How to make your books clean and accurate

Keeping accurate financial accounts is essential to any type of business. It helps your business run more smoothly and gets you prepared for tax time. Let's be honest- it's much easier to keep good financial accounts on an everyday basis than it is to frantically try to organize your accounts later on. Here are some tips on how to make your books clean accurate so that your business can be ready for anything that might happen.

If you are the one who takes care of your books, the first thing you might want to do is re-evaluate the financial software program you've been using. Do you know how to use it? Is the program easy to use? Have you used it before? Will you be able to efficiently input all your information? Does it enable you to quickly and easily access past information? Will you be able to store all the information that is relevant for your business?

If you're not the one handling your finances, you may want to re-evaluate the person who is in control of your finances. Are they reliable and intelligent? Do they have sufficient experience in finance for your company? Will they be honest and smart with your finances? Will they be able to explain your financial situation to you, your investors and your employees who need to know your company's situation?

Next, if you're an employer, you have a few extra things to worry about. You should be preparing your books for tax season months in advance, so that your books are constantly in a clean and accurate state, especially for tax season. Here's a small checklist for you:

 Prepare W2s and/or W3s. Be sure that all the information (names, addresses, ID numbers, etc) are correct.
 1099's- Again, be sure that all the information here (name, addresses, ID numbers, etc.)is correct.
 Check to see if you have anyone who is an IC, but should be an employee?
 Check to see if any of your your employees qualify as Statutory Employees and therefore benefit from an amended tax return.
 Prepare your sales tax returns
 Gather and assemble all of your household employees
 Prepare all your ES payments
 Make or change SCorp Election, if needed
 If your company has undergone rapid changes over the year, did you remember to file corp/partnership dissolution (or final return)?
 Set up an Agri-BizPlan in a section 105 plan
 Set up a family payroll, if you haven't done so yet.
 Be sure that you've made all electronic (EFTPS) payroll tax payments
 Open an IRA or ROTH IRA
 Open a Section 539 College Savings account
 Be sure that you've amended your prior year's tax returns (and corrected errors or changes in file).
 Check to see if you're entitled to educational credits
 Check up on your charitable donations
 Get any Out of State forms that you need for yourself or your employees

Basically, the most important thing that you must do to get your books clean and accurate is to collect all relevant documents and file them appropriately. Be sure that you haven't left out any important information and that everything checks and balances the way it should. And even if you're having a professional work on your accounts, it will go much smoother if you already have all the documents that you need. You will be happier because your books will be clean and accurate and ready for any type of audit, tax, or financial evaluation. So don't drag your feet- just get out there and get prepared.