Spruce up Your Retail Store Operations With This Tax Advice for the New Year
Tip #395 - 5 New Year To Do's
Dear Tip of the Weeker,
This Retail Tip of the Week was an email response to Tip #392 - Start Fresh. We really liked Scott's ideas on starting fresh with the government, so here you go...
Hi Bob and Susan,
Great ideas on sprucing up your retail store for the New Year. Starting fresh with the government can never hurt either! It's a whole lot easier to do these requirements up front rather than recreating data at the end of the year or after a fire.
Here are 5 of my New Year To-Do's:
- Give every employee a new W-4 form (employee withholding). That way you'll have updated addresses for W-2s.
- Check to see if every employee has an I-9 form (are you a citizen?) in their file.
- Send out a W-9 form (request for tax payer ID) with every new vendor purchase order. When you fill out 1099s at the end of the year you won't spend days collecting the data.
- Get new employment law posters from both State and Federal Departments of Labor. You can print them off the internet for free. Don't fall for the scam of buying pretty laminated ones.
- Back up your computer data every single day. Buy two flash drives and put one at home (A) and one at work (B). Back up on B and take it home. Take A to work with you the next day. Keep switching them out day after day after day.
Note from Bob and Susan: We recommend that you also back up all your data to a remote, web-based service for two important reasons.
- It happens automatically. You don't have to remember anything, you don't have to do anything. It just happens.
- Your data back up is nowhere near where you live. This protects against natural disasters like a flood, tornado, hurricane, or earthquake that could leave both your house and your store damaged.
We use MozyPro here in our office and it has saved our behinds more than once.
Wishing you great sales and lots of fun,
