKS AND RECORDS

As an entrepreneur or small business owner, you should get your books in order before doing any new business planning (this is something we at BooXkeeping can help with!).

DETERMINE YOUR POSITION

The next step is to figure out the present state of your business. 

Examine your financial documents:

The Balance Sheet is a summary of the financial status of your business at a point in time.

The Income Statement let’s you see how profitable your business is at a point in time. Doing this, you itemize your revenue and expenses which indicates if its a profit or loss.

The Cash Flow Statement reconciles your opening cash with your closing cash for a particular period, showing you where the money has gone. The cash flow statement shows the flow of cash in and out of your business. Preparing a cash flow statement for a year spent, list and summarize your business’s cash flow inflows and outflows for each of these three areas:

Once you’ve examined your balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement, dig a little deeper by checking your business’s current ratio, total debt ratio, and profit margin. This would be easier with a balance sheet.

GOALS

You should evaluate your goals from last year and set new goals for the coming year. Check the present state of your business and check back on how you arrived at that point. 

Did your business accomplish your objectives? What is the reason for that? Take notes of your accomplishments and failures. This will come in handy when setting up your business plans for the current year.

TAXES

Assess your current tax strategies. There are tax strategies sole proprietorships and partnerships can use to reduce the amount of income tax they pay, such as income splitting and maximizing your business’s depreciation claims.

You could also make use of fresh the strategies that are yet to be used by changing your business structure. Seek advice from professionals like an accountant or tax lawyer on the tax strategies which would be best for your personal and business circumstances.

PLAN AHEAD

Now, You’ve done all your foundational work and you’re ready to do some business planning. That means that you are going to:

PREPARE YOUR TAX DOCUMENTS

You can either prepare your income tax yourself or turn over the required documents to an accountant. There are key records your tax accountant will need to prepare your income tax. If you are making use of the cloud based accounting software programs for keeping records, your hired accountant would be able to easily access your business records online.

We all know a popular saying; those who fail to plan, plan to fail. Implementing this in your business would require that you plan your business the exact way you want it to be. You know the importance of business planning but it makes it easy to put off daily events. Hopefully, this year end checklist will inspire you to plan your business and make the process easier.

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What is anxiety?

Unlike fear, which is a feeling caused by an external object or situation, anxiety is caused by an imagined future threat. You may fear a spider crawling up your arm (a real threat), but the thought of spiders will cause you anxiety (imagined threat). Often, people can’t specify why they’re anxious. It’s more of a general feeling of uneasiness about ‘something wrong’ or the sense of losing control over yourself, your business or even your life.

Anxiety affects both mind and body. From sweaty palms to difficulty concentrating, it can profoundly affect your ability to interact with the world around you. While it’s perfectly normal to feel some anxiety in your everyday life, it can become overwhelming and develop into one of the forms of anxiety disorders.

Anxiety disorders are more intense, last longer, and can lead to phobias that might seriously interfere with your life. These include panic disorder, agoraphobia, social anxiety, many different kinds of phobias, OCD, etc. For these disorders, medical treatment is necessary, in the form of medication, therapy, etc.

Is the world better than ever?

Yes, it is. There is plenty of evidence showing that poverty, war, inequality, and child mortality are declining around the world and business are continuing to grow. We are healthier and more educated than ever. It’s also true that progress isn’t linear. There will always be ups and downs, and nothing guarantees the future will be better. But there’s no denying that today’s society is much wealthier than in past centuries.

Why so much anxiety then?

It just seems easier to view the world through a glass darkly when we’re constantly bombarded by social media and the 24-hour news cycle. The endless parade of information, misinformation, half-truths, fake media, ransomware attacks and end-of-the-world scenarios can be quite stressful. Not to mention all the people telling you that you should be prettier, smarter, own more things, and work harder — otherwise, your spouse might leave you, your business might go under, and you’ll end up homeless and alone. At BooXkeeping we believe everybody is cool and with our outsourced bookkeeping service, you never have to worry about your business going under due to poor financial management.

There are also biological factors. Our species evolved in a very different environment, and we’re still not adapted to this modern world. The jump from tribal life in the savanna to the high-tech city happened too fast, and our brains are still trying to catch up with all the changes.

The solution?

A quick internet search will show you so many proposed solutions for anxiety, which you might feel stressed (and anxious!) just trying to find the very best and efficient solutions but for a business owner, the fastest and easiest solution to implement right away is outsourced bookkeeping services. In next week’s blog, we will go over another sure fire way to reduce anxiety that will only take minutes a day.

For more information on how you can elevate some anxiety with an outsourced bookkeeping service, contact us today for your complimentary consultation.

The post Report: Outsourced Bookkeeping Service Helps Relieve The Fear of Things to Come appeared first on BooXkeeping.

Let’s have a look at what your CPA or tax preparer will need…

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2017 year-end books a mess? BooXkeeping can help!

There is still time to clean up your 2016 financials and avoid penalties/interest caused by a tax extension. The IRS deadline is March 15th for business returns. Let BooXkeeping help you prepare.

For more information on how you can get year-end bookkeeping completed for your small business, contact BooXkeeping Corporation today while there is still time!

The post White Paper Download – Best Practices: Prepping Your Financials for Tax Season appeared first on BooXkeeping.

