PARTNERS IN BUSINESS TABLE OF CONTENTS »
Tracking progress, filing income taxes and maximizing your bottom line
Bookkeeping is one of the most important activities of successful owner-operators. The receipts and records you keep are used in a number of areas of your business – income tax reporting and minimization, warranty issues, maintenance information and monthly profitability, to name a few.
A business services provider can save you time with this task, but you should take an active role in collecting the information. The more organized and thorough you can be in your receipt gathering, the better.
You can simplify the bookkeeping task by following six simple practices that translate to higher profit with less hassle:
1 SAVE EVERY RECEIPT, NO MATTER HOW SMALL.
Why “tip” the taxman? It’s the job of your business services provider to help you deduct as many legitimate costs as possible. Place an envelope in your truck for collecting your receipts, or use dedicated folders on your computer or in the cloud for e-receipts. At the end of each month, send them to your business services provider, who can sort and tally them and provide you with a monthly profit-and-loss statement as well as accurate quarterly tax estimates. Whether you’re building spreadsheets on a laptop or using online software such as that available at mygauges.com (see “Simplifying recordkeeping”) or other vendors (see Chapter 14), the receipts are crucial in case you are audited. Scanned images of receipts are acceptable; keep the original paper copy for any big-ticket item for warranty purposes. ATBS will scan the contractor’s receipts and provide a CD with the data to the owner-operator at the end of the year. ATBS also allows owner-operators to view scanned receipts and financial documents online; this helps owner-operators track and manage paperwork easily when they are on the road and pull up key information, such as the receipt for the purchase of a battery that proves it is under warranty.
