For the past year, I’ve been using an income account as a part of my weekly accounting process.
Accounting process sounds fancy, but it’s just a workflow process that I use every week. The reason I started using an income account was because I wanted to have a better understanding of how much I truly needed to earn. I also wanted to see if I could run my business with less money each month by only giving my business a certain amount of money to work with.
Read MoreI’m sure you’ve heard of Murphy’s law; an old adage that states "anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” And then there is Parkinson's law that basically boils down to: work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
Now, I’d like to introduce you to Paco’s law.
Read MoreDisclaimer: I am not an accountant and this is not tax advice. There are different methods and strategies for saving for taxes. This is one I’ve found to be very simple.
If you’re tired of being totally freaked out about owing taxes because your business earned money, listen up. Instead of being unsure about how you’ll pay your tax bill, you can get ahead of the curve by saving for your taxes as you earn income.
Read MoreThe world of finances is wide and deep. From building a budget to understanding insurance and everything in between; it can be intimidating. Jumping in all at once can result in a harsh flop followed by a defeated retreat.
Read MoreHow to Be Financially Responsible | The Basics of Financial Responsibility
One of the most frequent financial struggles that people talk to me or email me about is having trouble being "fiscally responsible".
When it comes to doing the things one ought to do with their money, according to what I've learned from the industry and society at large, we fall short in a few common ways. Most people have trouble saving when you know you should save, curbing spending on bull shit that you don't need and understanding how the financial markets and economics. I get it. I make weird choices too. A lot of us do it because we're emotional creatures that act on our feelings.
Read More
I’ve been in finance for over ten years (wow - how did that happen?) and I’m basically never not talking to people about money. It is a common thread in our society. Our dependence on it unifies us, while our competition for it can be dividing.
Read MorePhoto by Phung Hi
In the early stages of running a business, it’s easy to get away with a hobbled together, spreadsheet-based bookkeeping system. But once your operation starts to expands, the financials tend to get more complicated or you have less time to manage all the administrative stuff. At that growing pain point, you’ll realize you’re in over your head and that it’s time to hire a professional bookkeeper.
There no set point that determines exactly when you should hire a bookkeeper. But the following symptoms will present themselves, making it more obvious that it’s time for you to bring on professional help.
You’re always behind on your bookkeeping, so you never actually know the state of your business finances. It’s stressful and mildly infuriating that you don’t have this information. You’re discouraged from getting caught up because it feels like an impossible task. And if you’re never known the beautiful glory of not being behind, you can’t truly understand why this is important.
With proper bookkeeping, you know how much money your business made last month and all the months before it. You know how much your business spent and if you’re even making a profit. With a great bookkeeper, you receive your monthly financial reports on a regular basis.
Being and staying caught up on bookkeeping is literally a whole new world of clarity and understanding.
Tax season doesn’t have to be fraught with multiple, confused emails fired off from you to your accountant at 2 am. It also doesn’t have to be you printing out 200 pages of bank statements, using six different color highlighters and a calculator to figure out your profit and loss statement on your office floor. I promise you, it doesn’t have to be this way.
In fact, it should be a pretty smooth process. I know your accountant wants that too. Here’s how it should go down:
If you’re like most businesses, your accounting period will close along with the calendar year on December 31 and you close out your bookkeeping for the prior year sometime in January.
You send your financial reports and all your other tax documents to your accountant and they file your taxes for you.
If you owe taxes, you already knew you would because you were keeping your books all year long and you saved for taxes as you earned income. Or you get a refund, yay!
Tax season isn’t stressful if you go into it being prepared. And being prepared is something totally within your control.
You might think you’re a genius for forgoing monthly bookkeeping and having your accountant haphazardly put together your books right before tax time, but here are the pitfalls of this strategy:
You aren’t watching your business finances month to month, so any business decisions you’re making aren’t rooted in actual data. For example, can you really afford to hire someone? Or does it make sense to stop offering a particular service because it’s not as profitable as other services?
You’re probably spending more having your accountant do your bookkeeping since accountants tend to charge more per hour.
