How to Easily Get Your Taxes Organized With Excel
Does the thought of readying tax papers for your accountant feel like your own personal Hell?
Wish you could easily get your taxes organized with Excel, but fear you’d first need to be a finance genius? Using Microsoft Excel for your tax tracking can be simple with a basic spreadsheet. And you don’t need to become a certified “Mathletic”.
Tax Procrastination Misery
A recent client, who every year procrastinates on her taxes, called me. Up to now she’d track her finances the old-fashioned way – handwritten ledgers. It was time to slay this tedious process – and her writer’s cramp!
Deliverance from Busy Work
Like my client, are you craving a more efficient accounting system? One you could keep up with monthly, so you avoid the year-end tax cramming?
Buuuut…you don’t want to venture into the huge learning curve of accounting software. Can I get an “Amen”!
Accounting Procrastination Freedom
I set up my client in Excel to manage her tax data. Now she’s in heaven for the time saved, the stress released and the energy gained for things she’d rather be doing! Freedom to enjoy her life! Freedom to work on her business not stuck working in it! Ready to join her?
Your Taxes Organized with Excel: Tracking Expenses
Excel allows you to filter and calculate financial data in an instant. To get you started, we’ll only look at tracking expenses in this post.
Let’s first look at some specific terms for Excel:
- Workbook
- Sheet
- Cells
- AutoSum
Think of an Excel Workbook as a single notebook.
- You’ll name your Workbook something such as Taxes 2016 or Taxes 2017 etc.
- Just like a notebook, a Workbook contains individual Sheets. You can add as many sheets as you want.
- Each Sheet contains boxes called Cells. When you click on a cell, the border lines become moving dotted lines indicating that the cell is active.
To get you started, I’ve created a simple Excel Expenses Template Guide. You can add/change headings and also adapt for personal expenses.
Quick Done-for-You Calculations
AutoSum in Excel will total a column or row doing the math for you! Hallelujah!
Using AutoSum, you must not have any blank cells in a column or row you want to total. The solution is simple; put $0.00 (or your currency) in any blank cells. Excel may default to show this as $ -.
Tax Prep Convert
Download, save and rename your copy. I’ve put in several typical expense categories and example entries. Simply highlight over my data and type your own.
Want help creating a customized Excel Tax Workbook?
I offer 1:1 virtual training on How to Easily Get Your Taxes Organized With Excel.
Set up a free 20-minute Discovery call with me!
Hiya, I’m Jul’s Arthur, author of the book 25 Days of Holiday Organizing! I help women professionals & entrepreneurs stop endlessly spinning their wheels stuck in anxiety and feeling overwhelmed with the chaos and stuff in their home, start simplifying so everything has a place, they gain freedom, time with family and easily step into their dream life. Let me help you go from chaos to FREEDOM.
Hey! I just have a question about what the first column in your sample spreadsheet means! (Check – CC #) I am very new to taxes and am just starting my own business. Otherwise this is the most helpful resource for doing my taxes I have found. Thank you for the free help. Much Much Much appreciated!
I only just got this Ash, so sorry! Gotta love technology glitches. The Check and CC# column simply mean–how did you pay for the transaction…by check? Then enter the check number in the Excel cell or box. If you paid by CC—or credit card, simply enter he last four digits of your credit card in the Excel cell or box.
ugh. taxes. i really should set up an excel account (as you’ve outlined so beautifully above). every year i procrastinate until the very end and then i hate every second of it. (and i really have no excuse either – i’ve been prepping my husband’s company taxes for years and years.) this year may be a scramble, since i’m not sure exactly where everything is after our big move! thanks for the tips, jul’s. they are appreciated.
I hear you! It’s funny, I don’t mind preparing other people’s tax papers and information for their accountants…but ugh! I hate doing my own. That’s why I created my simple Excel spreadsheet and keep on top of things…Now, I use financial software for my business. However, for some people, the learning curve is steep, thus offering the Excel alternative.
Thanks, Jul’s! This is great, and so timely. I find it also helps to (try to) keep on top of receipts and other important documents throughout the year, scanned as needed, and in a folder on my desktop just for tax-related documents for easy reference.
That picture perfectly describes the feeling of dread associated with getting those source documents together for tax season, haha!
I am with you on this Pam! I do a little bit all the time, all year long and that makes tax time so much easier. I will say, that I have suggested to clients who this won’t be the most effective solution, to just compile receipts and documents in a folder all year long “Taxes” and either I manage this monthly, quarterly or end of year. It depends on the organizing personality I find.
Jul’s, thank you for this very in-depth post! In the past, I’ve always put off my taxes, but when I started working for myself I realized that wasn’t an option anymore. Having a tracking system is so important! I loved how you broke it down in this post. Thanks for sharing!
Best,
Melanie
My pleasure Melanie! Indeed, running your own business means being the CFO and being on top of your business expenses is a must.
Taxes… I hate them.. I used to do my own and then every year the laws would change and they would just get more complicated. And now with my own business, I am so happy that I have outsourced them to a reliable accountant. That still does not mean I have to do my share of prep… which thank you for reminding me – this should be high on my list this month! I will definitely consider your xls method!
Right there with you on hating taxes…I don’t mind paying them, after all that means my biz is profitable, and I am on top of the preparation for them. It’s just the laws change so often, I outsource to an accountant, and usually there is one pesky question or document that takes some researching, so I love my Excel…one quick look spreadsheet!
Jul’s, as usual you are RIGHT.ON.TIME. I’m relatively comfortable in excel, and yet I’ve found your post (and download) incredibly helpful! Thanks for imparting your wisdom yet again!! We are very lucky to have you!!
April, Darling, it’s me who is lucky to have you all who follow my posts and find them helpful or moving enough to leave comments. Grateful! Excel is one of those applications I think we can all learn something new every day, it’s so powerful.
Wow, you make this all so straightforward and understandable Jul’s! Too many women want to hide from this stuff, thank God for people like you who make it easy for us.
Thanks so much Angela! I am so glad you feel I demystified some of Excel and simplified ways to track expenses.
Well…who would’ve thought! Not me!! Great idea to put it into Excel! Does all the work for you, really!
Excel is an incredibly powerful program, and I don’t know the half of it, but really, for so many of us, we just need the basics to help us, not the complexity to frustrate us 😉
Great idea! I will use your ideas as inspiration to improve my excel!
Thanks so much, Marta. Happy my ideas inspire you with Excel 🙂
Hey Jul’s,
Thanks for all your great tips. I love them and use them all the time.
Mary
That’s so great to hear Mary! I am happy to know my tips help and you find them useful. I so appreciate your letting me know 🙂
Very nice idea about getting taxes organized with Excel. I have learned using AutoSum in Excel but never thought it could be useful in readying my tax data. Thanks for the great guidelines and I will try to remember those tips when organize my tax data this year.
Glad you liked the tips Erin!