Are You Ready for 2020?
After a long string of holidays, starting with Labor Day and culminating in New Years’ Eve, 2020 is finally here. You might be forgiven for wondering where all the flying cars and outer space colonies got to. The year 2020 won’t turn out like many prognosticators thought, but it’s still a new year with plenty of wonderful possibilities. While you won’t be preparing to buy that flying car any time soon, there are some other preparations you can make for the coming year.
Stock up on supplies and other essentials. By this point in the year, you should have a pretty good idea about your tax situation for 2020. Will you be due a refund or will you have to pay in? One way to reduce your tax burden is by increasing your expenses, thereby lowering the profit you’ll be taxed on. The bottom line is that you’ll be buying supplies anyway. Buying them before the end of the year can help reduce your tax bill.
Get your financial house in order. There’s no advantage in making filing your taxes any more difficult than it has to be. Organize your paperwork for your accountant, making sure you have an accurate record of your income, expenses, charitable donations and more.
Conduct a complete year-end review. There will be plenty of specials filling the airwaves reviewing the highs and lows of 2019. You should do the same type of review for your business. It may or may not be an exciting montage like those aired specials, but you’ll want to go over what worked and what didn’t and ask yourself why something succeeded or failed.
Get organized. Clear out those inboxes, remove the clutter from the shelves! And while you’re at it, go a step beyond and take a look at your processes. What can be improved or streamlined? Often the first step in figuring out where you want to go is to take a realistic look back at where you’ve been.
Lay out your goals for the coming year. You’ll want to hit the ground running in January, and the best way to do that is to plan ahead. What do you want to accomplish in 2020? Do you want to increase sales? Build out an existing product or service? Pry open a new market? How will you go about doing it? What resources will you need? Do you have them in-house or will you have to outsource? These are the types of questions you want to have answered before the giant ball in Times Square hits zero.
2020 is almost here, so use the holidays to prepare the right way. Get organized, get your accounts in order (or get with your accountant and tax professional), take the time to review the year and come up with a strong plan of attack. It might not get you that flying car, but it can help you get the new year off to a flying start.