It's Tax Time!!!

So it's that time of year....time to file your taxes.

I opened my Home Daycare business last Fall and was wondering what you ladies are doing with regards to filing your taxes. Do you have an accountant? Do you use some software and file your own taxes?

I usually file my own taxes with QuickTax but I don't know if i am able to do the same with these new business expenses to claim.

I have filed all my expenses by each month and have tracked them on an excel spreadsheet to keep them all organized.

Please help!
Sarah

I was thinking of this today and was going to see if anyone was posting about tax season. My mom does my taxes as thats what she does. I keep everything on spreadsheets and all receipts in a file and give it to her. How does everyone work their meals around here? Do you buy your DC food separatly? Or do you do a $ figure amount based on how many kids you have etc?

I use an accountant for my taxes. I put all my receipts in monthly envelopes and my bills in another. Then I bring all those envelopes to my accountant and we get to crunching. I buy my DC foods seperately on Sunday nights so that I can have those receipts. I don't like having to highlight my family's items and the daycare items on receipts.

I just opened so won't be worrying about tax season this year.
So far I have been purchasing all food together. I am curious to see how others are doing it and what's easier when it comes to tax time.

I have my sister who's a CA (we still pay her for her time). I buy DC food with family food. We just highlight what we bought for the daycare on the receipt, then put what we bought (with the price, date, and location) in a spreadsheet. All the receipts go into an envelope (with different months). Same goes with toys, and any equipment I may buy for the DCKs!

This is something that my sister has suggested us to do and it works for us.

For foods I buy all food together since it is shared - only room for one bottle of ketchup etc. I have done food two ways and the meetings I have had on daycare taxes basically says as long as you can justify your method as in there is really no right or wrong way to do it. I have in the past made up a sample menu and then costed it out and then multiplied by the number of meals served. I have also done an average where you take the full food budget for the year and then determine the number of daycare meals and the number of family meals (where 2 snacks = 1 meal) then divide by the number of total meals served to get the cost per meal and then multiply by number of daycare meals served. Sounds complicated but it is really just a few clicks of the calculator. In theory we are supposed to be recording attendance during the year and therefore able to determine meals served. This method only works partially in the sense that if you open a box of kraft dinner and serve 4 or only serve 3 cause one child was away it still costs you a box of kraft dinner for lunch since the left overs aren't enough to use the next day. Which is how the costed out menu method started. For the last two years I have done it both the menu method and the total meals served method and came out pretty much the same so guess either is effective.

Hello
I keep all receipts in envelopes marked with the month and then I tally up all the totals. I buy daycare food with our food and just mark the food for the daycare children and add this total up each month. I too put all on a spread sheet and take it to my accountant. As my accountant told a group of our daycare operators the rules and regulations change slightly each year and we may not know what we are allowed to claim and we may miss out on this deduction.
Remember to keep your records for the last 7 years, as Revenue Canada can go back that far.

Anyone in the Hamilton/Burlington area that could recommend an Accountant?

If you have an Accountant, how did you find them?