It's October, the season of changing colours, plaid flannel shirts and pumpkin spice lattes. I love pumpkin spice...and plaid flannel shirts...I own eight of them. Before we know it, snow will be on the ground. We'll all be wearing mittens and scarves and I'll be dusting off my big hot chocolate mug for the cold winter days I don't feel like going outside. For business owners this is a season of conflicting emotions; reflection on the past year, anticipation for the next, excitement of the holidays and times with family and of course the dread of the Zombie Apocalypse, or as some business owners like to call it, the fiscal year end. For many small business owners the regular bookkeeping gets abandoned by mid March and is miraculously revived by fearful dread on December 27th. Here are a few things you can do as a business owner to start getting ready to make the upcoming Zombie Apocalypse...er I mean tax season better than the last one:

1. Start compiling all your books and records and organizing your receipts and invoices.

2. Sort your receipts by categories, i.e.. fuel, office supplies, repairs and maintenance...etc.

3. Highlight the GST on your receipts and invoices with a yellow highlighter.

4. Organize all your payroll information in it's own folder. Make sure you have all your payroll remittance forms and pay stubs for all your employees.

5. Organize all your GST and PST returns in their own folder.

6. Make a list of any outstanding invoices from customers.

7. Print off all your bank, credit card, loan and line of credit statements for the year.

8. Phone Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to see how much you have paid in income tax installments.

These simple things go a long way to getting you ready for the end of the year. If nothing else, remember what the Zombie Survival Guide says, “If you believe you can accomplish everything by "cramming" at the eleventh hour, by all means, don't lift a finger now. But you may think twice about beginning to build your ark once it has already started raining."