How do you present your tax info to your acct?

[WinstonWolfe]

This is a question for people who don't present their accountant with a myob or qucken file for tax purposes.

I am always out to reduce the time taken keeping financial records and providing accountant with same.

I currently provide my acct with a cash book excel spreadsheet. The income worksheet lists all income whether deductible or not, same for expenses.

I also have an asset register and a worksheet for share trades/holdings.

I am wondering what info others provide their acct with, and in what form.


I would also be interested to know how many people do their own personal tax returns these days. I have heard if an acct does your tax return there is less chance of being audited by ATO. What does everyone else think?

 

[django21]

excel spreadsheet

I do the same on excel. I only do new construction and most of the software I have come across caters to buying houses with no input for land,construction etc
I have always wondered about using software for tax and investment tracking and would love to hear from someone who has made the transition from excel to software. Is it worthwhile.

 

[depreciator]

Excell.

I make sure everything is in the one place.

 

[The Y-man]

We (ok, not "we" - "my wife" ) used to prepare a excel workbook, but it became a bit complicated.

We have moved to Quicken, and so far the following observations:

1. Reporting is very easy (P&L, Balance sheet)
2. Dealing with share trading is a bit of a dog....

Cheers,

The Y-man

 

[WinstonWolfe]

thanks for feedback.
herewith is a sample of what I use.
allows for small home office.
some of the links that feed to the rough tax calc page and bas are broken.

would appreciate suggestions for improvements or should I consider software ...

Y-man, does your wife find things quicker with the software?

I export my bank acct data, process it a bit, then throw it in the spreadsheet. I don't even process my cash expenditure as it is probably less than $1000 pa and couldn't be bothered processing cash receipts to claim deductions or gst back.

I am wondering if Quicken or similar might be faster.

I usually have around 300 cash book expense items and 200 income items, and 5-50 share trades a year.

any feedback appreciated

 

[The Y-man]

Y-man, does your wife find things quicker with the software?

I suspect it is a case of a long time to initially set up (and learn the system too!), but once up and going, it is probably quicker for IP accounting.

I am wondering if Quicken or similar might be faster.

I usually have around 300 cash book expense items and 200 income items, and 5-50 share trades a year.

any feedback appreciated

That shouldn't pose a huge issue. We do about 10 share trades per day....

Cheers,

The Y-man

 

[poppy]

I would also be interested to know how many people do their own personal tax returns these days. I have heard if an acct does your tax return there is less chance of being audited by ATO. What does everyone else think?

I do my own tax return. I did read somewhere that 75% of individuals use an accountant / tax agent to do their tax return so I guess I'm in the minority.

As for more chance of being audited, it probably depends on the accountant you use. eg If the ATO finds a particular accountant is doing something they don't like, then maybe they are going to look at a number of that accountant's clients. Whereas maybe they are more likely to leave alone the "compliant" accountant's clients.

 

[ChrisOs]

Hi,
I provide my accountant with an Excel spreadsheet the format of which I developed quite a few years ago. I have provided it to two different accountants with no complaints. It has similar content to WW's but I have a separate worksheet for each property.

No idea if the chances of being audited are greater if not using an accountant.

Regards,
Chris.

 

[Dunsborough]

I use Quicken personal Plus and honestly any queery you have you can track things to the tenth degree, i am more blown away with reports, graphs, budgets, scheduled payments, tax help etc etc every day, I havent bought a lot of software in my time but so glad i did with this.
If lazy can suck all transactions from netbank straight into program as well.
Even gets latest share data online and downloads.
I print out a report categrising what money went where and accountant uses that.

cheers

 

[WinstonWolfe]

I use Quicken personal Plus and honestly any queery you have you can track things to the tenth degree, i am more blown away with reports, graphs, budgets, scheduled payments, tax help etc etc every day, I havent bought a lot of software in my time but so glad i did with this.
If lazy can suck all transactions from netbank straight into program as well.
Even gets latest share data online and downloads.
I print out a report categrising what money went where and accountant uses that.

cheers

Hmmmm.....am tempted to give the Quicken Home and Business trial a go. Messed with it a few years ago and didn't like the idea of locking into annual updates and patches, paying for telephone support, and a time hungry learning curve.

