The tax deadline is almost upon us and I hope that most of you have completed, if not submitted your tax documents.

In talking to other entrepreneurs, tax time is either made easy or unbearable by quality of their bookkeeping. Some have it great with their accountants who do everything for them. However, many more do their accounting and tax work by themselves — and some are pretty diligent about it and do it regularly; while others do it only before April 15 rushing to find all their receipts and listing their expenses and income. I know of many home-based entrepreneurs who don’t even know how much they make in a month except what they see in their bank account!

If you will do it yourself, you need to have a system that you will work most for you.

It can be as simple as using a software such as Quicken or Quickbooks. Or it could be as easy as an Excel spreadsheet. You can also use a paper system such as any of the bookkeeping books sold in your favorite office supplies store.

Someone recently gave me a copy of the Tax Minimiser system. which is a paper based daily planner system designed specifically for keeping track of your business expenses and income. I haven’t used it yet, but it seems that it is a simple enough system that even non-accountants can understand. I am hopeless with accounting and I don’t even want to understand how Quickbooks work, so I am looking forward to checking out this paper based system.

Bookkeeping is one of the necessary constants in doing business — whether you hate or love it, you have to do it.