Being self-employed comes with its very own set of challenges. Not only do you have to create your own motivation to get up and get moving you also have to make it very clear to your friends and family that you do in fact have to work, and that you can’t just drop everything to help them out. Once you create a schedule and stick to it for a few months, things will get easier. At this point, the next challenge you face will be bookkeeping.
It doesn’t matter that you’re self-employed, book keeping will be a big part of your life. You can’t afford to ignore it. When you decide to pretend you don’t have to worry about your accounts, that you will be able to do whatever you want with your records, you place yourself in a position where you will find yourself facing a financial landslide, and you’ll have no way to avoid it.
When you keep accurate records of your earnings and expenses, you’ll start to see patterns emerge. Simply by using your records, you will be able to determine how successful a particular marketing program you use was, or how long it took to see results. You’ll be able to determine when you’re going to be busy and when you should think about encouraging your employees to go on vacation. Most importantly you will see when you can afford to purchase new equipment and other needs, and when you need to simply make do with what you have.
The government doesn’t care that you’re self-employed, they will still want to get their taxes out of you. By keeping accurate records you won’t have to dread the April 15th deadline. Your finances will be in order, you’ll know what things you can deduct, and you will know how much you owe the IRS. The process won’t even take much time, and as long as you don’t accidently throw away something you shouldn’t, you’ll even get through an audit in good shape.
Even though you will have to pay your fair share of taxes, you don’t want to pay any more than absolutely necessary. The best way to figure out how to manage things so you don’t have to give the government anymore of your hard earned money than absolutely necessary is by consulting professional New York bookkeepers. They will be able to look at the records you have kept over the year and make small suggestions about what you can do to change the amount you owe the government. For example there might some equipment you have forgotten to deduct, or a donation that was actually tax deductible. The New York bookkeepers might even suggest you start paying yourself an income instead of living off your revenue. You’ll be surprised at the number of things the New York bookkeepers will catch that you would have missed altogether.
The most important thing to remember when you’re self-employed is that you can’t let your records fall behind. Set up a time each day when you enter the information into your books. Doing it right away prevents having to do it all at once, which can lead to some huge mistakes.