Dropped $400 on a bookkeeper for my shop on 6th and it saved my butt come tax time
I run a small screen printing shop off 6th Ave here in Amarillo and for two years I did all my own books in a spiral notebook like an idiot. Kept telling myself I could not afford help, then my card got declined at Sam's Club buying ink in February and I finally got scared straight. Hired a bookkeeper out of a little office off Georgia Street for $400 a month and she found almost $3,100 in write offs I never claimed, stuff like mileage, the new heat press, even part of my home internet. She also caught that I had been filing my sales tax late three quarters in a row, which would have been penalties piling up if the state ever came knocking. First month felt like burning money but by April I had it all back and then some. If you are doing your own numbers in a notebook, please just get somebody, even part time. Anyone got a bookkeeper in town they actually like, because mine is getting busier and I am scared she will drop me.
The part about your card getting declined at Sam's Club hit home because my buddy Danny had almost the same thing happen with his food truck over on Polk. He was doing his own taxes for years and bragging about saving money, then he got a letter saying he owed back sales tax plus penalties and it came out to like $4,700. He had to put it on a credit card and it took him almost a year to dig out. Turns out he had been writing off nothing, not his propane, not his commissary rent, not even his miles driving to events. He finally got a lady who does books for a few other trucks and she got him set up right, and now he says the monthly fee is the cheapest insurance he has ever bought. Tell your bookkeeper to charge you more so she keeps you around, lol, that is a real thing when they get busy.