 

[sailor]

I use QuickBooks Pro, and have used their products for 14 years now. It is quick and easy to learn. You can have a set of books up and running in 15 mins. The included help info is really fantastic. Then just about 20 mins at the end of the month to update and do a bank rec.
I email the file to my accountant. Saves me a motza in that he doesn't have to do any data manipulations or data entry.

The other good thing about Quickbooks is that I can get all reports: Bal Sheet, P/L, etc up to date every day if I wanted.

Tis so much easier and more comprehensive that .xls.

 

[WinstonWolfe]

Can anyone tell me this... I had a look for software last night and found Cashflow manager was recommended as a cash book type program, simpler to set up than Quicken and MYOB and possibly more appropriate for my current needs.

However, I found it doesn't appear to allow expense entries to be split between private and business use.

I also haven't found an option to allow split entries, when one might several cheques in one deposit.

I know Quicken does the latter but can it do the private/business split? and split the gst appropriately?

I have downloaded Quicken too and will mess with that on the w/e.

BTW, my work income at the moment is derived from salary and independent contract work. I run a small business from home for the contract component, hence the % claims on many expenses (vehicle, telephone, etc)

 

[Xenia]

We use a book keeper who uses MYOB in a format that was set up by the accountant to start off with.
The only thing I do is hand over the files once a month!
That job has been identified as a $2 an hour job by our business coach, not worth putting time into

 

[WinstonWolfe]

We use a book keeper who uses MYOB in a format that was set up by the accountant to start off with.
The only thing I do is hand over the files once a month!
That job has been identified as a $2 an hour job by our business coach, not worth putting time into

Think I am with you Xenia.

Are you saying that it would take you, say, 15 hours to do what your bookkeeper does in 1 hour? thereby the actual cost of your bookkeeper, divided by 15 hours, is $2 an hour. So in using the bookkeeper, you recoup 15 hours, at a cost to you of $2 an hour for the time recouped?

I agree that one has to do systems and processes studies to identify when something should be outsourced. All part of running an efficient business. Though helps to have refined systems in place.

For much personal finance subject to ongoing changes, a bookkeeper would be constantly asking questions, thus time savings could be eroded. Though agree that personal financial affairs should be treated like a business.

 

[Xenia]

Absolutely WW and I don't think I even "got it" with MYOB anyway, much more efficient to outsource!

 

[DLB]

I just put all my paper work in a folder and let him work it out.

Regards DLB

 

[LynnH]

I present the info in the format of a spreadsheet which appears just like a 'proper' tax return - all he has to do is update the depreciation schedule each year and input everything else 'as is' into his computer - and it STILL takes him 5 weeks to do it!!

Cheers
LynnH

 

[Rixter]

I use Property Manager Pro to track my annual property portfolio incomes & expenses. At the end of the financial year I simply print out a report for each property and forward it and other income related statements/receipts to my accountant.

 

[lizzie]

i'm the same as rixter - use property manager pro, then at the end of the year i print out a detailed report for each property with a consolidated report for each property on top, then print out a consolidated report for the entire portfolio (i reconcile these with the pm, bank and conveyancer statements to make sure i haven't missed an entry, or doubled one up).

i also give him a copy of my loc bank statements. every debit/credit has an entry next to it indicating what the payment was for and what property it was for - he then gets an underlings to do a allocation spreadsheet to work out the interest applicable to each property (i just can "get" it).

i hand him a copy of the professionally done depreciation schedules.

he also asks for copies of all the mortgage bank statements.

everything is bound up "per property" and neatly organised.

 

[Sunfish]

Before everyone owned a computer we used hand written multi-column cash books. Even today my accountant wouldn't bat an eyelid if you walked in with one. Importantly, if it is good quality data there would be little difference in the bill. A simple spreadsheet is similar, but easier to correct and with auto-sum. Share investments would become messy though for paper 'n pencil but many small trading businesses do the same few things over and over. Same column, next line Contracting is far more complicated, I know.

I know I have spent too much time and effort on learning computers over the years.

ps. It is the quality of the data that matters. If it is correct it shouldn't take long to code and enter regardless of form.