Tax season is fast approaching and as a business owner you want to make sure you are prepared and know exactly what you need when it comes to your taxes for you, your contractors and your team so you can close the year strong.
Today, Kelsey joins me as we cover the details on 1099’s, contractors vs. employees and everything you need to get ready for tax season so your money team is set up for success and prepared.
In this episode, Danielle also discusses:
- How entrepreneurs can prepare for tax season now 3:39
- What is a 1099? 5:45
- When to send a W9 and why to send one 7:22
- Using a third party payment system and what that means for filing taxes 9:57
- Why you need to prepare early for taxes 13:00
- Categorizing your team 15:52
- Investment accounts and taxes 18:21
- Quarterly estimates and how much you should be setting aside 21:12
- Planning for year end bonuses 24:44
- Closing the year strong 30:45
Connect with Danielle:
Website | https://www.kickstartaccountinginc.net/
Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/kickstartaccountinginc/
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/kickstartaccounting
Twitter | https://twitter.com/KickstartAcct
Things Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Book your FREE Discovery call: https://kickstartaccountinginc.com/book-a-call/
Test your Financial Health: https://kickstartaccountinginc.com/checkmyfinancialhealth/
Learn how to pay yourself as a CEO – https://www.kickstartaccountinginc.com/getpaid
Full Episode Transcript:
Intro 0:00
Welcome to entrepreneur money stories, the podcast for women entrepreneurs who want to dig into their money stories so they can break free from limiting beliefs around money once and for all. Hosted by Daniel Hayden, owner of kickstart accounting, Inc. This podcast is a series of real conversations about money mindset with valuable and action packed takeaways for the entrepreneur who’s building their abundant empire. Danielle is a reformed corporate CFO who’s on a mission to help real freakin female entrepreneurs understand their numbers and gain the confidence to create sustainable profits. And now here’s your host, Danielle Hayden.
Danielle 0:40
Welcome back to another episode of entrepreneurs stories. Today we have Kelsey Chester back on the air with us, Kelsey, welcome back to the show.
Kelsey 0:48
Thank you. Oh, it’s love being here.
Danielle 0:50
So for anybody who is new to the show, Kelsey works with us here at kickstart accounting, Inc, as our lead account manager. So she is coming in with so much experience having worked with our clients over the last several years, you are in for a treat, and we get to pick Chelsea’s brain, on all the ways that we can prepare for year end, we have been doing a lot of preparation internally, getting our clients ready for year end and for this tax season. And as we were talking, I said, we have to share this information with our audience. We cannot keep this for our clients alone. We really need to make sure that we are helping everybody close this year really strongly. I mean, as it is, I can’t believe we’re almost talking about closing 2022.
Kelsey 1:41
I can’t believe it either. But here we are. Yeah,
Danielle 1:44
here we are another year close. Getting ready for tax season. Once again.
Kelsey 1:50
I’ve been helping businesses get ready for a year and for about 10 years now. Lots of industries, lots of different sizes of companies. So kind of seen it all. So just compiling all together and presenting it to you guys, so you can take it to your business. All right. So Danielle, what do I need to do to prepare for your end?
Danielle 2:08
Yeah, there is a laundry list of things that we can do, right. But I wanted to make sure that we are condensing this down. Now there’s still nine steps in this. And so we will have in the show notes a checklist for you. Because I know that this is a lot to absorb and one episode. Don’t forget, we understand that this topic can be really difficult, overwhelming and hard for you. So anytime you need to pause, recollect yourself, take a deep breath and do a breathing exercise meditation, come back. We honor that right? No, no judgment. So first and foremost, we have to get ready to send 1090 nines to all of our contractors. Second, we need to make sure that our team members are categorized correctly. So between 1099 or employees, and we’ll dig in each of these topics, we need to ensure that all of our deductions have been properly recorded in payroll, discuss any year and retirement contributions with our financial advisor HR team, review our tax estimates to ensure that we have the proper amount set aside planned for the year end bonuses for both ourselves and our team, create a 12 month budget this this budget season, and then review our financials for any issues or opportunities because we’re gonna dig in each one of these so that you walk away feeling really confident about preparing for this year end.
Kelsey 3:31
So I want to hear from you as a business owner, why it is important to prepare rather than waiting until it is actually here.
