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Money Monday gets a gold glitter ball this week.
Every year, when prepping the books for taxes, I am so tempted to e-file the 1099s to our contract workers via QuickBooks instead of having our accountant prep them. Not that I don't love supporting another business owner! But he's going to get 3 sets of taxes to file from me, so this is chump change. The benefit, really, is the ease of use, and quickness of filing those 1099s.
QuickBooks has had an e-file 1099 option, but it's never been seamless enough for me to try. I'm error-prone, so if there is more than a 10% room for error, I abort and put it in the hands of the professionals. This year - and maybe it's just me - maybe QuickBook's platform has been the same all of these years, it's just me who grew more confident - I did it. I e-filed the 1099 through QuickBooks!
Took all of 5 minutes, after the prepping of each vendor - which consists of the following and is the same as if the 1099s were being submitted to the accountant:
- Checking for their social or EIN number.
- Updating their address and email.
- Checking money totals against the actual bank transactions.
I take that back. There is one step that was new, and that was selecting the number of Accounts and Vendors that would be included in this pull for 1099s. "Accounts" means that there are different reasons that you spend money, and when you do, you select an Account to attribute how that money was spent. That part didn't take long, it was just new for me, which made me nervous, and made me remind myself not to over-create Accounts and get too nitty-gritty, but I shouldered through and selected the correct Accounts. I checked the money totals against the bank transactions, and got matches.
Once all of that was complete, QuickBooks has you review your information before entering your credit card to pay. And the price of filing is quite affordable. Not only was it pricier with my accounting firm (again, I don't mind supporting my local firm), but I didn't have to drive there to pick up and sign my approval for them to e-file (not that I mind seeing my local firm either!), and stamping them and putting them in the mail. QuickBooks puts them in the mail!
The step of filing of 1099s is often a forgotten one done at the last minute. So this is a way to help businesses not need to file extensions, and start the tax year off right!