An Expense-Monitoring App For Freelancers

Keeper is an app that helps unbiased contractors, freelancers, and workers file their tax returns whereas protecting monitor of work-related bills.

The corporate provides each an iOS and Android and Android app to make use of so you’ll be able to sustain with what you’re spending and the way that will relate to your taxes. 

See how Keeper compares with our record of the perfect tax software program right here.

In case you’re in search of an app to assist preserve you organized and ready come tax time, Keeper could be barely dear, however perhaps value it for you. All of it will depend on your particular wants. Here is what to know.

What Is Keeper?

Keeper, previously known as Keeper Tax, is an app can do issues like scan your financial institution and bank card statements to search for methods to trace and write off bills, with the hope of reducing your tax invoice. It additionally handles your tax submitting and provides tax professionals to offer solutions to questions associated to submitting.

The corporate, based in 2018 by Paul Koullick and David Kang, has rebranded from Keeper Tax to simply Keeper.  The app is extremely rated on each the App Retailer (4.8 out of 5) and Google Play (4.6 out of 5). 

How Does Keeper Work?

Keeper is an app that you must obtain in your telephone. You hyperlink your financial institution and bank card accounts to the app so it could begin robotically scanning your purchases to see what sort of write offs you could be eligible for. 

Once you join Keeper, you’re requested a sequence of questions earlier than you’ll be able to transfer on to the  subsequent display screen. For instance, it asks when you’re freelance, an worker, or a enterprise proprietor. It additionally asks when you use your car or journey for work.

How A lot Does Keeper Price? 

There’s a free seven-day trial with Keeper. As soon as that ends listed here are your pricing choices: 

• Month-to-month subscription: $16
• Easy return: $99
• Tax return with enterprise revenue: $192

Their month-to-month plan is $16 per thirty days, which incorporates the expense-tracking options. For a one-time payment of $39, you’ll be able to export your write-offs in your personal data so you’ll be able to have them available while you file your taxes. 

Keeper provides a yearly plan, which incorporates every part on the month-to-month plan, plus the choice to file your taxes with them at no further value.

Notable Keeper Options

Let’s check out some key options from Keeper. 

Tax Professional Assist

Once you use a platform that will help you file your taxes, oftentimes, it’s possible you’ll not have entry to a dwell skilled. Or when you do, you’re required to improve to a better tier. The great factor about Keeper is that you’ve entry to a tax skilled who can reply questions for you. It will not be over the telephone, however at the least you’ll be able to have somebody provide help to together with your particular situation. 

Keeper prides itself on being a high instructional content material producer for these with 1099 taxes, so they might additionally have the ability to serve you with a video, article, or give you a calculator. 

Audit Safety

Past an skilled to reply your questions, it’s possible you’ll wish to know what would occur when you have been to be audited by the IRS. Keeper supplies audit safety, which implies their crew of tax assistants will assist collect any mandatory paperwork to ship to the IRS. They may even give you entry to their CPAs and tax consultants who can reply your questions. 

Write-Off Detection

Keeper provides write-off detection, which scans your bank card and financial institution accounts and notify you if there’s something you’ll be able to write off. Keeper appears at as much as 18 months of transactions to robotically present you which of them tax breaks you might have missed. Then, all the deductions are categorized and robotically added to your tax return. Keeper additionally double checks the deductions to ensure they received’t increase pink flags. 

There are just a few steps concerned earlier than you should use this function, together with letting Keeper know what sort of work you do. Then you must hyperlink your accounts to Keeper so it could begin checking. 

Tax Invoice Prediction

Nobody likes feeling shocked by an enormous tax invoice, which is why Keeper offers you year-round estimates on how a lot you’ll probably owe or lets you understand how a lot your refund might be. 

You need to enter your standing, your state, W-2, and 1099 incomes to get an prompt calculation of this quantity. Their calculations embrace all federal and state, in addition to deduction and credit. 

