By far… and I mean like… by FAR… my least favorite class in business school was Accounting (sorry Prof Beyer… it’s not you, it’s the T charts.) When I started Brains over Blonde, every bone in my body wanted to go FULL FLOWER CHILD entrepreneur, but I know I’d thank myself later if I covered my bases. So before I did anything else, I filed an LLC and opened a business bank account and credit card to keep all my business expenses separate (you MUST do this).

Since then, trust me, I’ve been watching my pennies. It’s not easy to balance launching a company, fluctuating income, new business expenses, and the costs of every day life (which let’s be honest – I’m not exactly low maintenance). BUT, that said, my accounting and expense tracking has been pretty… light. It was on my to-do list every month, but other more pressing things got in the way. I’m obsessed with task batching and organization in every other part of my business – so one of my business goals for 2018 is to TRACK EVERYTHING (especially all of my expenses) by the end of each month (I’ll keep you posted on my progress!).

Well, now, ’tis the (tax) season I’ve been dreading. Trust me, I wish I had gotten on top of this a little earlier. As an entrepreneur, I’m my own accountant, and it’s accrual world out there (just a lil tax humor for ya… don’t kill me.) The bottom line is my business is my baby, and I don’t want to screw this up, so I asked my personal assistant (aka Google) of few of the questions zooming through my brain:

• Can I deduct Starbucks as a workspace?
• Can I claim the federal government as a dependent?
• Do I have to file my taxes if he’s not my president?

I DIGRESS. Since our high school teachers taught us how to calculate the area of a trapezoid instead of how to do our taxes… I took a course on “accounting for creative entrepreneurs” (seriously). It wasn’t fun (duh), but I learned a lot. Namely, the best accounting software out there for the self-employed: Quickbooks + Turbotax Self-Employed. I signed up this week, and the combination of their step-by-step wizard and on-demand support has helped me retroactively track 2017 and get my butt in gear for 2018. You can link up your accounts and automatically import expenses and income. Srsly SUCH a relief.

So now, I’m sitting here doing my taxes IN MY PJS, with a glass of wine, listening to the “intaxication” playlist I made (yes, this is happening).

Intaxication Playlist

• Money Maker – Ludacris ft. Pharrell
• Make It Rain – Fat Joe ft. Lil Wayne
• Bills, Bills, Bills – Destiny’s Child
• Mo Money Mo Problems – The Notorious B.I.G.

SO here’s your official reminder that you still have plenty of time to do your taxes at the last minute. If you’re an entrepreneur, you can save 50% on your first 3mo of self-employment tax software here. What are your best tax season and financial organization tips? Share below – I want us to be audit we can be ?

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Originally published at brainsoverblonde.com