The sun is shining, life is great and you feel light-footed and upbeat. Why shouldn’t you? Your business is growing and your bank account is flush with five new accounts signing up in just one month!
There’s a dance in your step as you reach for the day’s mail delivery. Oh no! It’s an audit notice from the I.R.S.!
A sense of dread now descends and an image pops into your head: It’s a snarling dog ready to eat you for lunch! You also realize that you didn’t save those tax-deductible expense receipts.
You were busy. We know. But that doesn’t cut it as a valid excuse when you’re being audited. After all, those receipts you now so desperately need were just tiny little slips of paper that slipped away.
The ones you do round up have faded a bit from the poor-quality ink used to print them. (Who ever considered those receipts would become invisible and impossible to read at tax filing time?)
Now you’re on notice. The minutes tick by and the regrets sink in … Why didn’t I pay more attention to those little slips of paper that now may become my Waterloo? Why did I stuff them all in a box that accidentally got thrown out in a frenzy of springtime cleaning?
The bedside alarm goes off. You arise from your nightmare. Whew, it’s O.K. That specter in the shape of an I.R.S. agent slipped away as you put your feet on the floor and grabbed a toothbrush in your usual morning routine.
But a thought suddenly comes to mind. Maybe I should aim to keep better track of those receipts? Maybe I should get organized. It would be good for my business, because as it grows, tracking expenses will become a more onerous task.
It’s a new dawn! You discover that with each swipe of a bank card, those expenses can be automatically recorded! The dog you fear is leashed. Hooray!