4 Tax Deduction Tracking Tools for the Self Employed

Around this time every year, self-employed business owners can be seen doing the following:

• Digging around the car to find half torn, coffee stained receipts.
• Yelling out “Dang it, I’ll just have to take the standard mileage deduction again!”
• Trying to figure out which room in your home you actually worked the most in this year. It’s always the largest, right?
• Scrolling through that latest and greatest expense-tracking app that was meant to help alleviate all of this hassle last year, only to find that it isn’t as ‘easy to use’ as was promised!  

Yes, every year we resolve to have a better plan and inevitably the plan seems to fail. Well, we’re here to tell you that you, the self employed business owner, are not alone. We’ve all been there… and done that.

And we’re also here to help by providing a list of 4 tools that will help you get organized and keep track of those tax deductions for next year! It’s never too late to try again.

4 great tax deduction tracking tools for the self employed...

1. Evernote

We love Evernote for staying organized! It’s one of our favorite tax deduction tracking tools! Here’s how tracking your taxes in Evernote works:

1. Create a folder for the current year’s tax deductions.
2. Throughout the year email or scan in any docs or receipts associated with deductions and save them in your new folder.

Next year you’ll have everything in digital format and all in one place and can easily ‘share’ the folder with your accountant or prepare your own taxes... if that’s your thing. Here’s a great blog series for keeping your tax docs organized using Evernote!

2. iTrail GPS Tracker

Keeping track of your mileage for all those business-related road trips may be one of the most difficult things to do when it comes to self-employed tax deductions! To do it correctly requires meticulous mileage logging every day. In reality, most of us probably find ourselves guessing on this one each year because it can be too much hassle.

In this Yahoo Finance article, Joshua S. Barger, vice president of tax services at Foundation Financial Group in Manhattan, recommends keeping thorough documentation of travel mileage, medical expenses and meals-and-entertainment expenses -- the categories IRS auditors are most persnickety about monitoring. "Whatever miles you've driven for business purposes, you need to keep proper logs," Barger said. "You need to write down what the odometer is when you start and then you need to write it down when you get home."

What if we told you we have a solution that will save you hours and hours of time and could help you put a little more more money in your pocket around tax time? The iTrail Snap will help you track your mileage and quickly generate mileage reports to add to your evernote folder (mentioned above).

(Sample iTrail report)

It’s a snap to deploy and runs off the battery of your automobile or truck. Move it from vehicle to vehicle in seconds. One tracking tool for multiple vehicle tracking.

Tracking milage on a whole fleet of vehicles? No problem. Our iTrail Convoy can handle it!

3. Mint.com

Let’s all face the music: It’s a very good idea to keep track of your finances in one place online. There are so many options to choose from for personal finance tracking today. You simply import and track all of your your accounts from investments to loans to banks accounts. It’s all in one place.

Our favorite personal finance site for tax deduction tracking is Mint. How do you use mint for tax deduction tracking? Simply add a ‘tax’ tag to any expenses related to taxes throughout the year. When it comes time to do taxes, just search for the ‘tax’ tag and all of those tagged expenses will be there on one page. Super easy and simple!

4. iDonatedit

Finally, we’ve found a great tax deduction tracking tool that will help you keep track of your donations! The iDonatedit app tracks and values your non-cash charitable donations. Track the date of donation, the charity, and the fair market value. Include a picture of your donated item to help you document your donation! You can easily email the donation report to yourself or your accountant around tax time.

We hope these self-employed tax deduction tracking tools help you in your resolve to do a much better job of keeping track of your taxes this year! For more information on using the iTrail products to track your vehicle or fleet mileage visit us online, email us at support@myitrail.com or give us a call at 800-590-4272!