This can be a useful function as a result of you understand how a lot to avoid wasting or how a lot you’re getting again so you’ll be able to put together your finances forward of time. 

Tax Submitting

Since Keeper already scans your tax write-offs and will get you prepared for tax season, submitting your taxes with Keeper could make sense. It provides automated tax kind uploads, pre-fills paperwork for you, and normally, is a really user-friendly expertise for filers. 

You may even file your total taxes over your telephone. Keeper says on common, it takes customers 22 minutes to file their taxes. When you submit, a tax skilled evaluations your paperwork earlier than you submit it to the IRS.

How Does Keeper Evaluate?

Regardless that Keeper is an easy-to-use platform that helps you with bookkeeping and submitting, it has restricted accounting options. In different phrases, you’d pay $192 for the yr for managing your bills however you wouldn’t have the ability to faucet into in-depth experiences and options you possibly can get with Quickbooks, for instance. It’s additionally on the pricier facet, at $16 a month. 

For a less expensive possibility, you possibly can take a look at Hurdlr, which is an analogous accounting, bookkeeping, and revenue taxes app that’s completely free with the choice to improve to Premium at $8.34 per thirty days (billed yearly) or select to go together with their month-to-month possibility at $10 a month. Hurdlr has a similarly-priced tier, Professional, at $16.67 per thirty days (billed yearly). 

Everlance helps freelancers monitor their enterprise bills and revenues. The app makes it straightforward to fill out a Schedule C in your taxes. Everlance provides a free 10-day Premium trial, however lots of the options can be found of their free model. Everlance Premium options particular customer support entry, PDF experiences, and automated journey monitoring. Premium prices $8 per thirty days or $12 per thirty days for Premium Plus. 

In case your taxes aren’t that sophisticated, you possibly can file utterly totally free. Take a look at our favourite choices to file your taxes totally free.

There are many different inexpensive choices that can help you export your information with out a $39 added value. Turbotax tops The Faculty Investor’s record as the perfect and best tax software program to make use of. You may import PDFs and spreadsheets straight out of your employer, monetary establishments, and funding firms to obtain your tax information. 

If you need a human to assist information you thru the method, it’s possible you’ll take into account H&R Block, which has a sturdy software program with the power to import most tax PDFs, like Turbotax, but in addition has the additional benefit of 1000’s of bodily places throughout the nation. Right here’s our evaluation of H&R Block. 

Go to The Faculty Investor’s Tax Heart to study extra about the perfect tax software program, sources, and instruments, plus what to know about your tax return.

To contact customer support, you’ll be able to e-mail straight help@keepertax.com. There isn’t a telephone quantity for customer support. 

How To Signal Up

You’re requested for an e-mail tackle and a telephone quantity. Then, you’re given an possibility of whether or not you wish to hyperlink your checking or bank card accounts to seek out eligible write-offs, when you freelance, for instance. 

After answering the questions and inputting your e-mail tackle, you’re requested to obtain the app by means of a QR code in your laptop, or you’ll be able to go on to the App Retailer or Google Play to obtain the app. 

Free Tax Assets And Buyer Service

Keeper is huge on educating you on what to learn about your taxes that will help you lower your expenses and scale back your taxable revenue. The best way they do that is by means of their Free Tax Assets web page, which homes data articles, free calculators, instruments, articles, and FAQ on their web site. 

For extra particular solutions to clients’ questions, go to their assist web site.

Is Keeper Truly A Keeper?

Keeper is a formidable expense monitoring plus tax submitting combo. In case you freelance, have 1099 revenue, and your funds are comparatively easy (i.e., you file a Schedule C), it’s possible you’ll admire the app. Keeper is straightforward to make use of and the expense-tracking options could also be worthy of the $16 month-to-month payment. 

Nonetheless, when you have a extra sophisticated work, revenue, and monetary state of affairs—for instance, when you personal rental actual property or purchase and promote crypto commonly, it’s possible you’ll take into account a extra sturdy software program like TurboTax or H&R Block.