Time to get your business tax season ready

Welcome to tax season. Across the country, millions of small business owners are hunkering down amidst piles of receipts, invoices, notes, and forms. Some are irritated. Some are overwhelmed. And some are probably crying.

Only a few, brave souls relish tax time. And to those heroes, we salute you.

For the rest of us, we can prepare for taxes the technology way. No more scrambling. No more digging. And hopefully, no more crying.

1. Automation ensures you’re preparing all year long.

It serves as your virtual tax assistant, allowing you to avoid crunch time in February and March. Accounting automation:

• Digitizes and organizes your financial transactions throughout the year so paper receipts, bills, and invoices become electronic assets filed neatly online with easily searchable names and content.
• Recommends codes and evaluates expenses against corporate guidelines.
• Digitizes workflows, ensuring that the proper processes are followed for accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR).
• Supports digital payments and each dollar incoming and outgoing is tracked.
• Helps you eliminate data silos so that tax-relevant information moves from email inboxes and spreadsheets to one platform.
• With permission-based access, allows you to collaborate with other employees to create a more cohesive picture of financial activities.

2. Automation makes you audit-ready.

If you’re audit ready, then you’re ahead of the tax game.

Even though less than 1% of businesses undergo tax-related audits, the audit process consumes an extreme amount of time and can incur substantial fines. Accounting automation helps you stay audit-ready by:

• Tracking every AP and AR transaction your company undertakes.

For bill payments, each person, invoice, and time & date are noted within the system. In a few clicks, you can see who approved the payment, how it was paid, the canceled check, and more.

• Granting auditors audit-level of access to your accounting systems.

They can quickly obtain the information they need from their office, in the airport, or even on the sofa.

• Storing your financial documents, including contracts and payment history, online.

This reduces the risk of not having data within the correct time specified by the audit. For example, if the audit needs documents from seven years ago, you can provide them. If you kept that information in a paper format or attached to specific computers or systems, it immediately complicates the data finding process.

3. Automation gives you accurate, real-time data.

If your financial data is riddled with errors or months old, it impairs the ability to make accurate tax-related decisions. Accounting automation syncs with other accounting systems, ensuring that you have current numbers to reference. It eliminates the need to manually enter data from one system to another, significantly reducing the number of errors that can creep into accounting.

When all of your accounting systems are integrated, you get the perfect, reliable foundation of data. You can identify potential trouble spots in finances with automated reporting and reconciliation. You can adjust your quarterly tax payments if they aren’t in line with business performance—saving you from steep additional payments that might crop up after filing.

And now, time to jump back to those heroes.

Let’s face it. Tax season is tough. New regulations and changes to taxes can challenge even the most accounting-savvy business owner. Accounting automation gives you an edge preparation-wise, but for true strategic and knowledgeable insight into taxes, consider working with an accountant.

Ready to dominate tax season?