It’s easy to get confused or overwhelmed with the various deadlines and due dates for different tax bills, and the penalties for missing a deadline can be painful.

Sync your calendar with the IRS’s Online Tax Calendar at https://www.tax.gov/calendar/ and get reminders to make your payments on time.

Don’t wait until tax season or the end of the year to get your finances in order. Avoid the pain of bounced checks, overdue invoices, or duplicate payments/transactions by checking your books on a weekly basis.

Ask your accountant to help keep an eye out for unusual activity or easy-to-miss errors to help keep your books in tip-top shape.

In a QuickBooks Desktop transactional window, you can quickly access menu items. Right click any place within the transaction window and a popup window will appear with a list of common commands related to your transaction.

Use all the tools available to you to simplify the accounting side of your business. Sync your QuickBooks program with your business bank and credit card accounts. Set up recurring transactions, expenses, and invoices.

Allow QuickBooks to automatically send payment reminders to your customers and to send you your accounting reports directly to your email.

Getting as much of the process automated as possible will allow you to focus on other aspects of your business, and will allow you and your accountant more time to discuss future growth and plans rather than getting stuck in the nitty-gritty.

This may seem like common sense to most folk, but it bears repeating. Create separate bank accounts for your business, get a separate business credit card, and keep your personal and business transactions separate!

For those who like the ease of using one card to pay for everything, make sure you mark any personal expenses paid with a business card separately on your business accounting software.

Create an account labeled something like “Owner’s Draws,” “Shareholder Distributions,” etc. to make tracking your personal and business expenses easier.