New Year's Resolutions

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas surrounded by family and friends. Now it is time to charge ahead to the New Year. I don't know about you, but I am ready for 2008 to be over with. In addition to the bombardment of bad economic news, we in the Houston area also had to deal with a little storm named Ike. Therefore, I am celebrating the New Year a little early. Are you looking for some resolutions? Here are a few you may need to think about putting on your list:

1. Get organized by setting up a good filing system. Get some manila folders and organize your receipts in them by either vendor or by category (insurance, office supplies, charity etc.). Ideally, separate them by year. If you are audited, you will be glad that you did this.

2. Buy some accounting software and USE IT! For keeping track of personal finances, take a look at Quicken. If used properly, it is very helpful for budgeting purposes and answers that age old question "Where does all the money go?".  For small business, nothing beats QuickBooks. Both are simple to set up and use. Work on keeping things up to date at least once a month so you aren't scrambling at the end of the year to update your data file. When it comes tax time, instead of handing your tax preparer a mountain of receipts, you can just give him/her a copy of your Quicken/Quickbooks data file or printouts from the files.

3. If you are self employed, and you don't already have this, set up a dedicated checking account for your business along with a debit card. If you do already have one, stop using your personal accounts and credit cards to pay business expenses. It makes it much more difficult to keep track of things. If you do find yourself occasionally using personal accounts, submit an expense report to your business and reimburse yourself out of your business account for those expenses. This ensures that you have a good trail and all of your business activity remains in your business account.

Happy New Year everybody! Here is to 2009 being a great improvement over 2008!