This article was written by Dick Ginnaty, CPA
It’s November and it’s time for your business’s annual checkup. Now is the time for you to call your accountant and have a year end tax and business review of your business. It is now (before year end) that your accountant can make the biggest impact on the amount of taxes you will be paying. If you wait until after year end, their bag of tricks (strategies etc.) are substantially reduced.
I encourage my clients to review with me in November for several reasons. I want to check their QuickBooks files for errors, I want to estimate their tax position for the current year (and hopefully reduce the tax burden), and I want to talk about the next year in the financial planning sense.
Checking the QuickBooks files for errors lessens the time it will take me to prepare the tax returns in the spring when my time is at a premium, and should lessen the bill accordingly. More importantly however, by correcting any errors now, the true financial picture will emerge making for better tax planning.
Checking for QuickBooks errors, and tax strategizing is a current year task but don’t forget about talking to your accountant about next year’s plans. The benefits of this annual conversation are many. One, the accountant can incorporate the tax, and financial implications of your plans into future strategies. Second, and maybe more importantly, it requires you to think about next year, and to articulate them The mere commitment to the meeting will require you to clarify your thoughts about the coming year, and reviewing those plans with your financial advisor may uncover some inconsistencies or holes in your thinking.
Finally, having a once a year conversation with your accountant, will bring him up to speed about your industry issues, and keep him in tune with your thoughts, and plans going forward.
Good luck and here’s hoping it “all adds up” for you.
P.S. If there is any area in accounting or tax that you think needs to be addressed in this column please e-mail me at Ginnatycpa@aol.com and if it is of general interest, I will address it in future column
