bookkeeping help
 

Hi all, we are just starting to become O-O's. we are looking real hard at one of two trucks to buy, both @ $50,000, both 2004 international 9400i. shure hope one of these will be our truck and it will be a GREAT truck.
now for the question, We are looking at leasing on with mercer, we know how to drive a truck and do bookkeeping for our expenses, but don't know much about taxes, whould it be in our best intrest to pay a company (outsource) our bookkeeping and tax issues. thank you for your help

I have had very good service out of my 9400. I think you will like International. It is important to keep good tax records when you are in business. I think it is usually best to consult with a professional about taxes. As an owner operator it is important to keep track of ALL your expenses. My suggestion would be to use either a debit or credit card for all road expenses. It makes record keeping much simpler and easy. There are also some fairly good bookkeeping software packages on the market to help track expenses. Those for the single owner operator seem to run under $200. You can also use a spreadsheet for your expenses. Whether you use a computer or hard copy, it is important to keep up with your costs of operation. If you keep everything organized it will save you money whether you use a tax professional or do it yourself. Good luck.

IMO you should do it yourself.

I agree with Rank about doing it yourself. At least the basic bookkeeping. You can still consult a professional about any tax planning. Starting out you need to do as much as you can, yourself. Starting out you will need to conserve as much of your resources as possible.

an old gent around here always paid someone to do his books. He found out the other day that the bookkeeper embezzled $250,000 over the years. Do the books yourself.

I've paid others to tally my receipts in the past... only to realize that, since they don't KNOW what my expenses are, I've probably lost out.

When I tally my own receipts, I KNOW when I'm missing something. A cell phone bill, a fuel receipt, the receipts for an entire trip (just once- but I realized I was missing my receipt envelope for that trip and knew to search for it and find it- which someone else might not have done!)...

I pay an accounting service to DO my taxes. But I do the prep myself- lay it out in an Xcel spreadsheet and pass it along...

There is an excel spreadsheet here. Just scroll down to the bottom.
http://www.ooida.com/trucking_tools/...t_per_mile.htm

For our small company 2 trks 2 trls and brokerage, and have had company drivers and leased on OO's, We use Regatta Transportation Services LLC Solutions. It has nice report printout for accountants ! only $45

I have been more comfortable with doing the books myself. I leave the tax details to my local accounting firm. With 65,000 pages of tax code, it is practically impossible for someone to be current on everything. I set up several inter relational spreadsheets several years ago, that I use to keep track of things. I can update them on my laptop each day as thing occur. I just send the profit/loss portions of the spreads to my tax guy. By doing the bookkeeping myself, I can always know the weekly, quarterly, and year to date operating costs, revenues, and net. There are several other options and software programs for doing your bookkeeping, but there is nothing that compares to doing it yourself. Knowledge is power. And it really doesn't take much time out of your day to stay current once you get things set up.

There are several software programs around that have been written specifically for the trucking industry. It would be a good way to know exactly where you are at any given time. Some have an online demo or trial where you can check the software out for yourself. www.trucknpro.com, www.easytrucking.com, www.thetruckershelper.com, are three that I am familiar. Out of the three, I like the way trucknpro is set up. It is easy to use and you can print out about any reports that you want. It also helps with tracking maintenance on trucks and trailers. Any of the three would help you keep a handle on your business. Once you put in the iinformation you can print out different reports and a profit and loss on the load or year to date.