Your bookkeeping probably won’t be done in as much detail. This is fine, until it isn’t. Meaning, sometimes when you realize you need the data, you realize you don’t have it - like during a small business loan application or when you’re trying to understand the value of your business because you’re going to bring on a partner or investors.
So now that you know you need a bookkeeper, what are the qualities you should look for in a bookkeeper or bookkeeping firm?
A good bookkeeper can effectively communicate with your accountant and you. They should be able to explain your financials to you in plain language.
You should be receiving your financial reports in a timely fashion so you can use the data to help you make decisions. A timely delivery is receiving your financial reports no more than two weeks after the close of the month. If you don’t receive reports for months at a time, you’re flying blind.
Your bookkeeper should work with you to make sure your reporting and categorization is accurate. They should make sure your bank balances match and they’re taking your accountants advice into consideration.
___
When it’s time for you to upgrade your from DIY to a professional bookkeeping solution, check out our guide to help you understand your options.
Photo by Simon Migaj
My wife is a woman of many, many talents, but cooking is not one of them. I marvel that the same woman who is militant about being creative everyday is somehow baffled by the challenge of a freestyle kitchen session.
Besides her lack of interest in preparing food, I think the fact that she doesn’t spend time strategizing and coming up with a plan is a huge factor in her adversity to cooking. And we all know once you’re hungry, you’re no longer a rational person. You’re a shell of a human, hijacked by your emotions and panicked because your tiny brain thinks you aren’t going to survive.
This exact approach, or lack thereof, is how a frightening number of freelancers and small business owners approach the income side of their economic equation. If this is you, know that I’m not judging you nor am I throwing shade. Just realize that if you don’t spend the time strategizing and coming up with a game plan for your monthly income, you may find yourself becoming irrational, taking on weird jobs or working with less-than-ideal clients because you fly into a panic-induced survival mode.
This can set off a chain reaction of problems. For example, let’s say you agree to work for less than you should because you have no clue how much money you’re earning, you just know you need to earn money. And if you’re earning less, you’ll need to work more. And if you work more, you have less time to for the things that bring you joy. And with less joy in your life, you’re a bummer to be around. If you’re a bummer to be around, you don’t attract your ideal clients who can actually afford what you’re selling. And you’re trapped in this cycle.
When you allow yourself the time to project your income for the month (or months) ahead, you’re allowing yourself to have insights, to make plans for future growth or plans to slow down to keep a manageable pace. After you make the projections, you can observe the results. Which allows you to realize what’s working, what isn’t working, what predictions were right and which ones need to be refined. In other words, it’s a way more chill way to be, dudes. And yes, this is the method I use to make sure I’m on track with my business goals.
This is the first step; it’s the prequel. You have to first calculate how much you need to earn each month. A good place to start is to look at your expenses. How much does it cost you to stay alive on this lovely planet? And what are the other things you’d like to spend on each month? How many box subscriptions does one need to attain happiness and enlightenment? If you still to figure out how much you need to earn, here are some methods to go about doing so.
Once you know your monthly income goal, you have to make time to see how close or far you are from that goal, given the information you have at the moment. For the sake of example, let’s say you need $4,000/month to live your best damn life. Here’s what you’ll do during your mapping session.
Pick Your Method. You can go analog with a pen and paper. You can use a fancy calendar app or a quick-and-dirty spreadsheet. Choose a method for mapping out that resonates with you. It’s helpful if it’s a method you feel comfortable using so you’ll keep using it. Set yourself up for success; don’t create barriers to doing the work you need to do.
Do The Math. Once you choose your method, make a list of how much money you know you’ll be earning for the month. List how you’ll be earning it. For example, you have 5 clients who committed to one-hour breakdance lessons at $100/hour. So, 5 hours x $100 = $500. And let’s also say your beautiful face is getting paid $2,500 to be a model for vegan, artisanal, shaving cream or something weird like that.
As of this mapping session, you expect to earn $3,000 ($500+ $2,500), which means you’re short of your monthly income goal by $1,000. If this is where you’re at, I can understand why you have avoided mapping out your revenue. It sucks to have a goal and not achieve it. So process those feels and let’s get on with figuring out a strategy.
Strategize. I think there might be a few options if you’re short of your goal.
