There are three weeks remaining in 2009, and before you know it we will be ringing in the new year. As the year draws to a close, now is a good time to take care of some housekeeping type of things before the final day of the year. I always uses the last few weeks to do a number of things to close out my books and to prepare for the new year, as many people focus less on work and more on celebrating the holiday season.
Here are a few recommendations that you might find beneficial as you prepare to begin the new year.
Make sure your record books are in order.
Set aside at least a couple of days to go through your records, making sure all of your sales, acquisition, revenues, expenses, donations, and other financial records are in order and recorded. Instead of waiting nearly four months for tax time, if you do it now, you will be thankful. You can also set up your record books for next year, so you can be as organized or better organized in the coming year.
Spend money on things you need.
If you’ve had a good year financially, now might be a good time to buy a computer, desk, or other business-related supplies that you can expense in the current year. Pay for airline tickets in advance and/or conference passes in 2009 so you can take the tax write-off now. The best recommendation I can make is to speak with an accountant who is familiar with business taxes and get your records in order soon.
Calculate and pay estimated taxes.
Although I track my estimated taxes throughout the year, I know some people who don’t and they wait until the last possible minute. Again, this is something you need to speak with an accountant about.
Check your landing pages.
We’ve all heard that parking is down, but have you checked to make sure your biggest producing landing pages are correctly targeted and the theme is related to the domain name? I don’t spend a lot of time checking during the year, but I will spend some time seeing if I have names that aren’t getting the desired click through rates.
Renew your domain names.
Make sure your domain names are set to auto-renew and the names you want to keep all have enough time remaining on their registration. The end of the year is a hectic time, and things can slip through the cracks. Make sure you don’t lose any domain names unintentionally as a result.
Keep your credit cards up to date.
The end of the year is also a good time to update your credit card records on file with your registrar. Since many people have the auto-renew function activated, it’s important that the credit card on file is still valid. Now’s a great time to check to make sure you’re still good to go.
Checklist image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/adesigna/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
