Don't let tax season overwhelm you. Utilize these nine resources to help you take the stress out of preparing your taxes for Uncle Sam.
April really is the cruelest month. But when British poet T.S. Eliot immortalized those famous words in his literary masterpiece "The Waste Land," he never could've known that they would end up ringing true for business owners and entrepreneurs living in 21st-century America.
Getting all of your receipts, financial documents and bank statements in order can be an arduous task. But there are solutions so that you can focus more on running your business and less on sifting through mountains of paperwork. Seeking outside help from a trusted accountant or bookkeeper is a great option, and technology has taken the grunt work out of organizing and preparing your own tax records -- making April not seem nearly as cruel as it used to be.
We asked nine entrepreneurs from YEC to share the resources they use to simplify things and help get their taxes in order.
1
Track1099
Issuing 1099s was always a slow, costly process that required a CPA or advanced knowledge of Quickbooks. New online services such as Track1099 make processing your business' 1099s much easier. These services connect to your accounting program, pull the information from the appropriate recipients of 1099s and take care of all the communication with both the recipient and the IRS. Online and cheap. - Diego Orjuela, Cables & Sensors
2
Mint
Mint is a great way to review your business transactions from the past year. It is a mobile finance app you can link to credit cards, bank accounts and investment funds. Mint will automatically tag and categorize purchases to help you identify donations, gifts and other tax-deductible expenses that you've incurred over the year. - Adelyn Zhou, TOPBOTS
3
QuickBooks Self-Employed
Intuit recently launched a new offering called QuickBooks Self-Employed (QBSE), which is perfect for small businesses that aren't ready to jump into the full-service offering that most are used to seeing advertised. QBSE is great for independent contractors and freelancers as it allows a user to quickly and easily detangle expenses that might be intermingled across personal/business accounts. - Corey Eulas, Factorial Digital
4
Xero
We implemented Xero about two years ago, and it is a great cloud accounting solution with superb integration for other platforms so that you have Xero as the heart of your organization. There's also lots of customization possibilities due to their open API. We are still using a personal accounting firm, but remotely, we use Xero as a cloud accounting solution. - Philipp Mohr, Hashplay Inc
5
A Bookkeeper
The best way to plan for taxes is not to leave everything until the last second. Hire a good bookkeeper and have them take care of your books year round. I'd recommend having them utilize a widely used system like Quickbooks Online, which will give you real-time access to your financials. This will allow you to focus on growing your business as opposed to spending more time on taxes. - Mitch Gordon, Go Overseas
6
Evernote
I like Evernote because I can put all my files, notes and receipts in one place via a cloud-storage format. It just makes it easy when I'm on the go and can save and upload from anywhere. - John Rampton, Due
7
QuickBooks Online
I absolutely love using QuickBooks Online to help keep me organized and my books reconciled for tax time. It has made my life so much easier, and I love their mobile app for ease of use while I'm traveling or on the go. I can actually run payroll off my smartphone -- how cool! - Rachel Beider, Massage Greenpoint, Massage Williamsburg
8
Google Sheets
In addition to many of the other well-known tax software products out there, Google Sheets is definitely going to come in handy. Google Sheets is free to use and nearly identical to Excel -- with even more benefits. Access your data from anywhere and also share or convert to a different file type with the click of a button. - Zac Johnson, Blogger
9
An Accountant
Outsource your taxes. It’s not going to be expensive if you use an independent accountant that has your best interests at heart. You can make more money in the time (not to mention avoid the headaches) that you'll save yourself. - Thomas Smale, FE International