Danielle 3:38
It is so important to get ready now before December because we can still make really solid business decisions before year end. Now if I don’t start thinking about my tax estimates until December or January, it’s too late for me to actually save anything or set anything aside. If I wait until December, I might not actually have the cash set aside to be able to give our team bonuses. If I wait until December or January when everyone is on the goal setting train. I’ll forget about setting a 12 month budget right taking that step back to really look at the plan for the next 12 months. So this is really about allowing yourself the time, energy and space to be able to show up to the next year prepared without feeling overwhelmed. The holidays are busy, right? They’re busy for everybody whether you have a seasonality that causes your business to increase in revenue and in size every December no matter what it’s going to be busy. So how much of this can we take off of our plates so that we enter January? peaceful and calm, prepared and ready? Alright, first on our list was W nine and 1099. Now I’m not speaking another language here and this is IRS forms. So Kelsey, can you walk us through some of the details here so you What is a W nine form? And why do we need it?
Kelsey 5:03
Yes, to figure out who you need to send a W nine for you should know what a W nine is. So it’s really just a request for information, we’re gonna send it to anyone that we pay that we think might qualify for a 1099. Or if we’re not sure, if they qualify for a 1099. In the cases that we’re not sure, we’ll say, Hey, can you fill out this W nine, and then if something that they indicate on there, indicates that they do not qualify for a 1099, then you know, just keep it on file in case of an audit in the future or whatever. Or if they indicate information on there that they do need a 1099, then you add that to your 1099 pile.
Danielle 5:42
Before we move forward. What is a 1099?
Kelsey 5:46
Yes, a 1099 reports to the IRS income for the person or the business that you paid. So who requires one if you paid for services from your business to an individual or an LLC, sole proprietor, but really any individual or business that is not an S corp over $600 In that year, then your business is required to issue them a 1099. If you purchase some type of product from them, some type of good from them, then don’t worry about the timeline, it’s not necessary. But if you purchased if somebody did virtual assisting for you, coaches, I’m trying to think of some of the services that we commonly see marketing repairs and maintenance, rent, if you pay office rent, things like that, you may have to issue a 10 a nine to the person or entity that you rent from. Those are just some common examples that we see when a 1099 would be required services, if you pay them $600 or more in that calendar year.
Danielle 6:50
Yeah, the other two that I can think of are accountants and attorneys are added to the list. And if you are not sure, you can always err on the side of sending one or do you err on the side of not sending one?
Kelsey 7:06
That’s right, there’s a lot of gray area caveats to who should get a 1099. If we’re not sure, we will just issue that 1099. And if they come back and say, Wait a minute, I don’t qualify for one, then we’ll just issue a corrected correction and move on.
Danielle 7:21
Now, what if I was working with a contractor earlier in the year and unfortunately, because this happens, things go south, and I never collected a W nine and now they are refusing to communicate with me refusing to fill out a W nine. What do I do now?
Kelsey 7:37
Yes, this is the exact scenario why we suggest and advise to collect a W nine upfront at the very beginning of the working relationship. Believe it or not, that happens pretty often where the working relationship goes sour under the year, they need to issue a 1099 and you don’t have their information. Because I didn’t collect a W nine at the end of the year, I’m kind of in a sticky spot. So there’s a couple options. One, you don’t get that business expense, it will then have to be an owner’s draw. We really don’t want that. But that is an option. Option number two is you can file a 1099 without all of the required information like their social or the business’s EIN, you’ll get a letter from the IRS saying hey, just letting you know you filed this without all the necessary information. It’s just kind of like a warning. But you’re really not supposed to do that very often. So you may end up in a situation where you technically can’t take that business expense.
Danielle 8:33
Now what if I don’t want to fill out my own 1099? Is it at the end of the year? How do I set up my bookkeeper or my like Scotland Money Team? How do I set up my money team for success to be able to do this tonight I’m filing on my behalf.
Kelsey 8:47
Yeah, so have your W nine ready to go in that W nine will be the person or businesses name, their social or EIN number and their address. So they’ll need all of that information, as well as how much you paid them. And these are qualifying payments. So we’ll get to know what payments qualify for tenant nine and which ones don’t. That’s kind of where having a bookkeeper define that for you is a little bit more helpful. But basically the W nines or the information from that and the total amount for the 10 Nine, nine,
Danielle 9:21
When should I start collecting W nine from my contractors? And when should I send that over to my bookkeeper?
