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FAQ: Do I need TaxJar reporting and a bookkeeping app?

by TaxJar May 11, 2023

We’ve noticed a lot of new business owners who are evaluating TaxJar for the first time ask a similar question: “Do I need TaxJar Reporting and my bookkeeping app?” Here’s how we view this scenario.

Bookkeeping apps handle income tax-related recordkeeping

There are many great reasons to keep track of your financial records in your business, but let’s face it – the biggest one is “taxes.” The IRS and (if you live in a state with income tax) your state’s taxing authority both want you to file an income tax return at the end of the year and pay taxes on the money you earned.

You, as the business owner, are responsible for keeping track of all of your business-related expenses so you can write them off and pay a little less in tax!

For both of these reasons, recordkeeping, generally using a bookkeeping app, is vital to your business for tax time.

But bookkeeping apps can also help you with other vital business functions, such as:

• Determining if you are profitable
• Determining if a business decision you made panned out
• Determining if you have the funds to buy new inventory or take a business risk
• Finding your repeat customers in order to keep them loyal
• Finding your busiest months, weeks and days in order to forecast your cashflow and determine the best times to market heavily to your customers

Bookkeeping apps help you track your income and expenses so you can make vital business decisions and get squared up at tax time.

We asked TaxJar Reporting users what bookkeeping apps they use and here were the main answers:

• Bench.co
• GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping
• Xero
• Quickbooks Online
• Customized spreadsheets

TaxJar reporting handles everything sales tax

Many of us on the TaxJar team have backgrounds in the taxes and bookkeeping world. In fact, we built TaxJar Reporting because online sellers were telling us that their bookkeeping apps weren’t robust enough when it came to sales tax.

Most bookkeeping apps will help you track how much sales tax you’ve collected. But as you know if you’ve been filing sales tax for any length of time, tracking how much you collected is just the first step!

TaxJar Reporting goes beyond bookkeeping apps and helps you:

• Determine how much sales tax you’ve collected
• Breaks sales tax collected down by state, county, city and other local taxing jurisdiction just like your state wants to see it
• Gives you step-by-step instructions for filing your sales tax returns with your state
• Determine if you are collecting the right amount of sales tax from customers with our “Actual vs. Expected Sales Tax Due” report
• AutoFile your sales tax returns for you (for an additional fee per filing per state)

Your bookkeeping app shows you the amounts of sales tax you collected. TaxJar Reporting connects with all the platforms and carts you sell on and transforms those numbers into actionable amounts you can use to quickly and easily file your sales tax returns. 

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