thoughts and ramblings of David Wang

It’s almost the tax submission deadline (for businesses) again. This year, I handed my accountant my records a whole 5 weeks before the deadline, so she has plenty of time to compute my taxes.

It wasn’t always like this. Filing my tax return in the first 2 years of running my business was a big headache and involved sleepless, stressful nights leading up to 30 June. I’ve come a long way since and thought I would share my process to help individuals just starting out.

Disclaimer: I am not an accounting professional. What follows is what works for me – your own mileage may vary. You should take this article as a guide, and consult a licensed accountant for specific questions.

The Objective

First, let’s be clear about what my system is and isn’t. This process works to:

• Record invoices and payments (money in)
• Record expenses (money out)
• Make it easy for you or your accountant to compute and file your taxes

This system isn’t a solution to:

• Be an accounting solution
• Generate financial statements
• Forecast your business financials

It’s important to stress that this isn’t really an accounting system – it’s more of a bookkeeping system. For most freelancers and sole proprietorships though, it is quite adequate.

If you’ve just started your business, I don’t think you need a full-on accounting solution like Quicken or MYOB. It will confuse you and make it an enormous chore to keep your books in order. Just keep it simple for now.

Peter Shankman wrote an epic post on Business Insider called Why I Will Never, Ever Hire A “Social Media Expert“. The 1st sentence tells you that you’re in for a good rant:

I was going to call this article “All ‘Social Media Experts’ Need To Go Die In A Fire,” but I figured I should be nicer than that.

The author’s ultimate point is that social media is not a magic pill that will make your company successful. To achieve success, the formula is “solid marketing and stellar customer service, just like it’s been since the beginning of time”. He goes on to explain how companies should be using social media – by being transparent, relevant, brief and by knowing your customer.

I realized this some time ago too. This is why I’m not all out to get more followers and fans and have been much more personal and quieter on Twitter and my blog. I don’t want to be blogging and tweeting for traffic and followers because I want to be blogging and tweeting for me. Social media is a means to an end, not the end itself. Social media is also not a popularity contest.

Then again, it is a social environment and in every one you’ll have those who try to be Mr and Ms Popularity. I guess it means there’s no escaping these guys. Luckily, my Twitter client of choice has a mute button.

This is my talk at WordCon / WordCamp Asia 2011. Here are the notes from my presentation – for my reference and yours. If you enjoyed my ideas here, please Like or tweet this post. Thanks!