Option 1. Learn to live on less. This is a totally viable and reasonable option. It’s all about living with the compromises and understanding the tradeoffs.
Option 2. Do nothing and have good luck and/or good timing. Possible, but maybe not probable?
Option 3. Do things that may help you earn more money. The following is a list of things you can do: Reach out to potential customers who might have previously expressed interest in working with you, try a new marketing channel, try a marketing campaign that makes you stand out, send out an email blast, change your pricing, change or repackage your offering, ask customers for referrals, put a product on sale, sell something you haven’t sold before, ask your friend who runs a popular website to feature you in an article, etc. There is a universe of possibilities here. Go on, get creative.
As an added incentive, knowing your deficit means you need to be specific about the amount of money you need to earn to close the gap. And being specific is perfect because it helps you discern what opportunities to say yes to. And oddly enough, sometimes when you aren’t specific, you fail to see opportunities.
And if you’re reaching your monthly income goal, that side of the coin has plenty of options to weigh as well. Should you keep things the status quo or scale back or raise your prices? Should you take a nap? The possibilities are endless.
It’s really easy to make predictions and forget about tracking or revisiting them, especially if you’re worried about not reaching your goal.
You should track your progress at least monthly, if not more frequently. Twice a month or once a week are both great time tables for assessment. Daily might be a little too crazy - unless you’re running a restaurant, in an specific industry or in a critical time where meeting daily goals can have a dramatic impact on the long-term survival of your company.
If you’re consistently not meeting your goals, then think about changing something. The trouble is not just knowing when to change, but also what to change. Are your goals too lofty or are you not hanging on long enough to see true results? Can you move the needle in a meaningful way with small tweaks to your copy or do you need a new marketing strategy? Does one thing need to change or does everything need to change?
Remember fifth grade science when you learned the Scientific Method? Here’s a refresher: Make an observation, form a question, form a hypothesis, then conduct your experiment, observe the data, analyze and interpret it and come to a conclusion about your hypothesis. That is basically what I’m telling you to do, just through the lens of earning income.
So much of being a freelancer or running business is about experimenting. We have an idea about a problem that we can solve, we start figuring out how to solve it, how to speak to the people who will buy our solution, how to make adjustments to refine our offerings and reach our targets. Make sure to listen to the market and your customers and to be open that the answers are all around you.
Photo by Wes Hicks
Staying up to date with your company’s bookkeeping is an uphill battle. When I first started my business, I didn’t update my books for a handful of months - nine, to be embarrassingly honest. As more time passed, more work added up and my fear of tackling it all grew to a critical mass. When I finally sat down to do all the work, I cursed myself and promised myself I’d never let me books get that out of control again.
I’m sure as tax season closes in many of you might also be filled with this same sense of dread. If that’s the case, worry not. Although we offer catch up bookkeeping over at Hell Yeah, Bookkeeping, there are lots of small business owners who prefer to handle bookkeeping on their own. If you’re in the latter camp, here’s a step-by-step guide to help you get your caught up on your bookkeeping. Let’s dig in.
The first step is getting organized. You’ll want to start compiling invoices you sent to customers, receipts and/or the bank and credit card statements where you made purchases that are business expenses.
Find all the invoices you sent to clients and organize them in one place. Make a note of what invoices are still outstanding, if any. The invoices and their status (paid or unpaid) will help you compile your business’ income or revenue and your receivables (what’s owed to you).
But of course there is a caveat. You’ll need to know what accounting method your company uses to operate. The two methods here in the U.S. are cash and accrual. Most businesses operate on a cash basis. If you don’t remember, you can ask your accountant to confirm.
For a cash basis business, you technically only need to send the customer an invoice once they have paid. For accrual accounting, you record the income when the sale occurs.
For example, let’s say you made a sale in the amount of $1,500 in December 2018, but the client didn’t pay you until March 2019. With cash method, revenue isn’t recorded until March 2019, whereas with the accrual method, you’d record the sale in December of 2018.
Sometimes you’ll have invoices that are outstanding for a long time. At some point, you might need to cut your losses. In order to do this, you must first make a concerted effort to collect on the debt. If that doesn’t work, you can charge off the debt using accrual accounting or non-accrual experience method. I know, the names of these methods really just roll off the tongue, huh?
