Loading ...

Category: Software as a Service (SaaS)

End-of-Year IT Tax Deductions for Business Owners

It’s that time of year, business owners need to start thinking about tax deductions and ways to maximize profit protection. One area not to be overlooked is IT expenses since IT plays a crucial role in every business. The good news is that many IT expenses can be deducted from your taxes. From hardware and software purchases to cybersecurity measures and cloud services, there are several essential IT tax deductions that can help you lower your tax bill and keep more money in your profit column.

IT Tax Deductions for Business Owners

As a business owner, it is crucial to recognize the importance of taking advantage of IT tax deductions before the end of the year. These deductions can significantly impact your bottom line. By deducting IT expenses, you are not only reducing your tax liability but also creating funds to re-invest in the growth of your business and upgrading to the latest technology, which positions your business for long-term success.

IT Tax Deductions to Maximize Your Savings

Take advantage of these IT tax deductions to maximize their profit savings:

Software and Hardware Expenses: Deducting the cost of industry specific software and hardware purchases is an excellent way to save on taxes. Whether you invested in new computer systems or upgraded your existing software, remember to include these expenses in your deductions as capital expenditures. Profit savings can be compounded by taking the amount saved through IT tax deductions and spending it on further software and hardware purchases.

Cybersecurity Measures: With the increasing threat of cyberattacks, investing in cybersecurity measures is crucial. These expenses can also be deducted from your taxes. From firewalls to antivirus software, make sure to claim any cybersecurity investments you have made throughout the year.

Cloud Services: Many businesses have moved to using cloud services for their storage and daily operations. These operational expenses are also eligible for tax deductions. Whether you use cloud computing, backup services, or cloud-based software, remember to include these costs in your deductions.

By focusing on these essential IT tax deductions, you will minimize your tax liability and position your business for success in the coming year.

Consulting with a Certified Public Accountant

While it’s important to have a basic understanding of the IT tax deductions for your business, it is equally important to consult with a certified public accountant. A knowledgeable CPA can provide you with personalized financial advice and guidance based on your company’s unique situation.

Tax laws and regulations are constantly changing, and it can be challenging to keep up with all the updates. By working closely with a CPA, you can stay updated on the latest deductions and strategies to maximize your savings while staying compliant with the law. They can review your financial records, identify missed deductions, and help you make informed decisions that positively impact your bottom line.

Remember, seeking advice from a tax professional will not only help you optimize your profit savings but also give you peace of mind knowing that your tax returns are accurate and in line with the regulations.

Keeping Detailed Records

One essential practice for maximizing your IT tax deductions is keeping detailed records of your IT expenses. Maintaining accurate and organized records throughout the year can help you claim all eligible deductions at tax time.

Start by creating a system to track and categorize your IT expenses. This can include items like software and hardware purchases, IT services, website development costs, and data storage fees. Keep receipts, invoices, and any supporting documents for each expense. Having detailed records allows you to easily identify and calculate eligible deductions. It also provides evidence and documentation if you ever face an audit or need to justify your deductions to the IRS.

Consider using accounting software or cloud-based platforms to streamline the record-keeping process. These tools can help you track expenses, generate reports, and ensure accuracy in your financial records. By maintaining detailed records of your IT expenses, you not only ensure that you are taking full advantage of available deductions, but you also create a solid foundation for your overall tax strategy.

Utilizing Section 179 Deductions

Section 179 of the tax code allows businesses to deduct the full purchase price of qualifying equipment and software purchased or financed during the tax year. By utilizing Section 179, you can deduct the entire cost of eligible technology investments in the year they are purchased. This deduction can help reduce your overall tax liability, allowing you to maximize your profit savings.

To qualify for Section 179 deductions, the equipment or software must be used for business purposes more than 50% of the time. This deduction is particularly beneficial for businesses investing in technology upgrades or replacements, as it encourages the adoption of new and improved IT systems. Be sure to consult with a tax professional to determine the eligibility of your IT investments for Section 179 deductions and to ensure you are maximizing this deduction for your business.

Bonus Depreciation for IT Purchases

Business owners can also benefit from bonus depreciation for their IT purchases. Bonus depreciation allows businesses to deduct a percentage of the cost of qualifying assets in the year they are placed in service. Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, businesses can take an 80% bonus depreciation deduction for qualified property acquired and placed into service in 2023, then depreciate the remaining 20% over the course of several years.

To qualify for bonus depreciation, the property must have a recovery period of 20 years or less and be purchased for business use. This deduction is particularly valuable for businesses that are investing in new IT equipment or upgrading their existing technology infrastructure.

