Let me start by saying, no matter how much you hate doing them, my advice to you is GET THEM DONE.
The sooner you get your accounts done, the quicker you can send them to your accountant. Which means that you’ve then got time for discussion over facts and figures.
FACTS: The tax year ended on 5th April. Yes, for properties in your own name, you can only deduct 50% of the mortgage interest payments. Yes, that may have an impact on your net profit if you are in the higher rate tax bracket.
The benefit of getting your accounts done now is that you can then file your tax returns way in advance of the January 31st deadline and, should you have any tax to be paid, have lots of time to save!
Here’s my top 5 articles for accounting help:
Tax Deductions {Allowable Expenses} Checklist
The easiest way to handle your property accounts (Your Q’s answered)
Have you done your end of year accounts for your properties? here’s my 5 top tips to get it right
Why you so DESPERATELY need to hire an accountant
The only accounting secret to getting it right
Finally, if you don’t have the patience to go through those articles (although I highly recommend you should!)
Here’s my top 5 tips to getting your accounts done RIGHT NOW:
- Go through a monthly statement each day. Your accounts should take 12 days… yes it may be hard work, but it will be done fairly quickly!
- Alternatively look to reconcile 10-20 transactions a day. That won’t take that long at all, 30 minutes max. These small actions will add up to your completing your accounts quickly.
- When looking to find invoices in your inbox, look for all the invoices from one contractor first and then move onto the next contractor. It’s so much quicker, then simply going one by one.
- Download your accounts in excel format from your bank, you can then drag and drop the income into the relevant comment for that income or expenditure type!
- Calculate all your rental income first! It will make you see how well you are doing and show you how much money you’ve made from investing well over the last 12 months
My challenge to you this week is to start doing your accounts… in fact start this evening. It’s better to just get them out the way so you can start a fresh with this year!
P.S. Please share this using the social media icons on the left as this will be helpful for other property investors, landlords and the self-employed!!
Natasha
