Not many people give being organized a second though.  It simply doesn’t fit into their already hectic routines.  Usually, papers are tossed anywhere, equipment placed wherever an empty space can be found, huge messes accumulating to be dealt with at a later time.  The problem, however, is that when this “later time” arrives, it seems like an insurmountable task to get everything orderly.  What’s worse is that bills tend to be late and invoices left unsent, clients can’t be seen due to lack of space (or sheer embarrassment).     Unfortunately, such results of disorganization can adversely affect a business severely.  You need to keep your office organized to give yourself the best possible chance for success.

Some people think that an orderly and clean desk is a sign that no work is being done.  That isn’t further from the truth.  The great Albert Einstein once posed the question “If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, Of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”  If you ask me, an empty desk is a sign that the person is organized, and able to the tasks they set out to do.

It doesn’t really matter if you work from home in a small studio apartment overlooking a large metropolis, in the corner of a barn in the countryside, whether you are a small one person operation or a large multi-person firm, if you are not organized a number of negative things can come of it.

Recently, I had seen 2 clients who had serious issues with organization.  They are both bright, and quite successful, yet have deficiencies when it comes to planning and staging.  

The first client is a CPA, and her office is in constant disarray.  She has a long U-shaped desk as well as a small conference table and a 5-shelf, 72″x24″ bookcase yet there is never enough space because papers a thrown haphazardly throughout the office.  She had explained to me that some tax planning had gone missing, and that it was a 4 day project which, if they work had to be redone, could not be billed twice and they would have to eat the cost.  We went and borrowed a label maker, and began sectioning off the bookcase so that people would know just where to put things without adding to the confusion.  We also sent an e-mail to the office staff to please not place things on the conference table or chairs and to kindly hold onto items if they were not sure which section of the bookcase to leave them.  We proceeded to get all of the accessories off of the top of the desk and into drawer sorters and placed stacking trays on the desk for items such as incoming faxes/mailings, urgent items, and inter-office communications.  Although she was still unable to locate her documents, going forward it will be much easier to keep orgainzed and find everything since everything now has a place.

The second client is a realtor and property manager.  Her office is relatively well organized, and nothing seems to have been sitting around long enough to have been from the last century.  However, she needed my services because her accounting bill has skyrocketed recently and she needed help bringing it back down to a manageable range.  So why did she call me; did she think my firm was going to be able to offer a better rate?  No, but because the reason for her increasing bills was due to her sending in incomplete source documents, and the accountant was spending excess amounts of time having to track down the information from both her and her bank.  It is simply a case of not having the proper plan in place for submitting the month-end information.  We sat down, and created a checklist of all the things that she needs to get over to the accountant’s office at month’s end.  This way, each month she will see what is required and her accountant won’t have to run all over the place trying to track down statements and records.

What it all boils down to is that being organized doesn’t only mean being neat.  It means having a plan, keeping order in your spaces, and properly maintaining these things.  Not only will you be able to become more productive, and efficient (as well as less stressed), but by simplifying your work life, you wind up being able to accomplish more, thereby earning more while spending less in the long run.  Does that mean you should immediately start going paperless like so many business are beginning to explore?  Of course not, but you should at least consider it as part of your plan to get your office’s act together.

How do you deal with clutter in your work space?  Are you the type that likes to work in organized chaos?  Do you need to be completely detailed and have everything in its place at all times?  Or are you a hybrid of various techniques of attitudes?

This article, Organize Your Office And Improve Business In Many Ways was originally published by DollarVersity, and may have been used without the owner's permission.