By timing your IT purchases strategically, you can take full advantage of bonus depreciation and significantly reduce your tax liability. However, it’s important to note that bonus depreciation is subject to change based on tax laws and regulations, so consulting with a CPA is crucial to ensure compliance and maximize your savings.

Research and Development Tax Credit

While bonus depreciation and Section 179 deductions are great for maximizing your tax deductions when it comes to IT purchases, there is another valuable tax credit that often goes unnoticed – the Research and Development (R&D) tax credit.

The R&D tax credit is designed to incentivize businesses to invest in innovation and development activities. Many business owners mistakenly believe that this credit is only applicable to scientific or technological research. However, the R&D tax credit is much broader than that and can apply to a wide range of industries and activities.

To make the most of the R&D tax credit, it’s important to keep detailed records of your qualifying activities and expenses. Consult with a tax professional who specializes in this area to ensure that you are maximizing your tax savings while staying compliant with the IRS requirements.

To make best use of your IT tax deduction spending, contact us to discuss new purchases and upgrades. 

Understanding NIST 800-53 Rev 4: What Business Owners Need to Know

It has become increasingly crucial for businesses to prioritize cybersecurity. We all need to be proactive in safeguarding sensitive information and protecting against cyber threats. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been providing standards for cybersecurity practices. We will now delve into the updates and key changes in the fourth revision of the renowned NIST 800-53 publication.

  1. Expanded Scope:
    NIST 800-53 Revision 4 broadens the standards scope to include private sector organizations dealing with sensitive information. This expansion reflects the need for all companies to implement cybersecurity best practices.
  2. Threats and Vulnerabilities:
    This revision incorporates emerging threats and vulnerabilities faced by organizations today, such as advanced persistent threats, insider threats, supply chain risks, and cloud computing challenges. It emphasizes the importance of a comprehensive approach to identify and mitigate these risks effectively.
  3. Security and Privacy:
    NIST 800-53 Revision 4 highlights the connection between security and privacy. The guidelines provided help organizations maintain the delicate balance of ensuring data protection while respecting privacy rights.
  4. Continuous Monitoring and Assessment:
    One significant change is the emphasis on continuous monitoring. Instead of periodic assessments, companies are urged to implement an ongoing, systematic approach to monitor security, identify vulnerabilities, and respond to them in real-time. This proactive approach helps in detecting and mitigating threats promptly.
  5. Role-Based Access Controls (RBAC):
    Another notable addition is the strengthening of Role-Based Access Controls (RBAC). This approach ensures that users only have access to the information and functions that are needed to complete their jobs. Implementing effective RBAC helps minimize the risk of unauthorized access, privilege escalation, and data breaches.
  6. Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM):
    Revision 4 also emphasizes the need for proper Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) practices. It recommends involving suppliers and stakeholders in security assessments and due diligence processes to mitigate risks associated with third party software, hardware, and services.

Remember, cybersecurity is a journey, not a one-time event. Stay vigilant, adapt to evolving threats, and contact us to create a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy to safeguard your business assets and reputation.

Automate Your Work, Free Yourself

Worked with a client lately to help them Automate a workflow, but you may be wondering what does that even mean. Let me explain. We all have tasks in our workday that are repetitive and consume little bite size pieces of our time. Depending on the steps needed to accomplish these tasks, they can be “delegated” to a computer process via scripting aka we automate them. In the case of the client we helped, they received emails from an eFax service which included attachments. These attachments had to be manually saved into a shared folder for the rest of the staff to access as needed. This process probably took about 30 to 60 seconds each, but multiply this by the 30+ faxes they received each day you have 15 to 30 minutes of wasted time each day (65-130 hours per year). This does not take into account the time taken to stop doing one thing, accomplish this task, and restart the original thing they were doing. 

Automate to Freedom


What if we could automate this little task and keep them employee free to do other more important things? We did. They customer uses Office 365 which includes a service called Power Automate. We scripted this tool to look at incoming messages, find ones from the eFax vendor, strip out the attachment, and save it to a SharePoint folder. This can then be shared with other employees and even synced via OneDrive to their Desktops for viewing, etc. That is just the tip of the iceberg as there is so much more that can be done with this technology. 

If your company wasting little bite size pieces of time in repetitive taks, then contact us for assistance.

Zero Trust – Trusted Vendors

This is the second in a series about the concept of Zero Trust, which means in the IT sense that you trust nothing and always verify everything surrounding and connected to your network. Today’s discussion will be on the vendors you purchase network equipment from. 

