Keeping track of your Business Expenses

We are a little over halfway through the year and now is a great time to make sure that you have your business expenses taken care of for the first half. Getting these in order before the year-end best prepares you for tax season.

 

Tracking business expenses tips:

1.     Make this a weekly or monthly practice. Keeping track of these expenses on a weekly or monthly basis gives you the ability to know just how much you are spending on your supplies. Don’t let this pile up on you until the end of the year because tracking down expenses from months prior is fairly time consuming.

2.     Be sure to keep those receipts. Every time you have an expense, be sure to track your receipts and keep a good record of them. If you are ever audited, these receipts are very important to have handy. You can keep a physical copy of the receipt, a virtual copy by taking pictures of them, or you can do both which is the best practice.

3.     Never mix business with personal. Be sure to distinguish which expenses are for your business and which are for personal matters. Do not mix these two together as that can get you in a lot of trouble. If you are at the store and your cart has a mixture of business and personal expenses, simply separate the items and have the cashier run two transactions and keep those receipts!

4.     Watch your cash. Paying for business expenses with cash can be difficult to keep track of. Make sure that you are tracking these expenditures in your books and logging them under your cash accounts.

5.     Utilize technology for assistance. There are a number of different apps to assist you with tracking your expenses:

1.     Foreceipt

2.     Certify

3.     Receiptmate

4.     Shoeboxed

5.     Expensify

6.     Cut out the excess. If you find that you are spending more than you are earning, review your business expenses and see where you can remove some extra costs. Look over each line and search for where you can cut back, starting with the areas that don’t directly affect the bottom line.

If you are struggling to keep up with these business expenses, contact me to find out how I can assist you and your business.