For those of you who sell your craft, how do you handle your bookkeeping

I'm also part of the group that jots down costs in a notebook. My hubby will breakdown the costs of components for me and then I factor in the amount of time spent making the piece. When I come up with a price, my hubby tells me what the listing /final value fees will be and we come up with a price. He handles the listings, so he'll often add a couple more dollars for a my sea glass jewelry, as he often checks out many of the sea glass jewlery makers sites and he's aware of what they are selling their items for. I probably end up paying more in taxes this way, but whatever I would save on taxes, I'd probably have to pay an accountant...and having to keep the receipts and list components used, costs, etc, etc doesn't seem to be worth the effort. The tax man would probably view this as a hobby if I broke everything down and they saw the actual profit (and sometimes that profit is is hardly worth the effort...which equals hobby)

Since my sales are very limited, I keep any and all information in a notebook that is too big to lose or misplace. I know nothing about Quicken other than it's suppose to be a good program. You might check with the person who does your taxes, if you have a service. See what they suggest. Much success, carolbee

hi venshida! i am not very good with accounting. but in the past, i did have crafts business and other buy sell business of small stuff. i just keep a notebook and i record all the expenses and sales and just tally everything with the money i have. i just record everything everyday so that i can make sure that i will not forget anything. it worked. although other people could not understand my recording, at least it works for me and my money is intact. i have 4 columns, date, description, money in, and money out. i didn't even know which was debit and credit. over at the top of the column are written + or -. hehe and then i keep a separate notes for inventory. worked well with me. as long as you are able to keep track of your finances, that is good. by the way, why not use excel? i did not have excel then. take care and God bless you! happy mylotting!

In my previous life, I worked as an accountant so I know all about bookkeeping, organization and such. Now that I've had to 'retire' from that world, I have my own crafting business. I not only sell my items but I also design for a yarn company so having multiple types of products makes things a little more complicated. Here are my suggestions: 1 - Organization is probably the most important thing. This is an area that I fault in as well, but if you can have an assigned box, folder, envelope - whatever - where you can just drop in your business related receipts for supplies, postage, subscriptions and such, then you already have a head start for figureing out what you made that year. 2 - On your receipts for supplies, make sure you break down components in a way that you use them. I keep all of my receipts stapled to a paper with every bead cap, gram of seed beads, focal bead, etc that I use in my creations. As I create my items, I have an idea to what I've used and write them on a hanging tag that I then attach to the item. When you sell, then you'll know what you spent making that item. 3 - Personally, I like printing out a the receipt for my sales and writing down the time and cost that it took to make for each item. This is especially heartbreaking when I sell a pattern... it takes me 10 hours to come up with, write a pattern and make the final item - and only get paid $25 for it. Sigh... I do much better with my Etsy sales. :-) 4 - Stay consistant! Once you establish how you're going to track your expenses, purchases and sales, don't change unless you really need to. It's much easier to change at the beginning of your fiscal year (in most cases it will be Jan 1) where everything is new and fresh. Changing in the middle of the year would only mean having to transfer all of that data over... unless you're a programmer and can do a data dump into your new system, it will be time consuming and painful. I have more but they are really nerdy with too much accountant talk... but please feel free to ask me questions. I'm no longer licensed but I can help as much as I can or help lead you in the right direction. Take care, Pinka http://pinkap.etsy.com http://pinkap.blogspot.com