Kelsey 9:28
Start collecting the W nine for the beginning of the working relationship? For sure. The due date to have everything filed is January 31. So just to allow for time, at least at the latest January 15. I would say the sooner the better. Yeah,
Danielle 9:43
sooner the better. Alright, let’s talk about there’s so many different third party payment services. Now. If I am paying somebody through stripe, wave square PayPal, all those different services. Do I need a 1099 Or do I need that? How do I know when I need a 1099 or not?
Kelsey 10:01
Right. So when I said qualifying payments earlier, I really mean how they are paid what they are paid through a merchant service or like Stripe, square wave, the PayPal goods and services part, they actually file a 10 99k to everyone for the payments process through their platform. So since stripe waived square files a 10 99k, you as a business owner don’t otherwise the person who received the funds will have that income double reported for them. Because again, a 1099 reports that to the IRS, if stripe reported the income, and you report their income. Now it’s been reported twice, when it comes to platforms like Venmo Zell Cash App, this is where it’s a bit of a gray area. So the type of Venmo account that they have really matters, if they have a personal Venmo. If you’re paying them through their personal Venmo, then Venmo will not file a 10 99k. And you as the business owner would be required to file that 10 anytime for them or to them. If it’s a business Venmo, then Venmo file the 10 99k. And then you as a business owner don’t. So it’s not apparent when you pay them which type of Venmo account they have. So here’s that kind of gray area, kind of just have to ask them, hey, is this a personal Venmo or a business Venmo and then deal with it accordingly? Zell, they don’t file anytime. Any NIGMS. You as a business owner would report that through yours, and cash up into statements Venmo? It depends on which type of account they have. It’s a personal cash app, so you should file the 1099. If it’s a business cash out, then Cash App will file a 1099. And you don’t have to, it doesn’t matter.
Danielle 11:46
Is Cash App as business or personal or does it matter if their cash app is business or personal?
Kelsey 11:52
If they cash out because they’re the ones receiving the money? So the 1099k reports the amount that they received. That’s how it works.
Danielle 12:00
Okay, so they have to have a business cash app, it doesn’t matter what we have correct? What about gusto or a payroll provider like that? Will I still have to be responsible for 1090 Nights.
Kelsey 12:14
Most payroll providers including gusto file the 1099. However, if you have something to keep in mind is if you pay your vendors from different sources, you need to make sure all of those payments on the tenant nine are captured from all those sources. If you paid a contractor from Venmo, half a year, but then moved to a payroll service mightier to gusto. Gusto doesn’t know about the payments that you sent via Venmo. And they’re only going to file a 29 for the amount paid through gusto. So that’s something that will have to be corrected either to tenant nines will need to be filed or gusto needs to know about the Venmo payments paid previous in the year. And there’s a couple of ways to do that. But just be mindful of where they were paid throughout the year.
Danielle 12:56
And this is a big reason why we prepare at this time and not in December, January in December, January gusto is loaded they have so many requests coming in. And if we can remember now oh, I paid contractors outside of gusto January, February March, you can contact your customer care team and help them put in those back payments now, rather than waiting for urine so that it’s included in the 1099 So don’t wait Hey podcast lovers, I hope you’re enjoying another amazing episode of entrepreneur money stories I had to interrupt to tell you about an exciting new tool we recently launched. If you’ve been wanting to learn how to start managing your business finances, but don’t know where to start, then visit kickstart accounting inc.com/bootcamp. To receive our new five day video bootcamp series, you’ll receive a video each day that will take you from accounting overwhelm to money powerhouse. So you’re ready to kickstart accounting inc.com/bootcamp. All right, that’s an episode.
