I started doing a few things differently last year that helped. But this year, now that I have a SafelyFiled account, I plan on doing things even smarter and being proactive which should really help for next year. Since the pain of filing taxes is still very fresh in my mind, I thought now would be a good time to get new processes in place and keep them up so that next year, barring any crazy new tax laws that I'm not prepared for, filing will be much easier.
Paper Organization
The first change we made since we own a small business as well as personal files, was that we set up our business file folders to correspond to the filing categories that line up with the Turbo Tax categories. That
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Before SafelyFiled |
Digital Organization
Now that we are using SafelyFiled, I've set up folders in my SafelyFiled account to follow that same model. But instead of keeping paper copies of all of the receipts and supporting documents, which are no longer necessary as I file electronically, I will scan or use my smart phone to take images of these paper documents, shred the originals as I go and keep only a digital copy in my SafelyFiled account. That way, if I am audited in the future, I can simply go to my business files for the appropriate year(s) being audited, and can either grant access to the auditors so they can view them or I can download all of the docs to a thumb drive or CD and provide that to the auditors if they'd prefer. Instead of the paper clutter, now my files look like this:
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After SafelyFiled |
Pain free option
I may not do my own taxes in the future. I may opt to hire an accountant because my taxes are getting more complicated. If I add my supporting tax documents to SafelyFiled throughout the year and decide to hire an accountant next year, I can simply invite my accountant to share in those folders where they can view all of my supporting paperwork and even download them to their computer if desired. I can leave instructions as notes on files and we can communicate on very sensitive information securely without having to transmit data via email or over the phone, which is very unsecure.
For tax accountants (and other service professionals), this would be a great way to build loyalty for your business as well. You can use SafelyFiled for your own business then sponsor or refer your clients to SafelyFiled and start them off by uploading their tax return forms for them! I for one would be so very thankful to my service professional for doing that for me!