Numerico often sees small-business owners fall behind on keeping their accounting records up to date. While we understand that attention needs to be paid to servicing their customers and clients, ignoring the day-to-day upkeep of the books can be very costly. Once the habit of ignoring the books and records is picked up, the accounting records can easily fall behind months, even years and tax returns become postponed beyond their due date. Eventually, the IRS will demand filings and the professional fees to get a client caught up, let alone substantial penalties and interest assessed by federal and state taxing authorities for failure to file and late filings, will be much more than if the returns were filed timely. Not to mention the stress on the small-business owners as they have to collect documents and remember transactions from years before.
If the owner does not have the time to put in to the books and records, it is necessary to have an employee who has a basic understanding of bookkeeping to enter all transactions as they occur into an accounting software. An alternative is to have an accounting firm, such as Numerico, update the books monthly or quarterly. Even semi-annual updates will help reduce the stress and workload for clients during tax season and ensure that all tax returns are filed timely and accurately.
