How to stress less during the tax season

No one ever really enjoys having to handle all the tasks that come due at the end of the financial year (EOFY), and when you’re a busy entrepreneur, it’s hard to find time and head-space to allocate to tax items. 

However, even if you’re filled with dread at the prospect of another EOFY coming up, you can take steps to make the tax season a lot less stressful and uncomfortable.

Here are some handy hints to help you stress less about EOFY. 

Ensure you maintain separate accounts for company expenditures

Firstly, you’ll save yourself a stack of time, energy, and stress if you keep your business expenses separate from your personal ones. 

When asked about some of the most common aspects that people end up tearing their hair out over at the EOFY, Belinda Spence, Senior Tax Manager at MYOB, said that it’s the commingling of personal and business expenses. 

“It’s not uncommon for small businesses, when starting out, to use personal and business funds interchangeably,” she says. “Unfortunately, this can cause many challenges at tax time.”

If you’re a sole trader, you may want to give yourself a break by setting up an additional personal account to use for all business comings and goings.

Creating a specific business account is essential for partnerships, companies, and other structures (including sole traders in many instances).

For both options, you can get a card attached to the account, whether debit, credit, or both, that you can use to keep a record of all your spending, along with online direct debits, payments, BPAY transactions, and the like.

By making this change, it will be much easier to tell exactly how many tax-deductible transactions you’ve made in your business over the year and which income to attribute to the venture. 

Plus, by going down this path, you know you’ll have a digital record of all transactions that don’t involve cash (which tend to be few and far between these days, anyway) and less stress about keeping papers, in turn. 

Once you have a specific account set up for your business, you can turn to online accounting tools to help you organise and streamline your records. 

Utilise a comprehensive software program to automate tax-time tasks and reduce errors

These days, there are multiple software programs you can choose from that take a lot of the headache out of handling business accounts, from many different angles.

Spence says, “MYOB’s platform can take the stress out of the end of the financial year by reducing the manual effort involved in getting your records in order and tracking your financial data in one central location. No more complex spreadsheets needed!”

This product is an all-in-one solution for entrepreneurs that makes it quicker and easier to send customers quotes and invoices and automate payment reminders for overdue bills.

In turn, you not only convert more enquiries to sales and enjoy better cashflow, but will find it easier to calculate accounts receivable information for your business tax return.

Plus, you may have GST and BAS elements to consider. If so, the software can tally relevant GST information for you and simplify reporting and other steps at tax time.

Share real-time data with your bookkeeper, accountant, or other advisor

If you use a bookkeeper, accountant, or other contractor to help you complete your business tax return and other documents and reports, keeping them in the loop is essential.

The last thing you need is an external person getting confused or errors arising because they’re seeing outdated information or lodgements happening late because you had to find a way to provide all your financials to them, which took too long.

Spence notes, “MYOB account holders can add their accountant or other consultants to their MYOB account so they can access key financial and tax data in real-time, which reduces the need to send files manually.”

Stress less about data security

We hear about hacker attacks on businesses, individuals, and organisations regularly these days.

With MYOB’s software, you can be rest assured that your company data is kept safe from cybercriminals. 

The company uses secure, encrypted channels for all communications, adheres to relevant security industry best practices and risk management standards, and has an internal security team that manages and monitors all product suites and related services. 

Plus, you can choose who can log in to your MYOB account, limiting potential security risks from within your team. 

MYOB is your business partner at tax time and throughout the year and can be trialled for free for new customers. Let us help you stress less this EOFY and beyond. 

If you found this helpful, head to MYOB to find out how you can start automating and simplifying tax season. For a limited time, there’s a special 60% discount for 4 months on MYOB Business plans*. Offer ends 31 July 2023. Get started with a free 30-day trial!

*Base subscriptions only. Premium features excluded. T&Cs apply.

Read now: Tips for handling your company’s first EOFY