Bookkeeping for photographers does Not Have to be challenging. Have you ever met with a photographer that loves accounting? I have not, and I certainly don’t enjoy it myself. It is an essential evil when conducting a business, and although you likely won’t ever come to love it, there are some simple changes you can make to help soothe your accounting hassle.

I’m Fortunate Enough to work with Some really talented bookkeepers and there are a number of things I’ve picked up on along the way that have helped me with my own freelance accounting.

If you are one of the lucky few who Gets audited by your regional tax authority they’ll want you to prove every expense you claimed was legitimately for company, and that means finding receipts.

Paper receipts are horrible things — Always getting dropped, crumpled beyond recognition and evaporating to uselessness. Many smartphone apps (check out Google Drive or Dropbox) can do a fantastic job of turning photos into PDFs — spend a couple of minutes uploading copies of your receipts into your online storage of option, and you are going to be a-OK in the event the tax man comes calling.

It is the booking keeping for Photographers classic taxation screw-up — you set it off once, twice, three times, and, before you know it, the deadline is tomorrow and you haven’t even started your return. It is perhaps the simplest tax pitfall to prevent but still every year thousands and thousands of overdue returns are registered, meaning tens of thousands of dollars in overdue fines and extra tax owed, and plenty of frustrated salespeople.

If your accounting takes twelve hours On the day before the deadline, that means a calendar year’s worth of balances takes about 15 minutes per week — wouldn’t it be easier for us to just set aside 15 minutes weekly to keep your books current?

DON’T mix business with pleasure

If you’re operating your business Finances out of a personal bank account you’re doing it wrong. Open another account and use it solely for business transactions. Opening a bank account is much more complicated and annoying than it ought to be, but you’ll thank me in the long term.

When it comes to performing your Accounting you will save hours if your business transactions are different from private spending. No filtering, no confusion — spend a little time up front getting set up correctly and you’ll save yourself hours further down the line.

If you are selling plenty of low-value Items (prints of your photographs through an online store, for instance ) you will lose the will to live recording every transaction individually.

Your bookkeeping software of choice, or at least offer a spreadsheet export of your data. If you market 2,000 prints within the span of a year a payment processing program might be the difference between ten minutes of accounting and ten hours.

DO ask for information if you’re stuck

Taxes are complex and many people Pay an accountant so they do not have to think about them. If you’re a DIY bookkeeper you probably have more tax knowledge than other business owners, however nobody is expecting you to know everything.

Can be complex to rectify. If there’s something that you just can not find out, ask around. There’s certain to be a different freelancer who is solved the exact same problem before.

If you’re really struggling to get an Answer, it is well worth having an accountant to get one hour or two of advice. The Upfront cost may sting, but it won’t hurt nearly as much as a penalty for Filing an incorrect return.

Bookkeeping for photographers does Not Have to be challenging. Have you ever met with a photographer that loves accounting? I have not, and I certainly don’t enjoy it myself. It is an essential evil when conducting a business, and although you likely won’t ever come to love it, there are some simple changes you can make to help soothe your accounting hassle.

I’m Fortunate Enough to work with Some really talented bookkeepers and there are a number of things I’ve picked up on along the way that have helped me with my own freelance accounting.

If you are one of the lucky few who Gets audited by your regional tax authority they’ll want you to prove every expense you claimed was legitimately for company, and that means finding receipts.

Paper receipts are horrible things — Always getting dropped, crumpled beyond recognition and evaporating to uselessness. Many smartphone apps (check out Google Drive or Dropbox) can do a fantastic job of turning photos into PDFs — spend a couple of minutes uploading copies of your receipts into your online storage of option, and you are going to be a-OK in the event the tax man comes calling.

It is the booking keeping for Photographers classic taxation screw-up — you set it off once, twice, three times, and, before you know it, the deadline is tomorrow and you haven’t even started your return. It is perhaps the simplest tax pitfall to prevent but still every year thousands and thousands of overdue returns are registered, meaning tens of thousands of dollars in overdue fines and extra tax owed, and plenty of frustrated salespeople.

If your accounting takes twelve hours On the day before the deadline, that means a calendar year’s worth of balances takes about 15 minutes per week — wouldn’t it be easier for us to just set aside 15 minutes weekly to keep your books current?

DON’T mix business with pleasure

If you’re operating your business Finances out of a personal bank account you’re doing it wrong. Open another account and use it solely for business transactions. Opening a bank account is much more complicated and annoying than it ought to be, but you’ll thank me in the long term.

When it comes to performing your Accounting you will save hours if your business transactions are different from private spending. No filtering, no confusion — spend a little time up front getting set up correctly and you’ll save yourself hours further down the line.

If you are selling plenty of low-value Items (prints of your photographs through an online store, for instance ) you will lose the will to live recording every transaction individually.

Your bookkeeping software of choice, or at least offer a spreadsheet export of your data. If you market 2,000 prints within the span of a year a payment processing program might be the difference between ten minutes of accounting and ten hours.

DO ask for information if you’re stuck

Taxes are complex and many people Pay an accountant so they do not have to think about them. If you’re a DIY bookkeeper you probably have more tax knowledge than other business owners, however nobody is expecting you to know everything.

Can be complex to rectify. If there’s something that you just can not find out, ask around. There’s certain to be a different freelancer who is solved the exact same problem before.

If you’re really struggling to get an Answer, it is well worth having an accountant to get one hour or two of advice. The Upfront cost may sting, but it won’t hurt nearly as much as a penalty for Filing an incorrect return.