Are there any other 1090 nines that we need to be aware of? Or is this the only type of 1099
Kelsey 14:15
The 1099 is like the base form and then there’s different versions of it. So the type of 1099 that you file depends on what they’re paid for. Most payments will fall under a 1099 nonemployee compensation and EC 1099 and ECS. This is where your coaching payments will go where your VA all of that accountants if they’re not an S corp will fall under a 10 Nine Nine and II see the only one that would fall under the other type of 1099 1099 misc and my S C for miscellaneous. The most common ones for that one are rent payments and royalties if your company pays royalties of more than $600 a year. Okay,
Danielle 14:58
deep breath everybody I know that was A lot, a lot of accounting jargon, but you’re a business owner. And you hear me say this a lot. I call it tough love, but it’s put your big girl pants on, but your big boy pants on, this is your responsibility. The IRS doesn’t care. You have to be responsible for sending to 90 nines. Nobody cares, you’re busy. Nobody cares. If you don’t want to do it, or you’re not a numbers person. This is an IRS requirement. So if you need help, you can always contact us at kickstart accounting, Inc. We’re more than happy to help you with this. However, I don’t want you to put your head in the sand and disregard this information.
Kelsey 15:38
That’s right, not preparing ahead of time, you’ll find that you only do it once. It’s such a disaster. Being prepared is definitely the way to go. Trust us. We’ve seen this literally hundreds of times. All right,
Danielle 15:51
So one of the biggest questions I hear from our clients is, do I have my team members categorized correctly. So right now I’m paying them as a contractor, but I don’t know if they should be an employee. And this is a really awesome time of the year to make any of those types of changes. If you’re thinking, I don’t know, if this person is categorized correctly, I’m thinking about making a change this year and it is a great time. So we usually ask our clients to give us, you know, four to six weeks notice to set up payroll and we use gusto for our clients to set that up in order to convert contractors to employees. But how do we know if we should actually be converting them from contractors to employees, they’ll say,
Kelsey 16:33
Well, definitely a lot goes into this as well. But on the surface, who has the majority of the control depends on whether there should be a contractor or an employee, what they do and how they do it, how long they’ve been doing it all these are factors on whether they should continue to be a contractor or they should be converted to an employee. If you’ve had an ongoing working relationship with them, they carry out their duties according to your processes, not theirs. If you set their timelines, if they use your equipment, all of those are factors where they should probably be converted to an employee, if you just tell them, hey, I need you to do this, you know, by this day, do whatever you want, I just want it done, then that’s more of a contractor relationship. Just simple guidelines there.
Danielle 17:16
That’s perfect. I think the only thing that I would add, we usually suggest to our clients if you’re not sure. And there’s any gray area by having your contractor invoice you really puts the control back on them so that you they are setting the time and the rates, the invoice amount and you’re paying that invoice
Kelsey 17:37
is true. And if you’re unsure, you can always consult your money team and have them help decipher that for you. But I always say those cases where we’re, it’s a little bit of both. You know, you get in trouble with the IRS for making an employee a contractor. But you don’t get in trouble for making a contract or an employee. I always err on the side of caution.
Danielle 17:58
Yeah, my risk tolerance is definitely pretty low. So for me, I always err on if you’re not sure to make them an employee, it’s usually worth it.
Kelsey 18:08
Alright, so Danielle, how do you know if everything is correct? And payroll? We’re working with our clients on some hot topics here.
Danielle 18:15
Yeah, so I’m really excited to say that I’m seeing more and more of our clients contribute to different investment platforms like Acorn or Robin Hood, Charles Schwab, Fidelity, it’s really important that you understand how these investments are being held. And that if you are investing your business dollars into these investment accounts, who owns the investment account, if it is owned by your business? Or is it owned by you personally, we want to ensure that we are categorizing that correctly in QuickBooks. So if this is you, first of all, congratulations. I’m excited to see this pivot and this change and more and more of our clients making these contributions. However, we need to make sure that they’re categorized correctly. The other big change that we’re seeing is more and more of our clients are working with their financial advisor to set up a retirement plan. And if you are an S corp, employee contributions need to go through your W two, and then your employer match or profit share will go on the p&l and it’s tax deductible under your employee benefits. I get this can be really complicated. So talk to your money team, talk to your tax accountant. But if you are an S corp, we want to make sure that any retirement contributions are correctly categorized before your end. We need to have them find your W two before you pay your taxes. Now if you are a sole proprietor or an LLC, any retirement contributions are considered an owner’s draw. Same thing with health insurance. Now this is a big one that we have seen come to light more and more over the last few years. So If you are an S corp, which again, we’re seeing more and more of our clients become US corps, which is just fantastic. I’m so excited to see our clients and small business owners utilize the tax benefits of being an S corp. You’re not sure about whether I should become an S corp? Is that something that might be for me, you could scroll back in the podcasts, we’ll leave this episode on all the information about being an S corp and the benefits or drawbacks of being an S corp. Going back to health insurance, we need to ensure that the portion of health insurance that belongs to the owner is on your W two. So it’ll show up in box one and box 12 to ensure the tax deductibility. And this has to be done before year end. If you are an S corp, and you do not have group insurance, you cannot deduct that benefit cost on your tax return. So when you’re looking at your p&l, if your benefit is not a group plan, and is not going through payroll as a W two, you might not be able to take this as a tax deduction. And you might be very surprised come tax time when your tax liability is higher than you think. Speaking of taxes, what do we set aside? Kelsey? You know, this is a big gray area about my payment quarterly estimates. How much should I be setting aside? Mine, we even suggest for people to set aside funds throughout the year.
