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Save Money and Time with These End of the Year Tasks
How is it possible we’ve reached the end of 2017 already? Why does it seem like the years zoom past us faster than the previous ones did? As we marvel at how quickly time passes, we, as small business owners will be wise to do some end-of-year clean up and planning tasks to help us accomplish a few things: Spend time now to save time later. Spend money now to possibly save money both this year and next year. Review our efforts to maximize our effectiveness – and our successes – in the new year. See how many of these tasks make sense for you: Records and Data Better file management will save you time, so take a look at how your digital records are being kept. Is it easy to get your hands on the information you need? If not, consider changing your filing system both on your computer and with your email. Keeping one folder for each client works well, and if you are uber-organized, you might consider keeping additional folders inside those, perhaps one for the work you perform, client reports, plus another for contracts or transactions and billing. Delete the information you just don’t need or will never need to access in the future. Now that your records are cleaned out and cleaned up – back everything up! Copy all your records onto a backup hard drive – a physical one. (If you don’t have one, you can purchase them very inexpensively. I have one that’s the size of a deck of cards, holds one full terabyte of information, and cost about $50.) Do not store records online (in the “cloud”) because they will not be secure, unless you are paying for secure storage (as determined by HIPAA requirements.) Finally, be sure to remove backed up files from your computer, especially from a laptop or tablet that leaves your office. Best practices suggest you keep those records for a minimum of 5 years. Income Taxes: Organize your receipts for your taxes (because you won’t want to take the time next year!) Be sure to separate business…