Comments on: Home stagers, don’t throw away a single receipt

By: Camera buying tips for home stagers – Mod Articles Sharing Site

Camera buying tips for home stagers – Mod Articles Sharing Site — Sat, 14 May 2011 08:34:52 +0000

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By: Camera buying tips for home stagers

Camera buying tips for home stagers — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:33:00 +0000

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By: Camera buying tips for home stagers | Home Staging Business Report

Camera buying tips for home stagers | Home Staging Business Report — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 15:44:56 +0000

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By: What's your current job costing you? | Staging Diva Dispatch

What's your current job costing you? | Staging Diva Dispatch — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:13:02 +0000

[...] so a good chunk of that income goes straight to the government. Conversely, in your own business, you pay less tax because of all the write-offs you get.Next, if you’re earning a very high salary working for a company, they likely expect you to [...]

By: Patricia Ebrahimi

Patricia Ebrahimi — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:51:16 +0000

Thank you, Debra. Let me add, I too have a big box where all the paper receipts go. Every $.96 one from Goodwill even. Should I get audited, it won’t be pretty, but all the backup exists. I try to remember to change boxes at the end of each year and mark the prior one.

By: Loi

Loi — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:45:19 +0000

Thank you, Debra! That overview was sooo helpful! As usual, Debra Gould does it again.

By: Debra Gould, The Staging Diva

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 18:24:39 +0000

Thanks Patricia. Totally agree with you on importance of keeping business and personal banking separate.

By: Debra Gould, The Staging Diva

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 18:23:05 +0000

Thanks Donna, those are great tips for other readers. I used Quicken for years, which I found really easy.
About 3 or 4 years ago, I got tired of doing that and now I just give the big box of sorted receipts to my accountant at the end of the year and they take care of it. I found it didn’t add much to my costs.
However, I do put almost every business expense onto a credit card that pays me air miles. Each month I go thru the statement, attach the receipts and identify each expense on the statement as to what category it belongs to.
The other thing I do is keep all my money going thru a business bank account, it’s not mixed with personal.

By: Patricia Ebrahimi

Patricia Ebrahimi — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 16:04:56 +0000

I have somewhat of a bookkeeping background, and, luckily, I had a relationship with a great CPA when I started Show Smart Home Staging & Design in the Washington DC Metro area. She is worth her weight. That said, probably the best first step I took besides taking the Staging Diva Business Course was to open a bank account with attendant debit/Visa card dedicated exclusively to my business. I never buy anything, pay anybody, deposit any payments anywhere else, so everything is in one place at year end, ready.

By: Donna Dazzo

Donna Dazzo — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 13:32:44 +0000

Dear Debra, my first year in business I used a simple Excel spreadsheet. But then I started using QuickBooks Simple Edition in my second year, and then the more sophisticated Quickbooks regular addition. I find using something like QuickBooks is very useful because you can easily run a profit and loss statement whenever you like, you can record checks written so that you always know your bank balance, and most importantly when you reconcile your credit card statements, I always find expenses I forgot to record! I think the latter has been the most valuable part of Quickbooks for me.