Did Your Small Business Survive Tax Day 2013?

April 15^th means different things to different people and different businesses. Some businesses dread the day as much as most people across the country while others get creative and try to attract new business. Then you also start seeing advertising for various businesses promising special deals just in time to for all those hundreds or thousands of dollars of individual refunds. So where does your business fall in this and did you survive?

Tax Day Freebies. If you scoured the internet you could find coupons and special offers for things like a free curly fry at Arby’s, small popcorn at AMC Theaters to free sandwiches, cookies, photocopies, and even chocolate fondue. Do tax day freebies really help? Are people looking for free things to relieve the stress of taxes? If this is something your business has tried please comment below and let us know how it worked or didn’t work and what you’d do differently next year.

As of March 16th, the IRS had processed over 75 million returns with 65 million refunds. That’s a lot of people with a temporary swell in their bank account balance. Many have it spent before it arrives while others do a little day dreaming. You’ve likely seen everything from appliance stores, computer stores, car lots, and even small mom & pop shops offering special deals if you sign your refund over to them. And again, if this is something your business had tried please comment below.

But when it comes down to it, small businesses struggle with taxes like most Americans do. According to the National Small Business Association small businesses get frustrated with the complexities of the tax code and spend 120 hours or more preparing their taxes – that’s 3 full work weeks! And if that isn’t bad enough 84% hire an outside accountant or tax practitioner to handle their preparations.

If your business is frustrated with the tax system what can you do to ease your burden? One of the things that can really make or break you is your record keeping. How detailed are your records? Do you throw all your receipts in a file… or dare I say a shoe box? What about inventory, cost of goods sold, and cost of all that stock you didn’t sell?

While it is still fresh on your mind, take a moment to look into upgrading your purchasing system. A quality, cloud-based system can help your business on many levels, and accurate records, receipts, and reports that can be printed at the push of a button will go a long way to helping you this time next year.