Do you do your own books?

[Former_Member]

Hello Etsians!

I am SO BAD at keeping records, now here it is - tax time and I dont really know what ti do. I have a 5 year old in Kindergarten and 3 year old at home with me, plus designing, making, listing etc. I dont have TIME to do my books. I am thinking about paying someone to do this for me. I am not sure how much that costs or what that looks like.. Do they ust update things weekly or what?

Help!

Thanks so much!

Nicole

[SpangGangDesigns]

I was in your same boat. Just signed up forGoDaddy Bookkeeping free edition. It connects to paypal and etsy and automatically imports everything for record keeping. I simply add in any expenses/income that are done off of one of these sites. So far, I like it.

[SpangGangDesigns]

I would also suggest talking to a tax professional about how to categorize your expenses - it's not as simple as only 2 categories: "income" and expenses" in one lump sum. At least for us, the expenses needed to be teased out into more specific categories - not many categories, but a few different ones. State income tax is another place that deserves attention.

[RobertaValle]

I pay my accountant for this.
But I'm Italian and we have some weird tax... so better leave them to an accountant...

[Former_Member]

I too have a kindergartener, 4 year old, and 2 year old twins. Most of the time I feel like a crazy lady! GoDaddy has been my best friend! But I still submit it all to an accountant to make sure everything is correct.

[Former_Member]

Nice to hear other people with 50 balls in the air ;) So, Allison, do you submit to accountant only at tax time? I use my Visa for most of my purchases but Go Daddy wouldnt work for this unless I used my VISA through Paypal?

[seemomster]

The Husband does 'em. Unfortunately...I haven't surpassed the threshold of "hobby business" (yet!)

I've heard that Outright is good...will have to check into Go Daddy.

[Former_Member]

I do my own so far along with help from the hubs. I am still hobby size though. I did get a spreadsheet format for excel from a seller here on etsy and it has helped me to stay organized.

[seemomster]

Lauren...care to post a link?

[Former_Member]

Unfortunately, the seller that I bought from is no longer open for business... :( But, I'll search around and see if I can find something similar.

[Former_Member]

something kind of like this:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/128820179/monthly-sales-tracking-template-direct?ref=sr_gallery_16&ga_s...

there are loads of sellers here that have similar items.

[SpangGangDesigns]

depending on how many sales you get, an excel sheet could be time consuming :(

If you use something like GoDaddy and use another method other than paypal, you can add your own expenses in manually.

[Former_Member]

IF you have time to make and list an item then you do have time to keep your records up to date.

I keep one simple spreadsheet that lists all supplies that I purchase in the year. I keep track of what was purchased, the purchase date and the total amount. Also how I paid for it (paypal, cash, business credit card, etc)

As for sales, I keep a separate spreadsheet that lists the date the item was listed, production cost (materials + labour), selling price, shipping charge.

When it sells the item gets moved to the 'sold' spreadsheet and I record the date of sale, seller name, etsy fee, paypal fee, shipping that I paid.

At the end of the month its simply a matter of looking at the totals on the sold items to see whether or not I've got enough to pay the bills. Plus I can see at a glance how my sales this year compare to last year.

[KiltedWoman]

I am an old lady, I use a pen and a notebook. I had a spreadsheet and it was a pain. Much easier for me to make a super quick jot every time I do something etsy shop related. At the end of the month I add it up so its ready for tax time and I can easily see when I've gone a little crazy on the expense side.

[Former_Member]

Also, I keep everything in a expandable folder with 12 slots, one for each month. All of my receipts and sales slips go in there. That way if I don't take the time to enter info right away I can come back to my folder and everything is in there ready for me to fill in my spreadsheet. I typically try to enter in everything once or twice per month so I don't get too bogged down and can spend my time creating. :)

[Former_Member]

I'm another that uses godaddy. Like the others have said it connects your accounts and the only thing I enter manually are receipts for purchases of materials or shipping I buy offline. I just have a little envelope on my desk that I put them in and then when I get around to it (usually every couple months), I enter them into the program. You can even take a photo with your phone and enter that as well (with the iphone app). I file my own taxes once a year. I've been doing it for a few years now so I've learned what I need to save and keep track of and what I'm able to deduct. I also don't make a ton of money so it's not very complicated. I use the H&R Block program available to military families and usually have to call them with a question or two and they are extremely helpful.

[Former_Member]

I use https://www.waveapps.com/ I really like it. I can link my etsy, banks and paypal, etc.
The only thing I've noticed is it doubles in income from etsy and paypal (when the buyer pays with paypal). I'm not sure how to fix that yet. For now I just delete the duplicate income so it doesn't mess up my total.

I really like it otherwise, because I don't have to manually input anything. Unless I buy in cash or my personal bank account which I don't have linked.

I do our own family taxes every year as well as the business.

[GoldenTwinClasps]

I made my own Excel spreadsheet that I have formatted to calculate all charges, fees, and profits. I've also set up an Access database to keep track of the specific clasps I sell, but It's still a work in progress. I just sent away for Access for Dummies because I have forgotten so much.

[Former_Member]

I have GoDaddy Bookkeeping and I love it! It's link directly to my Etsy and Paypal accounts and I pay $10 a month so I can get all of the tax forms, etc for the end of the year. My accountant seems to be happy with the forms it prints off and uses them for my taxes. This is the second tax season with it, and I haven't had any problems with it yet.

[SpangGangDesigns]

re: the upgraded GoDaddy acct for tax forms. I asked our lawyer about this and she said that she didn't need the extra form (I forget what the form is called). She said that as long as we had everything categorized as far as expenses and income, she files her own xyz form for us. Saves us the upgraded fee. So, if you have someone that files for you, it may not be entirely necessary to pay for the upgrade. Worth checking into. FYI

[Former_Member]

@nicole You can also link your credit card to it. So those expenses are also automatically entered! Yep, I just give it to him once a year. Super easy!

[PrairiePrimitives]

Yes, I do my own books. I have a spreadsheet with separate worksheets for income and expenses. I'm not as good at keeping them up-to-date as I'd like ... which means when tax time rolls around, I have lots of catching-up to do. But it gets the job done.

If you take a shoebox full of receipts to an accountant, it will probably cost a LOT. The cost should be less depending on how much prep work you can do yourself ... if you can categorize your own receipts, for example. But by that point, there's not much left to do other than the actual income taxes ... so unless you have a complicated tax situation, I'd say just do 'em yourself witih an online tax prep site.