It’s that time of year again when serious small business owners are looking forward with a mix of anticipation of spending on a big-ticket item and dread of what filing taxes will look like. There are lots of hopes as we plan for growth, but apprehension when it comes to adapting to market needs and demands and how the government will take a slice of our income. Too many people I’ve talked to lately have put things like “social media marketing” to their forefront, though, and they have missed that large, pink, argyle elephant in the room.

Taxes.

They aren’t glamorous, and some people think they are downright evil. But, forgetting to file can be painful and time-consuming if you put it off or overlook it.

Even I hate taxes, so this isn’t a “hoorah, this is brilliant” type of post. It’s actually quite painful to think about, and I cheat and use an accountant for filing.

Instead this is a cheat for gathering and storing info so you can grab and go.

First, why December? It’s a holiday season for most of us, and that means gatherings, extra cooking or shopping, cleaning, and other normal things on your plate. Answer: The tax year ends in December. It’s easier to close one file at the end of the month and year, ready to take to your accountant whenever you get a chance.

And with this system you’ll see that it’s as easy as simply closing a file and walking away. It takes less than an hour ─ a good cost for a lack of stress come filing time.

So, without more ado, here’s the method behind the madness.

First, The Important Document List.

Every year it seems like I forget to bring something to my accountant. So, I’ve compiled a list of documents I need to put in the pile of things to take her. (Click on the image for a .pdf of the list. Head over to the Tools page for a .odg of it to edit for your whims and needs.) This list gets me in order throughout the year and last minute checks for the inevitably forgot document.

Now, file every month ─ without fail.

I don’t mean with the IRS or state, I mean in your file cabinet. During the month what do you do with sales receipts? If you have a digital tool that keeps them organised, awesome. If not, then you have cheques from clients, daily receipts from the register, and donation receipts, or anything else lying around.

At the end of the month corral them and put them in an expanding folder so they are ready to go to your accountant. You can divide this expanding folder up any way you need, too, so there’s no frustrations being thinly veiled when you hand the box of receipts over. (Uh, yeah, that totally happened, but I wasn’t the client that did it. It was her own granddaughter that handed my account a box of receipts.)

A smart move is to put money in a savings account every month (or week) as well. I like to put back $100 a month in case we owe money come April/May of the next year. This has made it so I never have to worry about where it’s going to come from ─ it’s accounted for and there.

Find tools that work for you, not against you, as you grow.

Insanitek is small, but it used to be smaller. In the first year it was cool that I did everything by hand. I mean, I didn’t even have a car to keep track of mileage on ─ I could ride my bike to any meetings. It was pretty sweet. We also made about $3000 in that first year… not exactly a viable business.

Over the years as I’ve been slowly, steadily building Insanitek I’ve seen quite a few cool toys I’ve wanted to play with. Xero, for example, is a hella cool accounting tool that you can virtually share with your accountant. It wasn’t (and isn’t) worth it for us right now, but it’s definitely on the list of things to use when it makes more sense to. For now we’re still old school with a single accounting tool, Expensify, to keep track of expense receipts. OK, to be honest, it’s mostly to keep track of mileage and the few purchases we do make.

But that’s the point. Don’t go spending money on software you don’t necessarily need to make your life “easier” when it may not actually be making your life easier. Xero, for example, is awesome. We tried it for a while before and realised we just weren’t using it for everything it could be. We were maybe using 1% of its capabilities. When we can use 30% of its potential, then it’s worth the investment.

Keep it simple, clean, and utilitarian.

One of the things we’ve been doing over the years here is keeping things as simple as possible. We could file for a 501c to turn part of our education platform into a non-profit, but that’s a bit of a headache for now. We’re still working on growing our client base and don’t want to add “run around kissing ass for grant money” to our list of things to do.

This paring down of anything helps us keep it clean. We have less to file, less to keep track of, and far fewer headaches. Nothing we have for isn’t utilitarian in nature. Even the Nerf guns serve a purpose ─ they settle disagreements when discussion isn’t getting anywhere. (It’s kinda like a coin toss, but usually involves more fort building or reading of historical documents.)

This view of things along with the discipline to do small tasks regularly is what has made filing just another thing. It’s no more stressful than taking out the trash.

How do you prepare for taxes? Any secrets to share? Keep the conversation going below.

PS: This will be my last entry for this year. I’ll be back in 2018. For now, I’ma go make the best of the holiday season by flexing my creativity, put both my science and engineering skills to the test to DIY a bunch of gifts. The better looking ones will appear on my Instagram. Until then, have a great end of year.