This weeks episode of Digital Nomad Radio is all about bookkeeping and taxes. I agree, it’s the most boring part of having a business. Unfortunately, it’s something we all have to do at some point.
The reason I chose this topic this week is because I spent about 8 hours (at least it felt that long) last night printing and scanning receipts, entering invoices, and catching up on all the books. It took me a lot of researching before I had any idea what I was doing. I have a feeling some of you are in the same boat as I was and are clueless about what to do. (Just remember, I am not an accountant nor will I ever be one. So you might want to contact one for professional advice.)
Hope you enjoy the show!
http://lifeofjustin.com/podcasts/podcast_005.mp3
Length:
14 Minutes and 35 Seconds
Teaser:
Some of the topics I will cover include:
- Accounts Receivable - How to keep track of all your income.
- Accounts Payable – What you should be keeping track of for business expenses.
- Tax Deductions For Bloggers/Freelancers – I’ll share some of the tax deductions that you might be able to take if you are a blogger or freelancer.
- Invoicing Software - I’ll share a really useful tool I use for invoicing.
That pretty much wraps it up for this weeks episode. If you didn’t make it to the end, I just wanted to let you know that I am currently looking for guest on the show. So if you are a blogger or freelancer, I’d love to interview you or feature you on the show. Please contact me for details!
Show Links:
Anyone have some other useful tips for bookkeeping/taxes? I’d love to hear them.
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I use an online system called Outright which is pretty cool and free. It tracks my expenses and and sales and nice reporting. It also integrates well with Freshbooks which I use to invoice my clients.
Hmm I might have to check those out and see how they work. I am still looking for the best accounting software to use since I am not a big fan of Quickbooks. Thanks for the tips!
Apparently Quickbooks for the Mac is really, really bad and 2-3 years behind the Windows version. In either case, I’ve yet to find an accounting package that suits me and I usually end up using spreadsheets and randomness to do my taxes. I’ve got a great picture from last year with my kitchen table covered in stacks of paper with empty cups of coffee in a huge pile of mess.
Though this year I’ve done a better job of organizing and hopefully it’ll make everything at least slightly easier.
I completely agree that the Quickbooks for Mac sucks. I have the 2007 version and have never been able to convince myself to use it.
However, the website jTerrell mentioned is pretty sweet. I actually signed up for it and entered in all of my data from my spreadsheet. It’s basically a souped up spreadsheet where you can enter income, expenses, and monitor reports. Plus it’s free!
Here is the link: http://outright.com/
I also use shoeboxed to upload my receipts and it updates outright automatically…pretty cool. I use the free version of shoeboxed.
Very cool. I might have to check that one out too. I currently just enter in the information myself and scan the receipts to PDF files every month. Seems to work pretty well (at least so far…).
I’m going to listen to this over the weekend. I’m one of those bloggers who don’t keep track of anything. Right now, it is very simple because I only spent $10 on a domain, but later on I know I’m going to forget where profits come from or how much I spent on expenses. Thanks for providing this information to the public.
Really great information.. I have been using free services to maintain my accounts. And in that one of those is numia. It really helps for small business person.
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Thanks for this helpful information. I’m pretty sure a lot of freelancers will find this post useful. I’ve written some advice about taxes as well:
http://blog.ajeva.com/2010/03/get-smart-with-taxes/
This is an eye opener for me. As a start up online entrepreneur, I should start to record my expenses and earnings to know how much I really earn online minus the expenses. And this also a way to prepare, in case Internal Revenue Officers knock on my business.