Tag Archives: accounting

Accounting

Operating At A Loss Even When You’re Making Money

Whether you’re a small or large business, sometimes your business runs at a loss. Many times that’s the sign of growing pains and potential long term problems with a business, and it pays to have an accountant helping you figure things out.

However, there are times when your business might actually be making pretty good money and you might think your business isn’t running at a loss and yet it really is. Those are the times when it’s even more important to have an accountant helping you along the way because it could end up saving you lots of money when it comes to taxes, including not owing anything at all, and only your accountant will understand all the nuances.

For instance, if your business runs at a loss in one year the IRS allows a carryover into the next year. If you run your business at a loss multiple years in a row, you get to apply it to future years as long as your revenue and income doesn’t overly supersede your expenses.

You may also incur a lot of expenses in your business even if you’re making pretty good money. If you’re some kind of corporation and the expenses are high enough you might find yourself officially running at a loss, even if things are looking up. If you’re traveling and paying your own expenses you can pretty much write everything off, even if you might not get 100% credit for it, such as for meals.

It’s a very complicated business trying to figure it all out and there’s no reason to try to take it upon yourself. That’s what accountants live for, helping other businesses find ways of protecting their businesses and themselves. The little bit of money you’ll pay your accountants could save you thousands on the back end.
 

Accounting

5 Things Your Accountant Needs From You For Your Business Taxes

Even though it’s late for those of you who aren’t filing for a tax extension, the fact of the matter is that when it’s time for your accountant to do your taxes, there are things you’re going to want to have ready to give him or her so they can do their job properly. Listed below are the 5 most critical things they’re going to need, though not necessarily in this order.

Mileage – Even if you use your vehicle for personal reasons as well, keeping track of your business mileage is very important because it will offer legitimate deductions that will help bring your tax bill down. If there are places you go all the time you should have an estimated mileage count for that, and then you just have to totally track your mileage for anything outside of that. You only get to count what you don’t get paid back for expenses. And if you used a rental car, you don’t get to claim mileage.

Receipts – Anything that’s somewhat business related, you need to make sure you keep your receipts for it. This includes business meals, stamps, any supplies you might use for business, buying a new smartphone, etc. If you need to you can write little notes on them; for instance, I write little notes on all my receipts for business meals in case anyone wanted to track who I was meeting for business purposes.

Bank Statements – Hopefully you have a bank account that’s specific for your business, which is easy to use. For my purposes, I also give my accountant my personal account statements, just in case they see something that pops out that they can use. Your bank statements will show any payments you got for the year, as well as some of your business expenses. You’ll probably need to go through your payments and expenses and highlight where some of the money came from if you earned it in different ways so they can categorize it for you.

Any statements showing estimated tax payments – I bring this one up because if you’re like me, you don’t always pay your estimated taxes from your bank account. I paid some of mine with a credit card, and thus I had to go back and retrieve those statements online to give to my accountant for my records.

Any pertinent W-2′s or 1099′s – Truthfully, your accountants can do your taxes if you don’t have these statements by using your business bank account information, but any of these you have makes it easier for them. The times I didn’t use them was when they either came late or were incorrect.

Accounting

Why We Teach Quickbooks

T. L. Wall Accounting helps businesses and individuals learn how to budget and track their money. We offer services where we can do it for them, but often they want to do it for themselves. When people go looking for a solution that will help them track these things on their own, we recommend and teach Quickbooks.

Quickbooks is business accounting software that can also be used for home budgeting. There is a learning curve to it, but most people can learn how to use it in a day or so. It allows you to track income and expenses, categorize them so you know what they are when you run reports, and you can even use it to create checks so you don’t have to go out and buy them from anyone. If you run a large office you can network it so that everyone has access or you can run the program as a standalone.

This is very powerful software. You can generally categorize in 3 categories, depending on whether you want to track bills, revenue or employees. It interacts with Microsoft Excel and Word. You can also print information out in a pdf format, in case you want something that can’t be altered. You can use it to send out invoices. You can use it as a contact management system, as it will interact with Microsoft Outlook as well.

In other words, if you want total control of all the financial aspects of your business or personal life, Quickbooks will get it done. Of course, it all still takes time, but if you want to know what’s going on at a moment’s notice, this program is great to have. And yes, there are tutorials, but if you need help, that’s why we’re here. We provide both group and individual training, customized for your needs.