Bob Gauvreau covers five bookkeeping mistakes small businesses make: not planning for taxes upfront, missing deductible expenses, skipping budgets, ignoring financial statements, and avoiding cloud accounting software.
Failing to plan for taxes. A lot of business owners just want to deal with taxes after the year is over. What we should be doing as a business owner is proactively planning, not understanding payroll taxes. Really two One is to put ourselves on payroll. So when we're paying ourselves on payroll, there's required deductions that come off, overlooking tax deductions and other available credits, tracking some of those items that maybe should be expensed or maybe shouldn't. And we really want to focus on the deductibility of all items to budget. Budgeting is a framework and a benchmark for you to track and essentially reflect on the progress your business is making, not reviewing financial statements regularly. We have to make sure that the information's up to date and it's accurate, not leveraging technology effectively. We now know that there's cloud accounting solutions in there that can support your business on a daily basis.
What Is Proactive Issue Flagging, And Why It Catches Cash Problems Before They Become Crises?
