Doing your S-corp taxes yourself...

Just a few notes for future expense tracking to make doing taxes easier. Useful list for a small biz with simple tax filing.

classifying your expenses with the same terminology that the tax man uses to make your life easier at end of year or end of quarter. Do it using these categories then tally it up at the end.

its not shipping, freight-in and postage
for storage, its rent, not storage

if you charge shipping and handling, that is INCOME. later, you will take it out as shipping

don't mix these up:
interest incoming (paid to biz)
interest outgoing (paid to loaner)

no donations: there are contributions, cash and non cash
donations at 50% level, at 30% level, need to determine difference

meals can be recorded on line 19 and line 5, along with a few other things that are redundant with some being classified as related to cost of goods sold. i guess the other stuff is 'the cost of getting goods sold'.

there are no office products, there are office supplies

deductions on first page:
taxes and licenses (yes, there are multiple places this is listed), one reduces income and others do not
interest (again, as a deduction, so its what you paid)
advertising

line 19 includes:
supplies
bank charges
consultation charges
delivery (not pizza)
dues and subscriptions
insurance
office supplies and expense
postage
print and copy
promotion
pro fees
software
telephone
small tools
utilities


line 5 includes:
travel
meals
entertainment
indirect labor
rent
freight-in
supplies
taxes
utilities

some categories to keep in mind and keep track of as well:
rent
state income tax
local income tax
licenses