Trusted Vendors

Trusted vendors are those who supply workstations, servers, routers, switches, power protection, software, and anything else connected to your network. Here are some questions that you should be asking yourself:

  • Do you know who makes your network equipment, servers, computers, and software?
  • Do you know the way to contact their support and have current account access information?
  • Do you have current warranties / support contracts on hardware and software?
  • Is the hardware able to perform at the level needed?
  • Are you purchasing software from those who meets industry standards?
  • If a subscription, how much are you paying and are you on the correct plan for your needs?
  • When is the last time you upgraded your software and hardware?
  • Have you budgeted for the next upgrade?

Take time to think about these questions and decide where changes can be made to better protect your IT investments, or contact us to do the thinking for you.

Find and remove Office 365 Public Folder Calendar

Here is a quick bit of Powershell that helped me to track down a “shared calendar” in a Co-Managed IT / Tier3 client’s Office 365 tenant. After looking in Shared Mailboxes and Resources for the calendar with no luck, we tried to get into the Exchange Management Console (EMC). The loading circle of death went on for an eternity, so switched to good old Powershell. Found the commands as follows after connecting to Exchange Online in Powershell:

get-publicfolder -Recurse

Remove-PublicFolder -Identity \[PublicFolderName]\[calendarname]\

If your company is looking for local management of your Office 365 tenant or need advanced support for your IT team, then contact us to find out how much you can save with us. 

Does Microsoft backup your Office 365 information?

Exchange to Office 365 Migration - Grants Pass, OR

This question came to light while talking to a vendor about backups. It turns out that Microsoft does not backup any of your Office 365 data, but does have aggressive redundancy in place. This is both good and bad, here is why:

Email

Microsoft has several levels of redundancy / resiliency / protection to keep email data from being corrupted, keep multiple copies of all email data, and scan emails for security threats. If there is ever any data issues then their systems automatically detect the problem and work to fix them or when threats are detected they are automatically remediated. There is also a recycle bin for emails and users that lasts from 30 to 90 days. Once that time is over there is no recourse for getting the data back. 

Sharepoint & OneDrive

Microsoft here again has deep redundancy to protect your data from corruption, but they do nothing to check for malware or cryptoware. There is something called versioning that can help with some cryptoware, but not all. There is also a recycle bin for these services that could possibly help. 

There are several apparent gaps in coverage that Microsoft does not deal with, but there are third-party services that have stepped in to do just that. If your company is looking to keep their Office 365 data safe from internal and external threats, then contact us for assistance.

Change is HERE! for Farmhouse Networking

As we work on finishing our 5th year in business, Farmhouse Networking continues to enhance its offering to our clients and improve the way we do business. Each one of these changes is carefully researched and painstakingly implemented to make sure that impact on end-user experience is minimally invasive. Here is a list of the major changes taking place now:

What Changes?

New Customer Documentation: We have been using a new document management system to securely store information about our clients networks, create standard operating procedures on how we specifically care for individual clients, and keep track of passwords for all the things that need securing. This will keep our staff and backup techs apprised of all our customers equipment and standard operating procedures so that things get done right. 

New Maintenance Software: After much market research to improve our current system of auto-magically maintaining customers computers, we found something better. It took some negotiations with them but we got the price down to close to the same, so there will be no increase in price. Just better software to serve our customers with. We can now monitor more of the network and in a deeper way so that there is even less possibility of downtime due to computer issues. 

New Employee: You read that right. Farmhouse Networking has officially contracted with our first employee. The work load has finally reached the point where occasional help from my family is just not enough. Peter deGreyt will start work on Monday, November 11th, 2019. He has previously worked for another local managed service provider and graduated from Southern Oregon University with a degree in business analytics. His first contact with many of you will likely be to input customer information into our new document management system. 

If your company is interested in working with a company that takes IT seriously, then contact us for assistance.

Got everything backed up? You sure?

SaaS Protection - Grants Pass, ORAs companies increasingly move data into cloud-based applications, many administrators think traditional best practices such as data backup are outdated. After all, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application is always available, accessible from anywhere, and highly redundant, so why is backup necessary?

1 in 3 companies report losing data stored in cloud-based applications. That means the permanent deletion of potentially hundreds of work hours.

