You thought you were done with ‘cram week’ when you sat your last uni exam? Nope. Not if you’re a freelancer or small-business owner. Except this time the stakes are higher: if you fail, you don’t have to re-take Intro To Sexual Politics next semester, you get a fun little email from the ATO, instead.

Yep, EOFY, Tax Time, Panic at the Freelancer Disco. Whatever you want to call it, that last week of June can really put the squeeze on small businesses. So this year, instead of waking up in a cold sweat and screaming “AUDIT! AUDIT!” at 3am, we thought we’d get ahead of the game. Thanks to our mates at MYOB – and their new sole trader app Solo by MYOB – we sat down with freelance illustrator Ginger Taylor to talk about all things you can to do avoid ‘cram week’. As someone who's always looking for ways to get on top of admin and spend more time drawing, Ginger was keen to see how Solo could fit into her workflow.

CREATIVE BRAIN ≠ ACCOUNTANT BRAIN As the proud creator and owner of gingertaylor.net, Ginger got her start as a signwriter for JB Hi-Fi. Now she’s a full-time freelance illustrator, churning out the coolest typographic-Dolly-Parton-inspired merch in Melbourne/Naarm. But even after doing this business thing for 10 years, she says she still struggles at tax time. “I try to stay on top of it. But you know, as a creative, my brain kind of lies within the creative world, and that goes hand in hand with not being so good at the accounting side of stuff. I often leave tax stuff till the last minute – then apologise to my accountant a thousand times over.”

LEARN YOUR ROUTINE Ginger says the trick to overcoming ‘cram week’ panic is to find a routine that works for you – then stick to it. “My job is lots of different things,” she says, “so one week I’ll be packing Patreon mail and the next I’ll be painting a mural. But whatever I’m doing, I try to find a couple of hours for admin each day.” Ginger says this is the big secret to EOFY – don’t cram it. Working on your business, not just in your business, is just as important as the creative stuff. And it’s a whole lot easier if you break it into 365 baby-sized chunks throughout the year.

THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT Solo is MYOB’s new all-in-one business app for sole traders, and Ginger says it’ll slot nicely into her routine. With the ability to automatically reconcile online payments and expenses, not to mention upload receipts straight into the app, the week leading up to EOFY will run much smoother this year. “I actually really like reconciling,” Ginger admits. “It’s almost like I get to go through my monthly deductions and see where I can save some money. And with Solo, all I need to do is review it, not sort it manually.”

AUTOMATE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN Ginger says the bit no one tells you about running a creative business is how little time for creating you actually get. “I’d say 20 per cent of my job is drawing, the other 80 per cent is admin,” she says. But the thing is, it doesn’t have to be this way. You can fix this ratio. With something like Solo, you can set up automatic rules, so you spend less time manually entering business outgoings or chasing old invoices, and more time doing the stuff you quit your stable meal ticket to actually do. And this goes double for ‘cram week’: set up the right automations on Day One, and Future You will be super-grateful. “I like the automated rules the best,” Ginger says. “Now, when I buy stamps or pencils or whatever, Solo just automatically reconciles those expenses for me.”

LEARN, LEARN, THEN KEEP LEARNING SOME MORE “For every small business, their biggest fear is accidentally getting audited and not understanding why,” Ginger says. “That’s why tax time is so scary.” The solution? Don’t just bury your head in the sand! Take the time to ask questions, find a good accountant and learn as much as you can. The more you know about BAS and GST and quarterly deductions, the less mysterious it all becomes. “Not understanding things is still my biggest hurdle,” Ginger says. “So my biggest piece of advice would definitely be to learn as much as you can. Login to your app daily and stay on top of things, so you don’t get stung with a big fee.”

This handy article was put together in partnership with our pals at Solo by MYOB. Check out the new app and never cram tax time again.