Another year has come to an end and that means it will soon be time to file your taxes.  It may not be the most exciting thing that the new year brings, but it is a necessary evil nonetheless.  However, tax preparation does not have to be dreadful event that most people believe it to be, so long as you are properly prepared.  One of the best things you can do, and this is the same thing I ask of all of my clients, is to be organized.  Not only will this help you in knowing that you have everything that is going to be needed, but it will also help the person who is preparing the tax return do so in the quickest and most efficient manner.  What does that do for you?  Simply put, it makes the process a heck of a lot shorter from start to finish and you will get any refund much quicker (especially when combined with e-filing and direct deposit).  To make things a bit easier on you, as well as your tax preparer, here are a few simple techniques from a tax pro to get yourself ready:

• Take an envelope or folder and mark it “Tax Documents” to house all of the records you will use when filing your 1040
• Make a list of all of the interest-bearing accounts you have (including checking, savings, & certificates of deposit).  Using last year’s 1040 will give you a lot of help in doing this.
• Add all of your brokerage accounts to that list
• Also include all lenders whom you paid mortgage interest to and all counties/taxing authorities to whom you paid real estate taxes to
• Make a separate list of all of the partnerships or S-corporations that you have an interest in
• Each time you receive a form K-1, 1099-Int, 1099-Div, 1099-R (Retirement disbursement statement), 1098-E, or tax statement cross off the name of the payee from the list until they are all marked as received.
• Start to gather all of the information related to stock or mutual fund sales you made during the year as many brokerages do not have records of purchase prices or dates for holdings that were transferred in from other brokerage accounts
• Get all of the information together related to any rental properties you may own: rent receipts, utility bills, mortgage statements, real estate taxes, repair invoices, insurance bills, etc.
• Pull all of the receipts you plan to use when filing your taxes, including but not limited to: charitable donations of cash or goods, unreimbursed business expenses (gas, tolls, meals, travel, supplies, etc.), education expenses (and educator expenses if you are a qualified educator), child-care costs, documented moving or job search expenses, medical expenses, medical insurance premiums, etc.
• Call any pharmacies you use and ask for an annual account summary for the year outlining all of your prescription costs.
• Pull any receipts for large purchases made during the year, which may include automobiles, appliances or other big-ticket items.  You may be better suited taking your actual sales tax paid on these purchases rather than the generally calculated amount if you itemize (your tax preparer will know which one can be used)
• Keep the folder on your desk at all times as a reminder to keep organized and not to wait until the last second to bring your documents to your tax preparer to file your taxes.

Understand that this is a very generic list, and everything may not apply to your individual tax situation or you may have a much more complicated tax situation.  In any case, this is just something to help get you started on the right path in filing your tax return, and not making the mistakes that many taxpayers make: waiting until the last second to file, or not being prepared and losing out on deductions due to missing or incomplete information from lack of planning and organization.  While you may benefit by requesting an extension to the filing deadline, keep in mind that you will still be responsible to pay interest on any tax liability you may have when everything is said and done.

In what ways do you get everything orderly for having your tax return prepared?  Or, do you just hand over a box/folder/stack of papers and have your tax preparer sort through everything?

This article, A Guide To Getting Ready For Your Tax Return was originally published by DollarVersity, and may have been used without the owner's permission.

Organization isn’t a strong suit for many people.  In fact, ask around and I bet one of the more common complaints people have when it comes to their finances is being able to keep everything organized: keeping track of receipts and bank statements to be specific.  One of the main causes that I have encountered in my career as an accountant is the attitude that more is better when it comes to accounts: the more interest-bearing and investment accounts, as well as credit cards people have, the more wealthy they feel. However, this is a big mistake in many cases, and can lead to certain problems like having trouble budgeting, keeping track of expenditures, and even preparing to have their taxes done. But there is hope for all you organizationally-challenged folks out there, and it’s quite easy to implement.  In fact, you can do it in 3 easy steps…

Step 1: Consolidate

The fact that banks tend to reward people for bringing in new money helps to makes things worse for some people, as it creates yet more paperwork, and another account to keep track of.  And, In some cases, people open up different accounts to serve differing purposes: a household checking and savings, vacation fund, holiday fund, etc. This type of segregation may be good for planning purposes, but it is a killer in terms of keeping track of all the money. Then you have brokerage accounts: a 401(k) with the employer’s broker, an IRA at a different broker and a separate taxable investing account.  Not to mention credit cards, especially for those who chase the 0% rates.  

