This Time Of Year Can Be Taxing
I committed to Mrs. App and our CPA to have our financial documents ready before April 15. I’ll share a secret. I absolutely loathe gathering our financial information each year. I maintain meticulous records with financial software, however the corresponding documentation is a mess. There’s one weekend a year that my office looks as though I left a window open on a windy day and blew a stack of paper across my office. We’ll need to alert a search party if anyone ventures into my office. Come on. I’m not the only one. Right? I say the same thing when I start to compile my tax records each year as I do on each January 1, “This is THE year!” Well, maybe 2016 will be the year. So far, 2015 has been better than last in regard to document organization. It has been better because I deployed a few tools.
Mrs. App always asks what takes so long to finish taxes. Candidly, estimating and completing the taxes is not the hard, time consuming part. I find that looking for supporting documentation is the biggest time consumption. Business mileage is always a fun exercise. It feels as though I’m playing Where’s Waldo while looking for a brightly colored post-it note with my mileage from January 1, 2014. Or worse, I track down my oil change receipts to estimate my January 1 mileage. This year, I used MileIQ (MileBug for Android or Windows) to track mileage. There isn’t a need to turn it on or off. It runs in the background. Enter the taxable rate and it’ll generate the necessary reports for your tax return. It’ll report on the meeting details, as well.
My uncle, a CPA, handles our taxes. I don’t pay him enough for us to be his client. He says that at least once a year, he’ll have a client come into his office with a shoebox of receipts. And I thought, who keeps shoeboxes? There’s a business for everything nowadays! Shoeboxed is a fee-based service that will organize documents, receipts and process into a cloud storage application, such as Evernote. For free, an iPhone app called OneReceipt can provide a similar service as Shoeboxed. I am a OneNote believer. If you are a PC (not Mac) user, most likely you have OneNote on your PC. Using the OneDrive (Microsoft’s cloud storage), OneNote can be viewed and accessed from your device or PC. I scan invoices, medical statements, and receipts into OneNote. Rather than finger through a file cabinet, I’ll search for the scanned image from my phone. This has made tax prep more organized and less time consuming. Think of OneNote as a large writing pad or journal. Create sections, just as you would in a journal, and then add documents to pages. For example, I have a section named Taxes – Auto. Within the pages of this section, I have scanned receipts for gas, oil changes, plate registration and maintenance. Rather than search through a physical folder, I have the documents in hand or on my PC.
We love deductions, right? Easily track deductions with a few tools: ItsDeductible, iDonatedIt and deductr. ItsDeductible and iDonatedIt track non-cash deductions (i.e. Goodwill), while deductr is a fee-based app with a larger offering. It’ll track mileage, expenses and time management. If you’re looking for free tax assistance, check out IRS2Go. After talking about taxes, we should start a Have You Hugged a CPA Today? Day.
Speaking of office messes, it’s entirely possible the tiny USB plug in for my wireless mouse is lost in the abyss, or maybe Baby App ate it. OK, don’t fret, Baby App is safe. He didn’t eat it. I did lose the plug-in, though. I’ve never been a fan of the keyboard mouse pad so I use Remote Mouse, which turns your phone into a mouse. The app needs to run on the laptop and mouse, as well as both devices need to be on the same wifi network. The mouse app is extremely smooth and easy to use. I’ll eventually find the USB plug-in.
For the LinkedIn users, try LinkedIn Connected. Each morning, the app sends an alert with that day’s updates, such as your contacts’ work anniversaries, birthdays and new jobs. This is a great way to view updates in a timely manner as you build and engage with your LinkedIn network.
Do you have a teenager at home? I would ask if you are a teenager, however I’m not certain a teenager knows what a newspaper is. The Glendale Sports Center at Infinity Park managed by the YMCA is hosting a Teen Entrepreneur Program. The program starts April 7 and runs for five consecutive Tuesday evenings. The two hour sessions will be taught by an entrepreneur that specializes in teaching teens how to create a business. At the conclusion of the program, the teens will present their businesses to a “Shark Tank” on May 21.
The cost of the program is $75. We’re looking for teens to be part of the program. Teens can sign up here: http://goo.gl/ c5ScFa. Unable to afford the $75? Please contact me at the email below to learn about available grants. We’re looking for local businesses to sponsor a teen (or two). Please contact me via email below. This is an amazing opportunity to give our local teens the knowledge they need to start their careers. Technology businesses have been a common theme according to the program instructor. What business will you create?
Do you have a favorite app you’d like to share? Contact Brian at brian@brianzabro ski.com, on Twitter @BrianZab or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/brianzab.
Brian, a Corporate Account Executive with NetSuite, has spent nearly 20 years in the telecommunications and software industry. Businesses often have the same concerns: How do I increase my revenue and profit? How do I attract great talent? Am I easy to do business with? Is it simple to access my business information? If you’re a business that would like to learn how Box, GoPro, Groupon and FitBit have used NetSuite to answer these questions, then please contact Brian.
