I have already written about backing up your tax return before and have also covered how to backup some of the small business support tools that the ATO offers to customers. Just thought I would impress upon you once again just how important it is to backup your tax material.
This is what happened to me this week. I prepaid all of my paper work to visit my Accountant. So I was organised. Now to save me some money, I thought I would calculate it all on a spreadsheet for him so that he wouldn’t have to do it and therefore would not charge me as much.
I have a few shares in my name, so I listed everything down in excel and summarised it all for him. I saved the file on my hard drive as well as on a USB stick to take it to the accountant. Before I visited him though, I made some changes following a few things that I had remembered. These were saved to the USB stick. During our meeting, he pointed out a few errors that I had made and I agreed to recheck everything and then send him the file.
The problem is, when I got home and started working on the file, I started working on the version that was on my USB stick. That was all fine, but what occurred to me was that I have lost USB sticks before. Keeping my tax info on a cheap USB stick is not the greatest idea. I know they come with passwords and other security measures but it still doesn’t make it any hard er to lose them. The other thing that occurred to me was that next year, when it is time to do my taxes again, I would be cursing the world looking for this USB stick.
So, I spent the time to update my hard drive with the latest version. I ensured that the file was also backed up with Carbonite, so should anything happen to my PC over the course of the year, my taxes would be protected.
I understand that these are tough times, and everyone is looking for ways to save a dollar here and there, but think about the effort and stress I could potentially be under, if as I lost that USB stick or your PC died with my taxes on it. My affairs are simple, but if you are a small business running a MYOB or other accounting package to record your takings, you should back it up.
We obviously recommend online backup, but any backup is better than no backup. Not so sure I would relly upon USB sticks for sensitive information like taxes.
The time I lost my USB stick, it had my resume on it and some other work files. It took me 4 hours to recreate that document. This was before I started working at Carbonite and new anything about back software (mind you I had an external hard drive that was empty).
I found a great little service via an article in The Age yesterday that enables you to electronically store that data on all of your receipts.
Developed by an Australian accountant who was sick of being handed a shoebox full of receipts (or worse), this system consists of a software program and series of physical folders. Enter the tax data from each piece of paper into the Taxstar software, pop the paper into the folder and at the
end of the year, hand it to your happy tax agent – or even prepare your own return, with essential papers neatly filed.
I accumulate atleast 2 shoe boxes full of receipts each year that I try to organise every so often (and mostly don’t until tax time). What occurred to me however after reading this articel is that it is all good and well to store all of this information in a tool such as Taxstar, however should your PC die (which inevitably it will) then you are in a bit of a bind and need to start all over again.
For most people that would probably be enough to turn them off a great idea such as Taxstar. To protect your sanity and precious time, backup your Taxstar with something like Carbonite. For an additional $72, Carbonite will remotely backup your Taxstar as well as everything else on your PC and you won’t have to lift a finger.
Not convinced, then why not try our free 30 day trial. That’s right, free online storage for 30 days. Test it with Taxstar or any other tool you might use. If it stacks up, buy it, if it doesn’t then it was lovely to meet you anyway.
Over the past few weeks I have been helping a friend out with his tax return. He didn’t want to visit an accountant so I encouraged him to try the direct method using the eTax 2008 software made available via the ATO website.
The system worked a treat. This was made easier by the fact that he had a pretty simple tax return to lodge but even if it was more complicated eTax was relatively easy to use.
One thing that came to mind however was that many people using this type of service would by default keep their tax records on their PC. This means that over time, eTax would accumulate a wealth of information about your financial position that should be protected, from both a virus/identity attack as well as a PC disaster. Imagine losing it all.
As most users don’t backup their PC, neither would there be a backup of their tax records.
If you are using something like eTax to complete your tax return I would really encourage you to look into an online backup service like Carbonite. For just $79.99 pa it offers real peace of mind, because inevitably your PC will die and with it will also go the hours of work you have put into preparing your tax return.
Backing up eTax is really easy. eTax sits on your C: drive. Just find the folder via Windows Explorer. You will also see the files you have created for yourself. Their extensions are .TAX and .BAK. Right click on them and select Backup with Carbonite.
Carbonite is the ideal online backup solution for all users of eTax 2008 and eTax 2009. Access a free 90 day trial here.