Kelsey 21:23
So this is a loaded question. Again, I’m gonna try to break it down. So a couple things are required to pay estimated tax payments. If your tax preparer sets you up with estimated tax payment coupons, or auto drafts, then you are required to make estimated tax payments of at least that amount. Now, it’s important to understand that these amounts are based on last year’s net income. So your taxable income last year affects your estimated tax payment amounts this year. If you make a lot more money this year, if you find you know we’re Quarter Three is wrapping up. Now, if you are making a lot more than last year, you can always send it out a little bit more. And I’ll get into that as well. But just know that you know you can send in the estimated tax payments and still owe when you file your return. That’s something that some clients get surprised by. But just keep that in mind. If you did not owe more than $1,000, when you filed your return last year, then you’re not technically required to make estimated tax payments. And what I mean by that is you will not get penalized by the IRS for not making estimated tax payments. So if you are required to send in at least the amounts that were given to you by your tax preparer, or you can send it amounts that are based on this year’s business activity, this year’s net income, we always start with a baseline of 25%. There’s such a big range of what your actual tax rate, which is called your effective tax rate, is going to be at the end of the year. So you’ve got to try to estimate it, it usually lands around 25%. But of course, how much money you make, what state you live in highly depends on that amount. You can always ask your taxpayer, hey, what was my effective tax rate last year, and then apply that to this year, even if you’re making a lot more money, your effective tax rate will be similar. And then you can send in that amount, you know if your effective tax rate last year was 28% 20% of your net income this year, is what you’ll send in for each quarter and will give you those amounts.
Danielle 23:22
Is this on gross income or net income? I just want to clarify that for people because if you’re following profit, first he talks about taking a chunk off of each deposit. Just want to clarify when we work with our clients, what tax estimate are they getting?
Kelsey 23:37
So since your tax due, when you file your return is based on your net income, this is the amount that we use. If you’re looking at reports, say pulled from QuickBooks, it’s going to be that net operating income line, that’s where you’ll grab that 28% of that number 25%, whatever number you choose from there. So 25 to 30% is kind of where things tend to land unless you live in a high income tax state. So yeah, you can choose to pay the estimated tax payment amounts that your taxpayer set up for you just to avoid the penalty. Or you can pay the amounts from your net operating income that your money team would be giving you based on this year’s net income. If you don’t want to send estimated tax payments at all, if you’re not required, or just choose to take the penalty and have the cash yourself, you can then set it aside in like a tax savings account. That way you at least have it for when it comes time to file and pay your taxes we always address. I least have it set aside.
Danielle 24:35
I like the idea of having a separate checking account for those funds that are completely separate from your operating income.
Kelsey 24:44
All right, here’s a question for you. How do you plan for year end bonuses?
