#6 How to do tax returns – The easy way!

Drowning in a box full of receipts? Don’t know how to keep a record of your expenses? Dreading a letter from HMRC?

Grab a cuppa and take a deep breath – right now we focus on finance and tell you how to do tax returns the easy way. Follow these 6 steps and you will breeze through the financial year – you’ll look back and think ‘why on earth was I scared, this is easy!’

Today, I team up with the lovely Cheryl Jarrett, Accountant, Mum of 2 cute boys from Little Dunmow in Essex.

Any Mum will resonate with this episode as you can hear our children banging around and causing havoc in the background. Don’t you just love the school holidays!

 

 In this episode you’ll learn

• What a UTR reference is and why you will be penalized by HMRC if you don’t apply for your login in time.

• Ideas for setting up a filing system

• How to make your tax returns less daunting

• How much money should we be saving every month to make sure we can pay our tax bill

• Why I am an accountants ideal client and how you can be too! Cheryl awarded me with a gold sticker – yes adults deserve them too! 😉

• The most important thing some people want to know – What is the price we should be paying an accountant to do our tax return for us

 

 

How to do tax returns – 6 ways to turn the mundane task into a breeze!

We cover this in depth on the podcast (listen & subscribe for free on itunes here) but here are the basics:

1) Do a little bit each week

Don’t let it pile up. Schedule 30 minutes at the end of each week to get on top of your finances

2) File it! 

Set up a good filing system – this can be something as simple as having two envelopes for each month – one envelope you put all your sales information and the other envelope you put in all your receipts for expenses

3) Write on your receipts

As soon as you get a receipt for a business expense – write what it was for. If you brought your weekly food shop from a supermarket but only one expense was related to your business then write down what is was! For example, I did a big shop in Tesco once and I brought a printer as part of that shop – I’ve written at the top of the receipt ‘Printer for business’

 

 

4) Have a separate bank account

This is a great idea so you can see yourself what is coming in and out of your business. Also its a good idea to pay for things with your debit or credit card so if you do lose a receipt you will still have proof of the transaction.

5) Register

When you start a business you need to register to be self employed – do this as early as possible as HMRC send you a UTR reference number which you can file your tax return online. Also, you must register your business by 5 October following the end of the first tax year for which you need to file a Self Assessment tax return.

6) Save Money

Remember at the end of the tax year you will need money to pay tax (if you made any profit) So you need to make sure you save a little every month to cover the tax bill at the end of the financial year

 

 

One Baby Step to take now

GET ORGANISED – A simple and easy step after listening to this podcast is get your receipts and pop them into different envelopes – organised by months

 

Cheryl’s Biggest Challenge and how she overcame it

Challenge – Working from home.

Solution – I have set times when I work; school times and when they are in bed. Sometimes when my son’s are at home and I need to work – they understand that if I’m in my office and the door is closed I am working.

 

 

LINKS MENTIONED IN THE PODCAST

• Cheryl from CH Accountancy – I LOVE the quote Cheryl said ‘A good accountant should save you money not cost you money’

• HMRC – UTR reference 

• Want more free marketing tips? Listen to episode 5 – how you can get your business in the press for free

 

A BIG thank you to Cheryl (love her and her positivity) for all her finance tips – I really hope you’ll be able to breeze through your tax returns. See, there is nothing to be scared about! We had a lovely day recording this podcast and it really brought a new meaning to ‘working from home’ with 3 boys running around my house.

 

How do you keep on top of your finances? Will you use any of these tips to help you make your tax returns stress free? Please let me know in the comments below

 

 

 

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR LISTENING

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Be Confident, Be Brave, Be You – Thank you for being part of the Mum to Millionaire journey

Veena xx