Money Monday: Go Get Those Taxes. This Financial Template Can Help

Nothing like a good accountant to set clients up for success by sending them a Client Organizer packet! This tax season may be a real head spin with all of the pandemic federal stimulus money that went out. Some money that was sent as a grant (like the PPP loan if you applied and got it “forgiven”), and some money that was sent as an advance (like the Child Tax Credit that is simply an advance of the credit you were getting before…it’s not free money and you may need to pay it back depending on how your 2021 income/expenses balanced out).

A few tax tips for this year:

• Pat Yourself On The Back:
  First of all, if you did something different than you did last year, like if you stayed up on your bookkeeping so that issuing 1099s and W2s is a breeze, then do pat yourself on the back for that accomplishment!

• Note Which Expenses You Aren’t Using:
  There are some subscriptions you may have forgotten about, and can cancel this year. Make note of them, and carve time out in your day to pursue their logins, and cancel. Or, revive use of a good thing if you forgot about it!

• Use A Bookkeeping Software:
  If you haven’t switched to Quickbooks, Waveapps, or another bookkeeping software yet, now is the time. We saw in the pandemic times, when applying for loans or grants, quickly issuing reports for payroll and expenses was imperative to getting that government money. Tin Shingle does offer a fancy Excel spreadsheet for freelancers and business owners who haven’t stepped into software yet, if you prefer living within the lines of Excel. But remember, the dynamic effects of Quickbooks are really special and time-saving.

• Use Quickbook’s Payroll Feature:
  One of the best decisions I ever made. The Quickbooks Payroll Feature can do all of your federal and state filing for you if you pay the top tier. You can also issue a paycheck whenever you want for no additional cost. Other payroll services may charge you $90 or more per check. Ouch! And no. That is so old school.

• Pandemic Money:
  Track it. All of those stimulus payments, rental assistance, everything. Put it into the spreadsheet that you give to your accountant.

• Hire An Accountant:
  Could be very good for you, rather than going in circles with the changing rules of the IRS. However, if you do do your own taxes, hats off to you! That is major.

• 2020 vs 2021 vs 2022:
  Go easy on yourself if you mis-state the year. So many people have been wishing everyone a Happy 2020. These pandemic years have blurred together! If you think you didn’t pay a vendor this year for 1099 income, do a double check in your books, as it may have indeed happened in 2021 and not 2020.

Members of Tin Shingle get all of our templates for free. You can buy the Finances template separate, and have lifetime access to updates when we release them.

Money Monday: e-Filing 1099s With QuickBooks Is Finally Easy!

"Money Monday" at Tin Shingle is all about earning, spending or donating money from your business. Share your Money Monday experience or tip by submitting your idea here for consideration to be featured on Tin Shingle's blog.

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!