Tax FAQ Series: What programs are out there to keep track of my business expenses/deductions?
There are a lot of great apps and programs for tracking expenses/deductions.
Here are a few we suggest.
- Mint.Com: This is a free online system that allows you to link your bank accounts to Mint, download the transactions on a regular basis, categorize them and add comments. Then at the end of the day, week, month, year or any other period, you can run a report which shows your income and expenses by category. It’s a simple application that will meet the needs of many small businesses.
- QuickBooks: This is an inexpensive, but full-blown accounting solution with all the options ranging from payroll to inventory/item management and job costing. Also available in standalone or online versions, it can easily link to your bank account, provide reminders for a host of accounting tasks, and by subscribing to other various fee-based (but generally very reasonably priced) services, you can add lots of additional flexibility and automation. The program cost ranges on the level of sophistication and users, but you can generally get what you need for $350 to $500. You’ll want to subscribe to the maintenance option, so you get periodic updates and support. Our current businesses use QuickBooks as do many of our clients and it’s been an excellent solution.
- MileIQ: MileIQ is an automatic mileage tracker that takes the hassle out of keeping a mileage log. It’s very helpful for logging your business drives!The MileIQ app runs in the background on your iOS or Android phone and logs every drive automatically. You “swipe” each drive to classify it as business or personal, and MileIQ calculates the value of your deductible mileage. You can add details like parking, tolls, purpose and vehicle and have a complete, accurate mileage log without lots of work! Your log gets synced to the cloud, so you can get to it any time, even years down the road.
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