Danielle 24:48
Yeah, this is a tough one and a big discussion that we’re having with a lot of clients. For anybody who is having a good or a great year or really appreciates their team or has not been taking home the salary or drawers that they need or deserve as a business owner, this can be a really, really heavy topic. There’s four different kinds of categories, ways to create your year end bonus structure. And honestly, we can probably do a whole podcast who doesn’t itself. But first and foremost would be profitability or profit sharing. So taking a step back in November or even mid December, and talking to your money team to look and see, how did your business do right? Where are you profitable this year? And do you want to share some of those profits with your team? And this can be done through a bonus or through your 401k as a profit sharing distribution that is made directly into their 401 K, if you have a 401 K and make sure you’re talking to your financial advisor about that, but there’s one very specific way to do it. But if you want to reduce your year and profitability and net income, you will want to make sure that you have these bonuses in before your edge. If you want to enjoy the tax benefits here in 2020, to make sure that you’re running those through payroll before year end, if you pay those in January, they will be considered a 2023 expense. Second type of bonus is performance bonuses. So going through your team and you are included in your team. And deciding as a total amount that you have set aside that your business can afford in cash and profit deciding what amounts you will distribute to each team member based on performances. The next is gifts, we cannot give gifts to our employees via money, can I exchange dollars outside of payroll. So this might look like a small gift or a small gift card or actual goods, we cannot withdraw $1,000 from our checking account and send it to our team member who did an awesome job. Without that going through payroll. The last type is considered a commission. So we have a lot of clients to look at the not just performance but actual type of performance that each team member has contributed to the team. And consider this year and bonus as a commission. Now whenever you run this through payroll, be prepared that bonuses and commissions are taxed at 25%. So it will be at a higher tax rate for your team members to be prepared for that. But I just want to review one more time, you can not take out large amounts of money from your business in cash or gift cards and send them as gifts to your team members. Anything else you want to
Kelsey 27:48
I think you hit all the points. This is a question that we get a lot of. How can I thank my staff for all their hard work this year? All right.
Danielle 27:54
So this is the budget season. For us, we are getting ready for our annual budget session that we do as a value added activity with our clients. So we are preparing for that budget session with our clients. But we wanted to encourage each and every one of you in the audience to create a budget. So Kelsey, in working with our clients, what we’ve seen is some of the benefits of creating a budget like why should everyone not roll their eyes at us right now?
Kelsey 28:24
Well, I see it over and over how having milestones set for you based on your goals for that year is really motivational throughout the year. It gives you something tangible to work towards. It’s like a competition with yourself, when you have set those goals, broken it down by month and have that actual number to look forward to every month. And it’s not just revenue but expenses, as well as just kind of knowing ahead of time, you know what you’re prepared to offer a new team member, what your business can afford to offer, added benefits, things like that. It’s a super important part of your business. Even if you’ve already set those revenue goals, it’s really important to be able to check back in and see how you’re looking, are you where you thought you would be, things like that. And just having those numbers to track throughout the year by month.
Danielle 29:13
I love that you added a competitive piece to it because so many entrepreneurs are competitive people. So rather than sitting on social media competing with your competitor, fellow business owners compete with yourself and we can only be better than who we were yesterday and who we were last year. I love creating that competitiveness. And I always thought that the budget created guardrails around spending there so that we didn’t spend too much. However, what I learned from entrepreneurs is that sometimes we need permission to spend. We’ve seen so many of our clients that have both this is a mindset shift or scarcity around money we know we’ve talked about. There’s so much on the show. There’s so many mindset issues and experiences that come into running our business. However, we see that some people feel, especially post COVID. Like once they get cash in the door, they can’t let cashback out. It might even be hurting their business. So they are working 60 hours a week, they are running everything in their business, they refuse to ask for help. Or maybe we don’t have enough sales, but we refuse to invest in advertising and marketing. So sometimes a budget can create permission to spend understanding your numbers and then creating a plan to spend so that you can feel comfortable and empowered to do so
Kelsey 30:40
very well. So let’s review some opportunities to help close the year strong.
Danielle 30:44
Well, there’s so many things that we can do to make sure that we’re closing this year strong. First and foremost, we need to ensure that our books are categorized correctly. If you are working with a bookkeeper right now, again, this is gonna kind of sound harsh the way I’m gonna say this, but it’s your responsibility to make sure everything’s categorized correctly. It’s your business, you’re going to be filing your CPA might be filing your taxes, but this is your tax return. So you need to ensure that everything has been categorized in the right place, and work with your money team to ensure that everything is in the right categories, everything’s been included, the books have been reconciled. If you are doing your own bookkeeping, then we really need to make sure that everything is categorized correctly, especially between revenue and owner’s drawers. I can’t tell you how many times Kelsey, the team and I, we’ve seen people overpay in their taxes, because revenue has doubled. So let’s say you had to personally invest some money in the business. And you included those investments as revenue.
