Professionals - Keeping track of expenses/income for tax purposes

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 4/7/06 at 10:54am

I'm starting to look at software for my computer &/or treo to keep track of professional expenses/income. Has anyone found a simple, but effective, software? I've taken a quick look at Quicken, but find it a bit intimidating. All I want is something paperless to track.

Please share your thoughts.

Thanks.

Milla

[showinoff]

Posted: 4/7/06 at 12:58pm

Out of the material out there, I have found that Quicken is the easiest to use. Also if you are a mac user, there is a program built into the OS X hardrive. It is similar to an excel spread sheet. I hate excel so therefore find this hard to master.

Quicken or Quick books, are both good programs and allow you to keep a running tally, much like an register for your checkbook. But, it gives you the option to make notes about who you were with, what you did, what show you saw, ect... Also, if you pay on credit cards, you can keep a seperate file for just your cards, to show payments ect....

I hope this helps you a bit. If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me.

[Garland Grrrl]

Posted: 4/7/06 at 2:32pm

hey milla, i think quick books are the way to go. really not so hard to do and an instuctional dvd will take about 45 minutes to get you up and running. don't be intimidated. this is really worth having, trust me. i used to have a bag full of paper scraps and cab receipts but i now have a purse that even kitty carlisle would approve of.

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 4/7/06 at 11:29pm

Yup, I'm 1 of those cab receipts & scraps of paper gals, looking to reform.

Thank you both for your recommendations. I will look further into Quicken & Quick Books.

Milla

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 4/7/06 at 11:31pm

Another vote for quick books.

[SamIAm]

Posted: 4/8/06 at 9:10am

Quick Books is good and relatively inexpensive for those of us who are not rich.

It takes some getting used to and I recommend getting the instructional piece if you don't know your way around bookkeeping. You can set it up for different types of businesses, so it will track the most common expenses and categories for that type of business.

IF you have an accountant, consider walking through it with her/him and have your accountant make suggestions on new categories or merging categories or deleting those you don't need. It will make your bookkeeping cleaner and tax time will not be so tortuous.

Reports in QB will help you see snapshots of types of expenses, total profit and loss and other things you may need.