Helpful Hints by
www. janecameron. co. uk
Tax and tax returns!
Yes, it’ s the annual horror, those sleepless nights coming up to 31 st January when your Tax Return is due! How can you make it easier? How do you know you’ ve got it right? What resources are out there to help you?
How often should you do your accounts? Well, the HMRC require you to do your self employed return once a year. Normally your return is due in January for the year which ended the previous April, so you have about 9 months to get it done.
However, it’ s a really good idea to do your sums every month( set aside some time on the first Monday of the month, or something similar) as that way you know how your business is doing.
What information do I need?
· What you’ ve earned( income), and what you’ ve spent( expenditure).
· Having all your information in one place is a wonderful thing.
· Get yourself something to keep your receipts in( even if it’ s a bucket!).
· Set up a folder in your emails where you can keep all your online shopping receipts, and another one for your sales.
· Keep a little notebook in the car( or write your mileage in your diary).
Helpful hints:
· Don’ t try and do it all at once!
· Some credit cards only keep the information online for three months, so download your statement every month( the. csv file format is good for reading in Excel or other spreadsheet programmes).
Do I need fancy technology?
· It’ s a good idea to have some sort of spreadsheet to add everything up. Basically it can have“ In / Out / Date / Who to or from / What for” and that will cover most of it.
· If you’ re scared of spreadsheets, go on a course or look at some online tutorials. There’ s Excel by Microsoft( as part of the“ Office” suite), and also OpenOffice’ s spreadsheet program, called Calc, which is good and free!
· If you want to be fancy you can get programs like Quickbooks, which you can add all your information to and it will calculate your tax. However, these aren’ t necessary at first.
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