The truth is that even data in cloud-based applications are vulnerable to:

  • Malware damage or ransomware attacks
  • Accidental end-user deletion
  • Malicious end-user activity
  • Operational errors such as accidental data overwrites
  • Lost data due to canceled user account subscriptions
  • Misconfigured application workflows

Datto SaaS Protection won’t let your critical data slip through the cracks. Engineered to be the leading, one stop shop for cloud-to-cloud SaaS application backup, SaaS Protection gives you consistently reliable granular backups, quick and easy restores and exports, secured data for compliance and regulatory needs, and world-class 24/7/365 support.

SaaS Protection Supports the Following Applications:

G-Suite – Protect emails, documents, calendars, sites, and contacts in Google’s G Suite.

There’s no such thing as too safe. Datto SaaS Protection goes above and beyond industry standards to make sure G-Suite data is secure, easily recoverable, and protected:

  • Automatic 3X daily backups of Google Mail, Drive, Calendar, Contacts, and Sites data
  • SOC2 Type II audited
  • Supports HIPAA compliance needs
  • Data encryption both in transit and at rest in the Datto Cloud
  • Advanced internal controls
  • Data controls and monitoring, including audit logs, uptime and availability SLAs, and export capabilities
  • Regular vulnerability management and testing

SaaS Protection saves you and your team time and stress with search filters that quickly locate backed up files and folders.. even if users can’t remember what they called them.

  • Easily track deleted items
  • Locate and browse any previous versions of documents
  • Lighten the help desk load: SaaS Protection lets users access their own backups

Office 365 – Protect Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Contacts, and Calendars in Office 365.

There’s no such thing as too safe. Datto SaaS Protection goes above and beyond industry standards to make sure Office 365 data is secure, easily recoverable, and protected.

  • Microsoft Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, Calendar and Contacts are automatically backed up 3X a day
  • SOC 2 Type II audited
  • Supports HIPAA compliance needs
  • Data encryption both at rest and in transit
  • Data controls and monitoring tools, including audit logs, uptime and availability SLAs, and export capabilities

SaaS Protection saves your team time and stress with robust search filters that make it easy to quickly locate backed up files and folders.

  • Manage backups, view restores, and monitor activity across all of your customers from an easy-to-use dashboard
  • Zero in on emails, contacts, individual files and entire folders with our search function
  • Restore files directly to a user’s account or download them directly

If your company is G-Suite or Office 365 and want a complete disaster recovery solution, then contact us for assistance.

DNS Filtering for Security & Productivity

DNS filteringAny Human Resources department manager will attest to the need for an Acceptable Use Policy as part of the Employee Handbook. It should clearly state the proper use of business-owned workstations and what traffic is allowed on the company network. Monitoring this policy is next to impossible for small businesses, yet ignoring it leads to infections, security breaches, and huge losses to the bottom line by wasted employee productivity. How does a company stay safe from the big, bad Internet?

Policy Creation

This may sound boring, but before any monitoring and enforcement can take place legally, there must be a clearly defined policy in place with consequences for violations. This policy must be signed by each employee. Only when signed policies are in each employee’s file, can measures can be taken to monitor and enforce the new written policy.

No Administrator Access

There is no reason for the average employee to need Administrator access to a workstation once it is setup properly for business use. Most employees do not need to install any software or make any major setting changes without first consulting management and/or network support personnel. Software and operating system updates should also be handled by network support personnel or by an automated process. Installation of additional hardware should be cleared with management and implemented by network support personnel. Workstations are a company-owned tool to be used by the employee only for the best interests of the company, not for personal file storage or entertainment purposes.

DNS Filtering

The Internet is an invaluable tool for business purposes. There are, however, many threats out there, and the common user has no idea how to avoid them. There are also innumerable distractions ranging from time wasters to those that are downright illegal. DNS Filtering inspects every internet request against a database of known sites and blocks bad traffic before it goes anywhere on the internet. This keeps your internal network assets safe from malicious sites and content that is inappropriate for business or bad for productivity. This is accomplished without interrupting or slowing down the normal flow of good traffic around the Internet.

If your company is looking to add layers of security to your network or increase productivity by limiting Internet time wasters, then contact us for assistance.

Archives

Categories

Plant a Seed @ 541-761-9549
233 Rogue River Hwy #873 Grants Pass, OR 97527
Mon-Fri: 9:00am-5:00pm
support@farmhousenetworking.com
© 2016-2023- Farmhouse Networking. All rights reserved
Terms and Conditions Privacy Policy

Evaluation Signup

[contact-form-7 id="452" title="Free Network Evaluation"]
And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others. As the Scriptures say,
“They share freely and give generously to the poor. Their good deeds will be remembered forever.”
For God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and then bread to eat. In the same way, he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you. - 2 Corinthians 9:8-10