Protect Your Small Business Tax Data from Theft
March 16, 2008
Hiring an accountant to prepare your business taxes is a wise move for small business owners. Having a certified public accountant review and report on your finances is a great way to leverage the training and experience of an expert to help optimize your finances.
I’ve found that working with your accountant is like most other business projects, it’s an iterative process. You give them your 1099’s, profit & loss statements, and other financial documents; they look them over and come back with questions and requests for more information.
The cool thing about modern technology is that you don’t actually have to meet with your accountant each time they need more information or to discuss something further. Of course, since you’re sending sensitive financial information you don’t want to just email your documents to your accountant. You need to find a secure way to protect your tax data from theft.
My first attempt at securing additional tax forms was to zip them up with WinZip and encrypt the files with a password. This wasn’t the best solution for two reasons. Anyone that was persistent enough could run a password cracking program on the zip file if they intercepted the tax data. The second reason I’d advise against this is that my accountant was unable to open the zip file due to how his version of Winzip handled the security.
I was pleased to discover a service called Send This File that allows you to send data in a secure fashion and has a wide range of plans for businesses of various sizes. We used Send This File to exchange documents securely and never had to meet in person throughout the process.
You Work Hard for Your Money….
March 16, 2008
So you’d better treat it right!
Honestly, how many hours did you put in this week? Probably many more than you’d have liked to, am I right?
Running a business is challenging, exciting, and fulfilling but at the end of the day what matters most is how much money you earned. Even more importantly, how much of what you made do you get to keep after paying taxes and expenses?
It’s so easy to get caught up in the daily operations of your small business. We work so hard to keep it up and running that we simply don’t feel like we have enough time to optimize our income.
We know we can make more money by working harder but there are only so many hours in a day. If you work an extra 4–5 hours, you’ll bring in a little more money but you can’t keep that schedule up forever, can you?
Take a few minutes to think about how hard you work and how much extra time you have to put in to grow your income. Rather than pushing so hard to earn more money, why not try to optimize your profits?
Here at EntrepreneursMoney we’ll look at how to apply the 80/20 rule to your business and see what efforts give you the maximum return. We won’t stop there, we’ll look at ways to manage your finances better and pay fewer taxes so you don’t need to earn as much money to live on in the first place.
The end result should be that you won’t have to work as hard and you’ll make just as much money; probably even more than you used to!
Advanta Platinum BusinessCard with Rewards
March 16, 2008
One of the best small business cards available for your business today, Advanta Platinum BusinessCard with Rewards.
- Top Small Business Card
- Credit Line up to $50,000
- Business Branded Card
- 5% Cash Back or Travel Rewards
- No Annual Fee