For accrual accounting, when a customer flakes on their obligation to pay you, you’re able to write off this off as bad debt expense. Remember, you’ll need to prove to the IRS that you took reasonable steps to try to collect on the debt and recover the loss. The specific charge-off method means you can deduct a specific bad debt that becomes partly uncollectible during the year.
You can use the beautifully named, nonaccrual experience method to deduct what you were unable to collect. The deduction would reduce your gross income for tax purposes.
Most accountants will tell you that they prefer it if you’d keep receipts for every single business expense. Of course, this doesn’t always happen. But most accountants will advise that you should still deduct legitimate business expenses even if you didn’t keep the receipt.
At any rate, gather all your receipts for your business expenses and organize them in one place. I like to scan everything to Google Drive or Dropbox. I also like to include the date of the expense in the title of the scanned file so it’s easy to reference the receipts by date.
Here’s one hack that has made keeping meal receipts especially easy. I set up an email account, something like pacosreceipts (at) gmail.com. And every time I do business over a meal, a drink, or a coffee, I simply snap the picture of the receipt and email it to that email. In the subject line, I write who I was with and what the meeting was about. With this method, I have an audit trail that was kept in real time. This is important to the IRS if you ever get audited. They would like to see a real-time record as opposed to a spreadsheet that you threw together on one day of the year.
If you’ve paid vendors and contractors, you should make sure that you’ve got all these invoices and bills organized in case you need to access them for an audit. If you don’t have all your bills, you can simply reach out to your contractors and vendors and ask them to send you whatever you’re missing.
Now that you’ve gathered everything together, it’s time to get into your bookkeeping software updated and reconciled with your bank accounts. Bank account reconciliation is when you make sure your accounting records match your bank and credit card statements exactly. Each transaction in your account should be categorized and entered into your bookkeeping software. It sounds redundant to replicate your banking records within an accounting software program, but the software can allow you to run reports that your bank doesn’t. Reconciliations ensure your records are accurate.
Make sure to spend the time needed to ensure your accounts are accurately reconciled; it may be costly to have a bookkeeper or accountant go back and fix your books if they aren’t.
If you don’t have a bookkeeping system, you have a few options. First option is to hire a bookkeeper to put your books together for you. This method will likely result in the most accurate records, saving you time, but costing you more to pay for someone else's time and expertise.
One method to add up all your expenses is to use the bank statements and credit card statements where the transactions occurred. For any expenses that were cash, you’d have to add that back in after. This method is super easy if you’ve kept your business and personal expenses separate. It’s not recommended for a long-term solution because you won’t be able to accurately and quickly generate financial reports.
If you saved all your receipts, another method is separating your them by expense category and adding up them all up. Again, this is not a long-term solution or long-term bookkeeping alternative. It’s only a very small, limited picture of your company’s finances.
If you'd prefer to outsource all of the bookkeeping work and your feeling of existential dread, please get in touch, we'd love to help.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, friends. Yes, welcome to the joys of tax season!
The tax checklist below can be used to help you find and organize the tax documents that you’ll need to prepare and file your taxes.
Your social security number or tax ID number
Your spouse's full name and social security number or tax ID number
I f you have a dependent or dependents, here’s what you’ll need to gather:
Dates of birth and social security numbers or tax ID numbers of your dependents
Childcare records (including the provider's tax ID number) if applicable
Income of other adults in your home
Form 8332 showing that the child’s custodial parent is releasing their right to claim a child to you, the noncustodial parent (this may or may not be applicable to you)
If you were employed during the year:
Forms W-2
If you received any unemployment benefits:
Unemployment, state tax refund (1099-G)
If you received income from being self-employed:
Forms 1099-MISC that you receive for work you or your business performed.
Schedules K-1 (usually your business’ accountant will prepare these)
Records of all expenses — check registers or credit card statements, and receipts. If you have been keeping track of these things through bookkeeping, your expenses should get reported to your annual profit and loss statement.
