Diane and I always filed quarterly when we were on the road. It is not difficult to do. You do not need to involve your accountant. It may be required (depending on your income level). And it's just a good idea to keep good books every day. The quarterly filing provides the discipline to take an honest look at your business at least four times a year.
With the benefit of hindsight, I can say that we made bookkeeping into a much more difficult chore than it needed to be. While we did a good job keeping books and knowing our numbers, I resisted using a full-fledged bookkeeping program; preferring instead to develop my own system of spreadsheets and filing. I also resisted using online bookkeeping tools in the interests of security and privacy. If I had it to do over again, I would use QuickBooks to manage our expediting business.
Diane and I have very few regrets about spending 10 years as expediters. As I sit here writing this, only two come to mind. One is not using QuickBooks to do our bookkeeping. (The other is not moving sooner to Landstar Express America from FedEx Custom Critical. We did well at FCC and left the business with a nice chunk of money. But we did better at LEA. Had we made the FCC to LEA move sooner, we would have more money in the bank today.)
This is for all newbies, not just Videodrome. If you are an expediter, you are a business person. I challenge you to rise to be everything a good business person is; and that includes knowing your numbers and understanding your business books. Even if you dump it all in an accountant's lap, it is still important to know what he or she is actually doing. What an account thinks is best for you may be entirely different than what you think is best for you. But if you don't understand what's up, you may never discover that your capable and well-meaning accountant is driving on the wrong road.
Yes, there is a learning curve to climb when it comes to learning how to use a good bookkeeping program and understanding certain tax concepts like the true value of a deduction and the effect an obscure thing like depreciation has both on your taxes and on your life. But climb that hill. Take it in small chunks. Learn the lessons one at a time. Build your knowledge like you would build anything else, one piece at a time, one item on top of another.
Start by learning how money and wealth actually work. Two helpful books about that are Rich Dad, Poor Dad; and The New Money Makeover. Read them both, and re-read them every few years. As your understanding grows, you will get more out of these books each time.
If you are not crystal clear about your business goals and life purpose, read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People to help you get there. As with the other two books, you will get more out of subsequent readings of this book as you grow in wisdom and life experience.
At the day-to-day, practical level, spend money to buy or subscribe to a good accounting/bookkeeping program. Then study it and set it up to manage your business. Also download a scanning app onto your phone (my favorite is Office Lens). This makes it a breeze to scan and manage the many receipts and documents expediters encounter.
When Diane and I accepted a load offer, we used to diligently write the information from the on-screen run info into a paper run journal. That notebook-size run journal provided the useful info at a glance when we needed it during the run and archived the info for later reference. If we were in the business today, we'd capture and automatically archive that run-journal info in an instant with Office Lens.
The programs, internet and cloud have come a long way in recent years. With the tools now available, business bookkeeping and tax return preparation can be a breeze for those who care to climb the bookkeeping-baics learning curve.
With the benefit of hindsight, I can say that we made bookkeeping into a much more difficult chore than it needed to be. While we did a good job keeping books and knowing our numbers, I resisted using a full-fledged bookkeeping program; preferring instead to develop my own system of spreadsheets and filing. I also resisted using online bookkeeping tools in the interests of security and privacy. If I had it to do over again, I would use QuickBooks to manage our expediting business.
Diane and I have very few regrets about spending 10 years as expediters. As I sit here writing this, only two come to mind. One is not using QuickBooks to do our bookkeeping. (The other is not moving sooner to Landstar Express America from FedEx Custom Critical. We did well at FCC and left the business with a nice chunk of money. But we did better at LEA. Had we made the FCC to LEA move sooner, we would have more money in the bank today.)
This is for all newbies, not just Videodrome. If you are an expediter, you are a business person. I challenge you to rise to be everything a good business person is; and that includes knowing your numbers and understanding your business books. Even if you dump it all in an accountant's lap, it is still important to know what he or she is actually doing. What an account thinks is best for you may be entirely different than what you think is best for you. But if you don't understand what's up, you may never discover that your capable and well-meaning accountant is driving on the wrong road.
Yes, there is a learning curve to climb when it comes to learning how to use a good bookkeeping program and understanding certain tax concepts like the true value of a deduction and the effect an obscure thing like depreciation has both on your taxes and on your life. But climb that hill. Take it in small chunks. Learn the lessons one at a time. Build your knowledge like you would build anything else, one piece at a time, one item on top of another.
Start by learning how money and wealth actually work. Two helpful books about that are Rich Dad, Poor Dad; and The New Money Makeover. Read them both, and re-read them every few years. As your understanding grows, you will get more out of these books each time.
If you are not crystal clear about your business goals and life purpose, read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People to help you get there. As with the other two books, you will get more out of subsequent readings of this book as you grow in wisdom and life experience.
At the day-to-day, practical level, spend money to buy or subscribe to a good accounting/bookkeeping program. Then study it and set it up to manage your business. Also download a scanning app onto your phone (my favorite is Office Lens). This makes it a breeze to scan and manage the many receipts and documents expediters encounter.
When Diane and I accepted a load offer, we used to diligently write the information from the on-screen run info into a paper run journal. That notebook-size run journal provided the useful info at a glance when we needed it during the run and archived the info for later reference. If we were in the business today, we'd capture and automatically archive that run-journal info in an instant with Office Lens.
The programs, internet and cloud have come a long way in recent years. With the tools now available, business bookkeeping and tax return preparation can be a breeze for those who care to climb the bookkeeping-baics learning curve.
