How to streamline the tax filing process

We know the pressure is on when it comes to final accounts. Your time is at a premium and accuracy is crucial to getting your figures aligned and making sense.

The tax filing and returns process often involves inputting data in multiple systems, which is why it’s notoriously painstaking. But it’s important to understand your tax responsibilities and why you need to get it right.

With the importance of getting your taxes right, we know how stressful it can be, especially if you’re just starting out. Everyone knows mistakes are made under pressure. That’s why we’ve committed ourselves to making this whole process smoother with our tax return software.

What tax returns do I need to file?

Preparing your tax filings is arguably the difficult part of tax returns. There are a few different types of taxes you need to file:

• VAT returns This is where you keep track of everything you’ve bought, making sure to adjust when you’ve paid VAT on a purchase. Then, you need to submit a tax report to HMRC. If you’re due any taxes, these will be paid soon after you’ve filed the tax report.

• Business income tax The tax you owe is calculated on profits - the higher your profits, the more tax you’ll need to pay to HMRC. There are ways you can lower the amount of tax you need to pay, regardless of your profits, but this is incredibly technical and potentially damaging to your business, so it’s best to leave this to a professional accountant.

• Employee income tax This is calculated based on how much you pay your employees and the tax is collected from employees at every payday. You’ll need to report to HMRC, outlining how much you paid employees and how much tax you owe the tax office.

Filing these reports can quickly get confusing, especially if you’re needing to make VAT adjustments on things you’ve purchased. Making Tax Digital aims to make this process much easier, by eliminating the need for multiple spreadsheets, paper forms, and physical receipts.

Relieve the tax return pressure

Correct tax filing and return requires accuracy across all systems. Inputting the right data at every step is crucial to lining up the numbers and ensuring you’re not left paying too much or too little tax.

Doing this manually across various systems can get confusing, especially when you’re working with invoices and receipts from your clients, suppliers, and partners.

Thousands of small businesses - including your clients - already store their accounting information in the cloud. But what if you could tap straight into that information?

With QuickBooks, you can easily integrate with Taxfiler software, granting you access to your clients’ data and removing the risk of human error. And we know how devastating even the smallest errors can be to tax returns.

Avoid tax filing errors and save time

By linking seamlessly with QuickBooks, you can import trial balance figures directly from your clients. This will automatically populate and streamline the tax filing process, ensuring that all data is correct and up to date.

Automating the process minimises the risks of mistakes that can be made by manual data re-entry or the transfer of data between systems. This means your cash flow forecast stays accurate, allowing you to make informed business decisions.

And this automation comes with a huge amount of time saved. Just think - not spending hours inputting and checking data for your tax return means you can focus on other areas of your business.

Submit taxes to HMRC at the click of a button

Once you’ve filled out the tax returns, you need to submit them to HMRC. The taxfiler software makes this as easy as possible with just the click of a button.

Easily complete your tax return online with QuickBooks’ accounting software, and take the stress out of submitting your taxes.

If you have any abbreviated accounts, you’ll need to send them to Companies House rather than HMRC, which you can easily do using the software.

Seamless taxfiler integration

Take the pressure and stress away from filing your taxes by integrating Taxfiler with the QuickBooks software. The seamless blend saves time on the basic admin of filing taxes and, because the data is automatically pulled through, you’ll reduce any risk of human error.

This guarantees fast and accurate reporting, and frees up your time which can then be spent focussed on other areas of your business.

It’s also possible to post a journal to QuickBooks periodically in order to keep your clients’ books up-to-date, keeping everything safe in one place.

We hope you’ve found this article useful. At QuickBooks we strive to help you continue improving your service to your clients. Taxfiler is one more significant step in that direction.

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