If you’re a small business owner, you’re used to wearing a lot of hats. That doesn’t mean that it’s always a good idea for you to handle everything yourself. Take sales tax filing. You must file in every jurisdiction where you’ve done business. You have to file by the method required by the state for your particular business (usually electronically) and you have to file on the appropriate schedule — and both those things may be different from one state to another. You essentially have three options for sales tax filing: Do it yourself. Hire an accountant or bookkeeper to do it for you. Hire a CPA to take care of it.
Hiring a CPA is probably the most common and in many cases the most practical approach, but you shouldn’t automatically go for that option. If you have payroll, POS systems, and complex sales tax, then you might be ready to add an accountant to your staff. Compare the total cost of working with your CPA with the total cost of hiring an accountant (possibly part-time) and see which one works best for you. The third option — doing your own sales tax filing — is not impossible if you have more time than money at this point in the growth of your business. Sales tax is complicated, there’s no contest on that, but filing sales tax doesn’t have to be.
The process is really quite simple when you break it down into its essential parts. First, you need all your information for your transactions, which you can produce from your invoicing or accounting program. Second, verify all of the addresses to ensure they’re complete, and then verify the sales tax rate to make sure you collected the correct amount. Third, fix any errors and then report your sales tax to the appropriate jurisdictions. The process can be time-consuming, but anyone with the ability to handle details and do some math can do it. The problem is that sorting through paperwork probably isn’t the best use of your time. You need to speed up the process so that you can get back to mission-critical tasks.
Sales tax filing software allows you to delegate the lengthy parts of the job to your computer. “Is a Server-Based or Web-Based Sales Tax Filing Solution Better?” Web-based sales tax filing solutions are best for small businesses because they don’t require an IT department to get them up and running, and the upfront investment is much more affordable than on-premise software. Sales Tax DataLINK solutions are enterprise-level solutions, so you won’t outgrow them as your business grows — but they’re also simple and practical enough that you can handle them on your own until you’re ready to hire an accountant. “Web Demo”, Contact us today to set up a free demo of our sales tax solutions and see how easily they’ll fit your needs — now and in the future.
