For Personal Business: Making an Itemized Deductible List with Excel in Seven Steps

Warren Davies reports:

"If you are required to itemize your deductions on your tax return, you can keep track of your expenses with a simple Excel spreadsheet. This has several advantages: [Y]ou can make as many backups as you want, integrate the data from the deduction spreadsheet with other spreadsheets...and easily share the file with your employees, if necessary. Once your yearly expense data is in one place, it makes your accountant's job easier when calculating your accounts...Open Excel. At the bottom of the screen where the worksheet tabs are, right-click and select 'New Worksheet.' Repeat this until you have 12 worksheets, then rename them with the relevant months and years of your tax year...Click on the first month of your tax year when done...Type in the headers for the columns. From left to right, starting from 'A1,' type: 'Expense,' 'Amount' and 'Notes.' Include a 'Date' column if you need to know the exact date on which certain expenses were incurred...Type the expenses that your business faces down column 'A,' starting from 'A2,' with each item getting its own cell. You can group these into related expenses, such as auto expenses, office expenses or any other categories that are relevant to your business. This list does not have to be final as you can always add a row by right-clicking the row number and clicking 'Insert Row.'...Create a total for the month. At the bottom of your list in column 'A,' type 'Total.' On the same row, at the bottom of the 'Amount' column, type '=sum(B2:B100)' (without quotations). Replace '100' with the number of the row just above the 'Total' row you just created. Excel sums your expense and shows the result here, and this figure is updated automatically...Select the entire worksheet by pressing 'Ctrl-A,' then copy the selection by pressing 'Ctrl-C.' Paste this -- by pressing 'Ctrl-V' -- into each of your month worksheets...Create a new worksheet called 'Totals.' Create a list of the months going from 'A1' to 'A12,' then type 'Year Total' in the cell just below your final month. Click in cell 'B2,' type the '=' sign, click the worksheet for your first month, click inside the cell containing that month's total -- the one containing the 'sum' formula -- then press 'Enter.' Repeat this process for each month...Type '=sum(B1:B12)' (without quotations) in cell 'B13' of your 'Totals' worksheet, then press 'Enter.' Your itemized deductions spreadsheet is now complete. The monthly and yearly totals are automatically updated whenever you enter a value next to the itemized lists...Check the 'Totals' worksheet at any time to see your expenses for the year so far."