March 31st is looming very fast - only 7 weeks away. There are some things that you can start getting ready for your end of financial year, and some things that need to be done in advance…
Bad Debts
If you have customers who are not paying their debts and you have taken all reasonable steps to collect the money, then you may want to write off the balance as a bad debt. This needs to be done before you get to balance date otherwise it won’t be a tax-deductible expense for this tax year.
Stock
If you are a retailer, this is a good time to start organising your stock ready for counting. Get rid of obsolete stock, if you keep it, it still must be valued at either what you paid for it or its current market value, for which you must have evidence.
Maintenance of Equipment
Any maintenance you carry out before the end of your financial year is tax-deductible for that year. If you are planning maintenance in the short term, it might save you tax if you got on with it before the end of the financial year. Maintenance means bringing the asset back up to its original condition.
Don’t get caught in the trap of spending money to save on tax though. Is the expenditure actually needed? Don’t spend a dollar to save thirty cents.
Budgets
Now is also a good time to start prepping your budget for the coming financial year, you can use your actual figures from the year to date as your base to start building it off.
Documentation
Things we will most likely need to complete your annual accounts include the below. Save copies to a folder to make it easier to send to us when we request your records.
Bank statements showing the balance of the account at balance date.
Credit Card statements showing the balance of the account at balance date.
Loan statements showing the balance of the at balance date, summaries showing the total interest paid during the year are also helpful.
Invoices for any fixed asset purchases. If you do not use a system that attaches your invoices to the transaction it is likely that we will want copies.
