Coffee Chat: Tax Season Doesn't Have to Freak You Out

“Taxes.” Insert a collective “shudder” here.

We are in the middle of tax season, and I will tell you, while our 2025 taxes were filed and finished before January left (MY BEST YEAR YET!), I still sometimes have the worst flashbacks of years where I avoided it as long as possible. We had years of doing well in business, but preparing poorly for taxes, and it was COSTLY. Hear me when I say this: there is a better way, and tax season can feel simple and easy. Not only is it actually pretty easy to prep for tax season and have your numbers ready, but the prep you do to make sure you’re set for taxes also helps you consistently evaluate your business throughout the year.

Read below for the three easy things I’m doing to prep for NEXT YEAR’S tax season! Yes, I have tips to help you navigate THIS tax season, but the real work is in a few simple tasks you do each month along the way. I promise the benefits pay dividends in lowering your stress and overwhelm.

Psst: A quick but important note - none of this should be considered official tax advice and I’m not a tax professional. I’m just a friend chatting on our virtual coffee date about what’s working for me.

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1. Stay Organized (for anyone): Your tax documents should exist here there and everywhere, they need to be in one central location. It’s an easy thing to say, and an easy thing to push off, believe me. But while it’s easy to say “I’ll organize that next week,” we usually don’t. Even if it goes against your nature, and it definitely goes against mine, it’s important to organize in the moment. In this digital age, you can have file folders, but you should also plan to keep track of everything digitally.
   Action Step: In Google Drive, Dropbox or wherever your favorite digital storage system is start your files and organize them as shown in the image at the bottom of this article. From there, make it your own. You can have

2. Pay Quarterly Taxes (for business owners): Paying quarterly taxes along the way can be considered a requirement of being a business owner. When you don’t, you pay MORE taxes, and no one wants to do that. Besides the fact that you’ll pay less overall when you pay quarterly, you also lessen the risk that you aren’t setting aside enough money throughout the year.
   Action Step 1: You can estimate what you think. you’ll pay. Always use your accountant as a resource and find out how and when and about how much to estimate for your specific tax.
   Action Step 2: You should have a business checking account, but you can consider having a business savings account as well. It’s easier to visually see that you’ve set it aside when you actually have. When it’s in your spending account, you’re more likely to use your reserves. Bonus: Use this savings account as a way to build an Emergency Fund for your business so you always have funds in case of a slow season.

3. Track Monthly (for both personal and business taxes): Have you ever gotten to the end of the season, or heaven forbid, the end of the year, and realize you hadn’t really kept track of your expenses and income well? I have. Don’t do it. Learn from my mistakes and
   Action Step: Download my Tax Ready templates for tracking below, I am a firm believer that you don’t need crazy expensive systems to keep your life organized. Google Suite is my favorite and you can use a free account or a cheap monthly business account. Both of these templates are built to be used in Gmail but you could easily convert to .xcel or use in Apple’s Numbers app.

If you’re looking for more systems to help you get organized, visit my growing template library: Affordable templates for your work and your life.