Business-use asset information (cost, date placed in service, etc.) for depreciation. If you have been keeping track of these things through bookkeeping, some of this data will show up on a balance sheet and some of the data your accountant will help you figure out.
Office in home information, if applicable. What’s the square footage of the space you use for business only? How much is your monthly rent or mortgage?
Record of estimated tax payments (Form 1040ES), if you made any.
If you earn Rental Income from renting a property:
Records of income and expenses
Rental asset information (cost, date placed in service, etc.) for depreciation
Record of estimated tax payments made (Form 1040ES)
If you’re retired and you have Retirement Income from your retirement assets/accounts:
Pension/IRA/annuity income (1099-R) - You can usually find this online.
Traditional IRA basis - The amounts you contributed to the IRA that were already taxed
Social security/RRB income (1099-SSA, RRB-1099)
If you earned interest or dividends from your Savings & Investments
Interest, dividend income (1099-INT, 1099-OID, 1099-DIV) - You can usually find these online.
If you sold stocks or other assets/property, how much income did you earn from these sales. This information is usually reported on a 1099-B, 1099-S
If form 1099-B doesn’t have the price you paid of the assets you sold, you’ll need to track that down.
If you have reimbursements from a Health Savings Account or long-term care reimbursements (1099-SA or 1099-LTC)
Expenses related to your investments - What fees do you pay for the privilege of investing your money?
Record of estimated tax payments made (Form 1040ES), if you made any
Other Income & Losses. These may or may not be applicable to you:
Gambling income (W-2G or records showing income, as well as expense records)
Any income from jury duty records
Hobby income and expenses
Prizes and awards
Trusts
Royalty Income 1099 Misc.
Any other 1099s received
Re cord of alimony paid/received with Ex-spouse’s name and SSN
If you own a Home:
Forms 1098 or other mortgage interest statements
Real estate and personal property tax records
Receipts for energy-saving home improvements
All other 1098 series forms
If you made any Charitable Donations:
Cash amounts donated to houses of worship, schools, other charitable organizations. Usually the 501c(3) you donated to will provide you with receipt or letter that reflects the amount you donated.
Records of non-cash charitable donations
Amounts of mi les driven for charitable or medical purposes
Medical Expenses
Amounts paid to doctors, dentists, hospitals
Health Insurance - The forms and certificates will be automatically sent to you, so just make sure to keep them with all your tax docs.
Form 1095-A if you enrolled in an insurance plan through the Marketplace (Exchange)
Form 1095-B and/or 1095-C if you had insurance coverage through any other source (i.e . an employer, insurance company, government health plan such as Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, TRICARE, VA, etc.)
Marketplace exemption certificate (ECN) if you applied for and received an exemption from the Marketplace (Exchange)
If you had any Childcare Expenses:
Fees paid to a licensed day care center or family day care for care of an infant or preschooler.
Wages paid to a baby-sitter.
Don't include expenses paid through a flexible spending account at work.
If you had any Educational Expenses:
Forms 1098-T from educational institutions
Form1098-E if you paid student loan interest
Receipts that itemize qualified educational expenses
Records of any scholarships or fellowships you received
State & Local Taxes or Sales Tax
Amount of state/local income tax paid (other than wage withholding), or amount of state and local sales tax paid
Invoice showing amount of vehicle sales tax paid
If you made any contributions to a Retirement Account & Other Savings
Form 5498-SA showing HSA contributions
Form 5498 showing IRA contributions
All other 5498 series forms (5498-QA, 5498-ESA)
Job Expenses & Tax Prep Fees
Employment related vehicle expenses (tolls, mileage, gas, maintenance, license, property tax, interest expense, parking)
For educators in grades K-12, receipts for classroom expenses
Employment-related expenses (dues, publications, tools, uniform cost and cleaning, travel)
Job-hunting expenses
Record of moving expenses not reimbursed by employer
Amount paid for preparation of last year’s tax return
If you suffered a Federally Declared Disaster
City/county you lived/worked/had property in
Records to support property losses (appraisal, clean up costs, etc.)
Records of rebuilding/repair costs
Insurance reimbursements/claims to be paid
FEMA assistance information
Check FEMA site to see if my your has been declared a federal disaster area
