Reviewing your finances on a regular basis is critical to ensuring the success of your financial plan. But, how do you know what you should be looking for, and how often should a financial review take place?
While it is a good idea to take a look at where you are financially on a consistent basis, executing a formal quarterly financial review can help you stay more in-tune with your money and your goals. If you’re not sure what to give your attention to, use this helpful checklist as a guide.
Here is the quarterly checklist to help guide you through all the tasks that need monitoring:
✔️Review Quarterly Payroll Reports & Make Payments
You have been reviewing your semi-monthly payroll reports. However, the IRS and most states require quarterly payroll reports and any remaining quarterly payments. Again, it’s best if your payroll service provider completes these reports and files them. Your job is to review to make sure they appear reasonable.
✔️Review Sales Tax & Make Quarterly Payments
If your company operates in a state that requires sales tax filing, make sure you comply to avoid serious penalties. The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and sales tax software like Avalara can help you determine your state tax obligations.
✔️Compute Estimated Income Tax & Make Payment
The IRS and states that have income taxes require you to pay estimated income taxes. Review your year-to-date P&L to see if you owe any estimated taxes for that quarter. Your tax accountant can assist if necessary.
After reviewing these items, it might also be a good idea to check in with your CPA to get any recommendations for making sure your books will be ready to close at year-end. If you have fallen behind with your bookkeeping and financial tracking/reporting, you may want to consider working with one of our QuickBooks specialists to clean up, repair or migrate your data so you can get back on track.
Maintaining your QuickBooks files and data on a quarterly-basis will allow you to easily manage the end-of-year checklist. Being accurate not only helps you easily navigate tax season, it helps you plan for tax season in December by giving you a close estimate of what your taxes will be.
Back to Year-End Guide & Checklists Table of Contents
If you’re looking for simple workflow templates to stay on top of your bookkeeping checklist, check out this resource:
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