Accounting / Record Keeping

[russelldetailing]

Hey guys,

Although I've been at detailing full-time for a little over a year, and many years prior part-time, I need a better, more efficient system in place to help me track expenses / income for tax purposes / etc.

Do any of you have recommendations or help you'd be willing to share?

I have currently been toying with a trial of Quickbooks Online, but I must say I'm not a huge fan so far, maybe it's due to the 'Trial' version not having all of the bells & whistles? I'm not too sure yet.

Any help advice is greatly appreciated!

[Tuck91]

Re: Accounting / Record Keeping

I have an invoice template I use for billing. I just print an extra copy for myself and stick it in a folder. Its not too fancy but makes adding everything up at the end of the year easier.

I also save all reciepts in a similar fashion to keep track of my deductions.

[Detailing by M]

Re: Accounting / Record Keeping

I have carbon less receipts, Square as my cash register and I just ad up my expense receipts each month.

[Meticulous-Detail]

I use an excel spreadsheet with several tabs for different types of expenses and sum formulas that add up the bottom line. I have the tabs labeled and color coded. Very easy to keep track of expenses, customers, mileage, utilities, product purchases .......etc.

[Escape Artist]

Re: Accounting / Record Keeping

Hey guys,

Although I've been at detailing full-time for a little over a year, and many years prior part-time, I need a better, more efficient system in place to help me track expenses / income for tax purposes / etc.

Do any of you have recommendations or help you'd be willing to share?

I have currently been toying with a trial of Quickbooks Online, but I must say I'm not a huge fan so far, maybe it's due to the 'Trial' version not having all of the bells & whistles? I'm not too sure yet.

Any help advice is greatly appreciated!

I think the biggest thing I learned was Kiss - Keep it simple stupid - forget about accounting software unless it is asked for from an accountant and he is reconciling the books.
Perhaps the absolute master of simple was a customer builder I knew where he used one checking account to run his business - this maximizes simple because every single debit and credit appeared on his 1 statement.

Recently I have used gmail with the same principle it has a spreadsheet and I invoice using the email if I need paper i just print the email very efficient and it has a great search engine for looking up past transactions.You can set up templates using canned response so your tax number etc stays intact each time you use it for an invoice number I use the date and the intial of customer 01062013md .
Depending where you are and how much volume you do an accountant monthly can be a god send I had an accountant reconcile for 100 a month well worth it IMO.