Kelsey 31:47
You can’t see me but I’m over here shaking my head. We’ve seen this a scary amount of times.
Danielle 31:52
Yes. And then QuickBooks issues, right, you guys have heard us talk on the podcast before the sync issue. So maybe you’re syncing your point of sale system, and then including deposits as revenue. So we just need to ensure that revenue measures your point of sale system, owners ‘ drawers are categorized correctly. So step one is to ensure that your books are categorized correctly. And then while you’re in this discussion with your money team, I want you to really reflect on where your business is gone. And where you’re going. Your Money team wants to help you, your bookkeeper wants to help you and they want to set your accounting system up to help you analyze your numbers as you move forward. So are your financial setup in a way that allows you to analyze your upcoming business changes. So maybe you’re opening up a second location, or adding different revenue streams? How can you compare or analyze the success of those if you are not categorizing it correctly, or you haven’t communicated to your bookkeeper that you want to categorize this way? I can’t tell you how often we’ll see on Instagram, one of our clients started a new revenue stream like wait, Hello. Tell us about this. So communicate with your money team. And then lastly, this is a really good opportunity to clean the house. You know when it’s not spring fever or New Year, it’s really closing out the year like what do I want to bring into next year with me? Do we have any dues and subscriptions that we’re paying for that we’re no longer using? Using this budget time as an opportunity to analyze? Where’s my money going? And do I want to bring that expense? Do I want to bring that baggage with me to 2023? I think most people, most entrepreneurs, want to set their money team up for success. I don’t think anybody comes into entrepreneurship or into a relationship with their money team thinking, I’m gonna make this job as difficult as possible for them. So, Kelsey, how can listeners set their money team up for success at year end? Like to recap all of this? What are the simple things that we can as the audience listening, what can they do to make sure that their money team is set up,
Kelsey 34:10
First and foremost, start early so once quarter three wraps up, at least for us, this is our green light to go ahead and start preparing for your end. So there’s really nothing worse than not only not having everything together but not having everything together at the last minute. So you’re really doing yourself and your money team a favor to help ensure everything is done timely. It’s done correctly when you start now and then just making sure everything is organized. So getting those W nines having those W nines and or the amounts if you don’t have a Money Team, get one so that your bookkeeping can be done for for the whole year if you don’t have it, so that you can get those final amounts for each each person that may qualify for a 1099 and just making sure that everything is done accurately.
Danielle 34:55
Yeah. Book time with your money team now to chat. So one thing that we see: If it’s the holidays, and we’re down to the wire, and all of a sudden, our clients who haven’t responded to a single email all year suddenly want to have a call. And it’s great, we want to talk to you, right? So don’t call us or call your bookkeeper. But I’m asking you to do yourself a favor. Do your bookkeeper a favor, schedule time to talk to them now, they want to talk to you. We are here to serve our clients. So we want to talk to our clients and we want to be as proactive as possible. And I hope that whoever is in your money team corner wants to talk to you as well as utilize the time you have with them to go through this checklist and make sure things are set up and ready for tax season and for a kick ass 2023. Kelsey, any closing thoughts that you can think of? Maybe take it out?
Kelsey 35:51
If no? No.
Danielle 35:54
Right Kathy, thank you so much for being here and sharing all of your wealth of wisdom with the audience. I really appreciate it.
Kelsey 36:01
Thank you and I know it’s a lot so again, if you are unsure about anything reach out to your money team we or hopefully your your money team if it’s not us are here to help you. So
Danielle 36:10
Yes, if you have any questions, you can email us at support at Kickstart accounting inc.com. If you’d like to talk to Kelsey and I directly, you can go to Kickstarter county inc.com and book a call where you can talk to Kelsey and I directly about your specific situation and how we might be able to help you or to set you up for success for 2023. If you enjoyed today’s episode, we asked for one thing, if you could go and like and subscribe to this podcast that helps the algorithm show this podcast to other entrepreneurs like you who need the content. Thank you so much for being here.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