Applying for an Extension

When your books are in chaos, and you are preparing for taxes you might need a little breathing room, here is your bookkeeping for small business checklist to determine if you are ready to file or if you should apply for an extension. You don’t have to wait until tax day either. If you know your going to have to file for an extension you can do it prior to March 15th.

However, a tax extension does not mean that you don’t have to pay your taxes on time. You are still responsible for making your payment by the tax deadline so be sure that you estimate what your fees are going to be, pay them and then begin working on your actual tax return.

You will need to document everything because “failure to document” includes its own penalties. In the event that you know you will not make the deadline, and you’re too rushed to take action right away, apply for the extension and pay what you think you owe. It is possible to file your return anyway and then amend it later, however in most cases, it’s easier to take a step back and ensure you file correctly the very first time.

So long as you pay your taxes, processing them later gives you time to be more detailed. It’s certainly much better than accruing interest and penalties.

Collect and Organize your financial data from payroll to expenditures.  All the data should be arranged by category:

–              Payroll

–              Contractors

–              Equipment expenses

–              Business travel

–              Utilities

–              Office supplies

–              Marketing costs

–              Charitable donations and tax-deductible sponsorship’s

–              Income from all resources broken down into sub-categories if possible

When you have other categories unique to your business, get them included as well. The main thing is to make it easy to recognize expenses and categorize them when it comes to bookkeeping for small business. Do not forget to go through your individual credit-card statements, in the event there’s a business expenditure lurking. You need to properly identify it on the receipt and show that it was a genuine business expense.

It could take time to locate a few of your documents which explains why applying for an extension in some cases makes sense.

Review Your expenses, check out your credits and debits. Once you coordinate your receipts and other financial information, review them to enable you to identify any credits or debits you might be missing.

Accounting software like QuickBooks or Xero can help you keep up your books, and stay organized so your prepared for tax season, or you can check with a tax professional for insight on what you might be eligible for. If you are using tax-prep software to investigate your expenses, ensure you using an up to date version. The tax codes change each year, so you may miss something if you are not using a current version of the software.

Better Bookkeeping for Small Business 

Finally, if you’re not using an affordable outsourced bookkeeping firm like BooXkeeping and your trying to keep your own books and build your business there a few things you could do to put systems in place that enable you to keep better bookkeeping for small business records in the foreseeable future. Most importantly, setup a processing system for your receipts if you do not have one in place already. This is often a hard-copy system or something for scanning and managing digital copies. Immediately filing your receipts and sorting as you go saves hard work over time.

Unless you have accounting software, consider purchasing and utilizing it. Applications like QuickBooks or Xero can help you retain and track your financial information. You can utilize it for payroll, invoicing and expense tracking. You can also use QuickBooks to control and settle payments related to your business.  Accounting software, coupled with something for managing receipts can lessen your headaches and prevent a last-minute scramble during tax time.

If you are looking to implement an outsourced bookkeeping solution so you can focus more on the growth of your business, then BooXkeeping is a great way to implement expert bookkeeping services without the time it cost you to do it yourself.  Click here for your complimentary consultation today!

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Key financial metrics are vital when your hands are full, trying to run and build a great business. You have a team in place to handle the most essential functions that you no longer have the time to do yourself. In fact, you may not have touched particular tasks for some time, like bookkeeping for example. Business owners don’t have to be the bookkeeper for their own company, but there are some key financial metrics of bookkeeping basics that a business owner should know.

Business Owners and Key Financial Metrics

Occasionally, analyzing and reviewing key financial metrics helps you do a strategic job of managing your company. Made possible by simply understanding the essential bookkeeping basics. Financial metrics help you measure your businesses’ performance and keep track of your company’s growth.

This means you need to have a firm grasp of bookkeeping basics like the structure and purpose of an Income Statement, also referred to as a P&L or Profit and Loss statement. This includes understanding and knowing the purpose of the numbers in your Cash Flows statements and your Balance Sheet.

Bookkeeping Basics and Business Revenue

The bottom line no matter what business you’re in, you must manage the money that makes it operate, knowing key financial metrics helps you to do this. There is a lot more to it than making and spending money to operate a business. It does take some financial knowledge, if you don’t have that financial knowledge you can always use an expert bookkeeping company like BooXkeeping.

A strategic business leader should be concerned with the equity value first and foremost of the business. This is determined by the Balance Sheet. The value of a business’s equity is in direct correlation to how well a business runs. And how well a business runs is impacted directly by the effectiveness of accounts payable (A/P) and accounts receivables (A/R) systems you have in place, as well as the operational and productivity cost-effectiveness.

Revenue is also an essential fuel that runs a business. Every action in a business either generates or consumes money directly, or indirectly. If a business consumes more money than it is making, then that company won’t be in business for long. Money needs to be coming in at a greater pace than it is going out.

Last but not least, quantification, or measurement, is essential for a business to know how it’s performing. Since most everything that happens in a business either indirectly or directly involves finances, the metrics are available to you. What is needed is capturing that financial information, analyzing it, and using it to manage your business.

Outsourced bookkeeping services are a great way to know exactly how much your business is making every month. For more information on how outsourced bookkeeping services can help your business contact us for your complimentary consultation. Click Here

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