Get Organized To Do Things Right

My biggest frustration this week is seeing a friend upset about giving her new accountant all the information he needs to help her file her 2009 income tax return. The reason my friend is working with a new accountant is because she got audited by the IRS because her old accountant had incorrectly prepared her previous tax returns.

The problem is that the old accountant taught her some bad habits. She would once a year send in tax information she thought the accountant needed and he would then, to the best of his knowledge, complete her tax return - even though he didn't have all the correct information. In a word the tax returns were done half-ass.

Now my friend is working with a new accountant who is asking her for information that he needs to correctly prepare her tax return. The problem is that the information the accountant needs is a lot more stuff than she was used to sending to the old accountant. She's now finding it a hassle to organize all the information. In fact she's pissed. She's asking me why she needs to give "all that information" to the new accountant. I guess the inconvenience is worse than learning her lesson from the recent IRS tax audit.

My friend is upset because she doesn't have easy access to her tax information. Actually her information reminds me a lot of my daughters clothes in her bedroom - scattered.

Let's face it, doing things right means doing things you don't want to do, or else you would have already done them. Most people on My Street haven't learned how to organize themselves around their finances or they would be living on Main Street. Getting organized means creating a system where not only do you know WHERE everything is, but also know WHAT everything is.

The next thing for me to do is to sit down with her and create some simple system to help her get organized. I'll let you know how it goes...