I had one particular client last month who had 27 different 1099-INT statements from financial institutions, 27!!  That is ridiculous for one person or family to have unless they have so much cash that they need to seperate their cash accounts because of FDIC limits.  But, if that doesn’t describe you, then start closing accounts now.  Keep a household checking account to cover the everyday expenses and recurring bills, a savings account and maybe another interest-bearing account for short-term planning like trips and gifts.  If you have more than one IRA or multiple taxable brokerage accounts, transfer everything into just one for each type.  There really is no need to multiple accounts, and at different brokerages, unless you are a serious trader and each brokerage is better than others at dealing with certain kinds of investment types.  And for those who use multiple credit cards, get rid of all but 2 or 3 if you are worried about your credit score, but if you can care less about that, then close all but one to make things easier on yourself.

Take it a step further

If you really want to get crazy organized, sign up for electronic statements and confirmations.  This way you only get an email whenever a document is issued, and have no papers to have pile up in all areas of your home.  You can create a hierarchy of folders and save all of the PDFs for easy access when the time comes and it is much easier and quicker than fumbling with papers.

Step 2: Welcome to the electronic age

Almost everyone has a computer these days, so why not take advantage of this amazingly useful tool? Set yourself up with a copy of Quickbooks, Quicken or sign up with mint.com.  These programs are very powerful tools for tracking your money, generating budgets, automating the checkbook balancing process (and there are plenty of people who need help with that task).  You can not only automatically download transactions, which will alleviate much of the stress involved in managing finances, but you can even scan receipts and attach them to transactions, keeping everything in one place.  A lot of people use Excel as a means to track and reconcile accounts, but if you don’t have the advanced knowledge of the program, you really will not get the most benefit from it.  And, needless to say, if you are still using paper and a pencil, then you really have your work cut out for you.

Computer-based programs take much of the hassle out of recording, reconciling, tracking, and reporting.  In addition, you can also schedule recurring bills and/or deposits to be automatically entered into the registers so that even without updating your accounts, you will have a more accurate view of the balances. It may cost a little bit of money depending on which option you decide to go with, but the time savings will more than make up for the cash expenditure. Besides that, you can track not only personal finances, but business finances as well, with the same program in many cases.

Take it a step further

You can get really coordinated by using an online version of personal finance software, so you will be able to update it from anywhere.  Or, you can incorporate a service such as evernote which is a free notation product by which you can synchronize notes between your smartphone, desktop or web-based access.  Simply create notes for transactions you need to record at a later time, then when that time comes, you will have records that are as detailed as you would like in order to track your finances at any time, from anywhere.

Step 3: Make a date and don’t be late

In the beginning, getting your programs populated and caught up may take a little bit of time and work. But, once you are up to speed, you should definitely set a schedule for sitting down and maintaining your records.  Every day would be the most ideal, but that may not be very convenient.  You should try to set aside a little time on a weekly basis at the very least, at a time when you know that you generally have nothing else going on so that you can commit to that time period regularly.  After a few times, you will start getting used to that routine and it will become almost second nature.  Try not to miss any of those scheduled times so you are always up-to-date, and watch all of your finances fall right into place.

Take it a step further

Get other family members involved.  If you have kids, let them set up their own files so they can learn the importance of keeping tabs on where money comes from and where it goes.  Nothing will help a child become financially responsible like learning the value of money and how to manage it from a young age.

There you go, 3 simple steps to getting more organized financially. Following this guide will help you in having a better understanding of your personal financial picture, and may even help you sleep at night knowing that everything is in it’s place.  And you can spend less time time worrying about being in disarray and concentrating on other, hopefully more enjoyable pursuits.

Now it’s your turn. What techniques do you use to get organized?  What tips do you you have for people who have difficulty getting, and staying organized?

This article, Organize Your Finances In Three Easy Steps was originally published by DollarVersity, and may have been used without the owner's permission.