Before you let the new year carry you away, take care of three important year-end accounting tasks.
1. Run your year-end reports on paper.
There are four important types of reports to document your important business info for the year. Put them on paper to protect against changes in software systems, lost data, or other vagaries of modern technology. Store them off site.
Run them for January 1 through December 31. Some are really long, so you may want to run them month by month to break it up.
I’ll also list the report names in QuickBooks, although I’m sure any software has its own equivalent.
- Your basic financial position: Profit and Loss, and Balance Sheet
- Totals for tax filings: Income Tax Summary
- Detail of every transaction: Transaction Detail by Account
- Important payroll tax totals: Employee Earnings Summary
The payroll tax totals protect you in case an employee ever questions withholding, perhaps even years after the fact.
2. Submit your required tax forms
In the USA, you’ll have three basic forms to tend to before January 31:
- W2: one form for each employee, and one form W3 as a summary of all employees
- 940: year end payroll report
- 1099-Misc: one form for each independent contractor you paid over $600, and one form 1096 as a summary of all 1099’s.
Each of these applies only if you have paid employees or independent contractors.
Be sure to check with a tax professional, like our own Maesz, for more specifics on tax filings.
3. Do an annual backup
And store it off-site. Consider taking advantage of one of the many great online backup services. A good list is at Storage for Nothing, Backup for Free. Carbonite is too new for the list, but gets good reviews. If you prefer to keep your backups off the internet, Comodo offers free backup software.
New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Get our updates. Want more stories? Read our shared stories from all over.
- Zoom Towns: attracting and supporting remote workers in rural small towns - December 10, 2020
- In an economic crisis, spend your brainpower before your dollars - November 25, 2020
- Video: How to fill empty car dealership buildings for the holidays - November 6, 2020
- How has 2020 changed the challenges rural small towns face? Tell us here - October 20, 2020
- The Idea Friendly Method to surviving a business crisis - October 6, 2020
- Join me for the Rural Renewal Symposium online Oct 13 - September 26, 2020
- Cheap placemaking idea: instant murals - September 11, 2020
- Refilling the rural business pipeline - July 7, 2020
- Huge vacant buildings: grants to renovate? - June 9, 2020
- Economic self defense for small towns - June 7, 2020
