The end of the year is an important time for organizing your financial affairs, examining your business and determining what your tax bite will be.

By the time you read this, you’ll have less than a month to get your financial house in order or to continue the smart planning you’ve engaged in throughout the year and gather your records for tax preparation.

This year it’s been especially important to stay on top of your finances. Freight is down, business is tough and income is harder to come by. Every receipt you can find, every expense dollar you paid, will help reduce your tax bill. If this has been a good year despite all odds, you can use this month to search for ways to cut your taxes and get ready for next year, which might not be as profitable. If you have struggled this year and are considering your options, use this time to talk with your tax adviser to set up a plan to keep you going. You may be overlooking financial moves that could mean the difference between staying in business and not. Either way, you don’t have time to waste.

Financial affairs
Pull out your budget. Are you having the kind of year you budgeted for? Ask yourself why you didn’t make the money you thought you’d make, says Eric Cook, owner of Peak Trucking Consultants. Are your expenses higher than predicted? Frank answers to these questions will help you do a better job in 2009.

If you don’t follow a budget, now’s the time to start one, whether you’re an owner-operator or company driver. Sit down with your spouse or tax adviser or both and put together a budget for the coming year. It’ll take an hour or so to create one and an hour a month to update it, says Russell Fullingim, president of Truckers Financial Service. “Truckers have time to do this,” he says. “You can also go on the Internet and find programs that can help you.”

Mark Miller, tax manager at owner-operator business services firm ATBS, says there’s a correlation between keeping a budget and profit-and-loss statement and success as an owner-operator. “You put the work in, you put in the discipline, you’re more successful,” he says.