Year End To Do List – Tax Documents

Over the last few months I’ve been sending some reminder letters to those clients who hadn’t sent their tax documents in for preparation.  Without exaggeration, 9 out of 10 business clients who received this letter contacted me to tell me that they knew what they needed to give me but it was just a matter of finding the time to collate the information.

Today I’m sharing my year end routine for business tax documents.  My business and personal returns are usually left until April to prepare and without doing this list below – I’d also be tearing my hair out trying to locate documents I’ve already safely archived away.

1.  Copy/Scan the June bank statement for each account.  This includes credit card statements and Go Via accounts.

2.  Locate the tax invoices for any major asset purchases and copy/scan these.

3.  If you have a business owned vehicle, make sure you have completed the returned the FBT declaration (sent out in April.)

4.  Copy/Scan any finance documents for new purchases/arrangements you entered into during the year.

5.  Copy/Scan the payment summaries you are providing to your staff if you are using a paper system.

6.  Make sure you’ve done a stocktake and the stocktake is also filed safely with this list.

7.  Take a backup of your data file – we usually request the most current backup but an annual backup is great to have regardless.

8.  Make a note of your business use percentages of your expenses such as telephone and internet.

I put all of these documents in a plastic pocket and it makes my life so much easier when I am trying to get my tax work done.  Consider the above list and it may save you some time.

I can’t guarantee the time saving though because I tend to get a bit over excited and box up all the prior years invoices for safe keeping in early July.  Then I’m less than impressed when my annual World Vision tax confirmation arrives and I have to unpack everything to find the “W” folder.  Every single year this happens – you’d think I’d learn………