Keeping Track of Your Financials is Not Fun But it is Important!
Ok, I know this is probably the most boring topic I may write about, but it is important to track all of your income and expenses related to your online home business for several reasons.
- In an earlier post Keeping Your Online Biz Financially Afloat I wrote about the importance of budgeting. Well, if you are not tracking all of your income and expenses, you won't be able to properly track your budget, which means you really won't know where you stand financially and whether or not you are doing well against your goals.
- Keeping track of the ins and outs in your bank account helps you know how much you have to spend at any point in time and helps you make a quick decision (which is sometimes necessary) about whether to join that program or ad site. No money = no new program.
- Tracking ALL of your income and especially your EXPENSES can help save you big time when tax time rolls around.
- Now, I can't speak for other countries, but this is very important in the US
Some expenses that are often forgotten about are:
- Internet fees
- Paper supplies
- Computer and printer supplies
- Vehicle expenses if you have to run around to buy stuff
- Cell phone usage and fees
- The cost of record keeping systems
- And of course, the obvious
- Program fees
- Ad site fees
- Fees for tools like trackers, autoresponders, etc.
You can do all this book work on a simple spreadsheet. Also, some banks have a component on their online banking site that will help. Finally, there are many online sites, some even free that will help with your bookkeeping. So, good luck and start tracking that money.
To your success,
Bob Swetz
