Taxpayers gave a collective sigh of relief after the April tax deadline passed. Another year of scrambling to gather receipts and calculate expenses is over.
However, tax season doesn’t have to be a mad dash. Instead of waiting until next spring to get organized, start now. Mobile apps make it quick and easy to set up automated systems to gather the information you’ll need next year.
If you’e going to use an app, though, be sure to use it consistently and completely throughout the year. An app is only useful if it has been updated regularly and contains complete information about your finances.
If you’re ready to make next tax season the easiest one ever, here are 10 apps that can help you out.
1. Quicken Simplifi
For years, Mint was the go-to budgeting app that allowed people to manage all their money in one place. When it shut down in spring 2024, many people migrated to Simplifi.
Offered by Quicken, a veteran provider of finance software, Simplifi can sync with multiple accounts — including banking, investments, credit cards and loans — to provide a comprehensive financial picture that is useful year-round.
“With fully customizable categories, users can create their own tax-related categories, tags, and reports to track all of their deductible expenses,” says Lee Decker, content manager at Quicken.
So long as users make a point to categorize and tag transactions throughout the year, it will be easy at tax time to calculate total spending amounts. This can be particularly useful for self-employed and gig workers who need to track expenses for a home office, travel or business supplies.
Cost:$3.99 per month.
[READ: Can You Take the Home Office Deduction?]
2. Expensify
While Expensify is geared toward self-employed or small business owners, it could be useful to anyone who wants to easily track expenses and mileage in the same place.
Personal and self-employed plans can be accessed for free and come with options to send and receive money, submit invoices and receipts to managers, and split bills with others.
Data entered through the app may be accessed through an online Expensify account, and custom reporting is available to those with business accounts.
Cost:Free for up to 25 SmartScans per month, $5 to $9 monthly per user for business accounts with additional functionality.
3. Bublup
Cloud storage has revolutionized tax preparation by making it easy to find records of all kinds. While there are many cloud storage options, Bublup uses a visual approach that can be more appealing than having to search and scroll through file names or generic graphics.
The app is fully encrypted and can be used to collect and store documents including receipts, bills, emails, bank statements and more. When tax time rolls around, Bublup makes it easy to share folders and files with other people, such as your accountant.
“It eliminates that feeling of panic when looking for something you know you saved but can’t find,” says Alain Cohen, founder and CEO of Bublup.
Beyond financial documents, You can use the app to collect and organize a variety of other information, such as photos, recipes and bookmarks.
Cost:Free for up to five folders, each containing five items. Paid plans start at $3.99 per month for unlimited folders, subfolders and items totaling 2 GB of storage.
4. FlyFin
FlyFin pegs itself as the world’s first AI tax engine for freelancers. Designed for those who need to file a Schedule C tax form, it serves as both an expense tracker and a tax service.
Using read-only access to financial accounts, FlyFin’s AI recommends expenses as possible deductions. Users can accept or reject those suggestions using the service’s app. If you aren’t sure whether something is deductible, you can send it to a CPA for review.
At the end of the year, freelancers can send their data to a FlyFin CPA to have their taxes prepared or export information to be given to the tax preparer of their choice.
Cost:Standard and premium plans are available, but FlyFin does not disclose its current pricing on its website. Both plans come with a free seven-day trial.
5. Keeper Tax
Another option for freelancers is Keeper Tax. This app uses a drag and drop interface to easily upload tax forms and other documentation. Then, AI will help sort expenses and look for possible deductions. It will also make tax bill predictions throughout the year so you won’t be surprised in the spring.
[READ: Can I Use AI to File My Taxes?]
When it comes time to file taxes, everything can be done right in the app. With automatic tax form uploads and smart pre-filling, Keeper Tax says tax filing takes most users less than an hour. Returns are also reviewed and signed by a tax professional prior to being submitted to the IRS. However, tax filing is only available to those who pay for an annual plan.
Cost: Free seven-day trial and then $20 per month or $192 per year.
6. MileIQ
Mileage deductions can add up to hundreds of dollars for self-employed workers and business owners, but the IRS requires taxpayers to keep records of where they drove and when. You could keep a notebook in your car to record dates and destinations, or you could use MileIQ to automate the system.
When the app senses it’s traveling in a vehicle, it comes out of sleep mode to track the route, start and stop times and other data required by the IRS for a business mileage deduction. Users can then classify drives as personal or business trips and create reports to be used at tax time.
MileIQ is available for both individuals and teams and has more than 1 million active users.
Cost: Free for up to 40 drives per month for individuals, or $4.99 for unlimited drives and IRS reporting. There are separate plans for teams, starting at $5 per user per month.
7. Stride Mileage and Tax Tracker
The Stride Mileage and Tax Tracker is another app for logging miles driven for a job, and it’s the one recommended by Scott Lieberman, founder of finance website Touchdown Money.
“It’s especially useful for gig workers and self-employed folks who put miles on their own vehicle for work,” he says.
Offered by Stride, a health insurance platform for independent workers, the app will automatically track mileage using GPS and can be used to track other expenses as well. Then, at tax time, it can be used to create IRS-ready summaries for claiming deductions.
Cost:Free.
[Read: How to File Taxes.]
8. Hurdlr
Designed with small businesses in mind, Hurdlr is a good app for gig workers and freelancers as well as business owners. It can handle business expense tracking, invoicing, bookkeeping and real-time tax estimates.
[READ: Why You Should Frequent Small Businesses – And Pay With Cash]
The app says it serves more than 1.2 million small businesses ranging from sole proprietorships to C corps. Its free version includes a mileage tracker, manual income and expense tracking, tax calculation summaries and data exports or emailed reports. Advanced features such as automations and invoicing are available with paid premium and pro plans.
Price: Free for basic features, premium and pro plans cost $8.34 per month and $16.67 per month, respectively, when paid annually.
9. Evernote Scannable
If you already use Evernote, the service’s Scannable app might be a logical choice for you to scan and organize your receipts as well as other documentation. Available only for Apple devices, Scannable lets you tag tax-related items to find them easily in April.
Scannable will automatically rotate, adjust and crop images to make them more readable, and you can share documents with others via text or email or exported JPEG or PDF files.
Cost: Free for Evernote subscribers; $3.99 per week or $49.99 per year to use Scannable without an Evernote subscription.
10. Calendar
Having receipts is vital to filling out tax forms, but the IRS will want to see more than that in the event you are audited. Auditors may look for calendar entries to help justify expenses, particularly those related to travel.
While a paper calendar will work, an electronic calendar may be easier to use and share. Google, Apple and Outlook calendar apps are popular choices, but any calendar that comes with a mobile device should work.
Cost:Free if using a device’s pre-installed calendar app.
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10 Apps to Use Now to Make Taxes Easier Next Year originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 07/15/24: This story was previously published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.
