Guidelines For Deducting Conference and Training Expenses
Attending conferences and investing in ongoing training can be a great way for small business owners and the self employed to keep current on industry developments, ensure ongoing professional development and improve their skills. It also allows for networking opportunities and occasionally includes trips to exotic locations, which can be a welcome change in environment from working at your office. As an added bonus ,the cost of conferences, conventions and seminars as well as corresponding travel expenses are deductible against your business income, subject to specific guidelines.
How to Prepare the T2125 if you are a Small or Self Employed Business Owner
While being self employed comes with numerous benefits, there are also many challenges. One of them is ensuring that you are aware of, and fulfill, your tax obligations on a timely basis. In the beginning these tax obligations can seem mystifying and somewhat overwhelming, but once you understand what needs to be done, the enigma surrounding the process dissipates and it tends to become routine. This in turn reduces stress as tax deadlines approach and can result in significant potential tax savings as you keep track of all your tax deductions and avoid interest and penalties.
What Independent Contractors Should Know About Personal Service Businesses
Many of you leave your full time jobs to become independent contractors. This could be for a variety of reasons: you might decide you want the freedom that comes with self employment, or your company might decide that they no longer want to maintain employees. In some cases, you are laid off and find another opportunity , but the business only offers contract positions.
This type of situation is particularly applicable to people in the IT industry but can also apply to a variety of other types of skill sets. Often, your client will require that you set up a corporation which then contracts with the client to provide services that are very similar to those you would provide if you were an employee. The corporation then bills your client either directly or through a third-party (often a recruiting agency).
What Are Bank Reconciliations and Why Every Business Should Do Them
Many small business and self employed owners take on the responsibility of doing their own accounting. You may do all of your own accounting from set up to preparing your own small business tax return OR you may have an accountant who simply takes care of your year end and tax reporting. Accounting software has made doing your own accounting much simpler and allows for most business owners to do it, regardless of whether they have some sort of accounting background. There is however a learning curve and certain accounting steps that not everyone is aware of and that are very important to ensure the accuracy of your books. One of these is are bank reconciliations.
How to Use QBO Class and Location Tracking to Better Analyze Your Data
A powerful, but lesser know feature of QBO is the ability to organize your data by using two separate features which are location tracking and class tracking. These features allow business owners to effectively create a higher level of categorization, in addition to their accounts, which allows for significantly better reporting and analysis.
Class and location tracking are essentially classification mechanisms that allow for reporting by an additional layer of categorization. The primary way to categorize transactions in any accounting system is to assign them to specific accounts eg. sales, purchases, computer equipment, travel, meals, office expenses etc. This is referred to as a “Chart of Accounts”. There does, however, exist two additional layers ways to categorize your transactions in QBO which work on top of the chart of accounts allowing each transaction can be grouped into a broader category. This is particularly useful for companies that have separate locations and/or divisions where they might want to see their results grouped together for deeper analysis and a better understanding of the performance of your business or organization.