Spreadsheets 1, Schedule C 0! (or: Five Minute Taxes)

Schedule C, Have at thee!

One of the joys of having a crafting micro-business is doing yearly battle with the Schedule C (Profit or Loss From Business).

I might not have pulled in the big bucks last year, but I made it into the black and now it’s time to pay up. Thankfully I’ve learned a trick or two over the years and the actual form only took me a few minutes to fill out!

Stacking the deck for your Schedule C fight is as simple as tagging all of the entries in the accounting Ledger with a code for which line they go on. That way when tax time rolls around all you have to check for is if any costs have shifted groups. (more…)

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December 2012 Balance Sheet & Yearly Review

The first year of any microbusiness is a bit rocky and I had my expectations set a tad high, but I think 2012 was a good learning experience. If nothing else, I got a much better handle on how Newport News expects me to behave and staying on the right side of tax law is a bonus!

Since the only thing that happened in December was the paying of Etsy Fees ($0.60) and the income that Smashwords is going to theoretically pay my someday ($11.29)… I’m going to skip the monthly sum-up and roll right into the yearly reckoning. (more…)

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November 2012 Balance Sheet

November 2012

November was a wash, but I’d been expecting that due to National Novel Wiriting Month. Unfortunately the lack of income paired up nicely with a whole flurry of bills, so I’m deeper into the red that I had planned to be at this point.

But on a good note, I now have an official business computer (Chromebook) and the City of Newport News can tax a real $250 computer instead of an imaginary $3,000 one. *mutter* (more…)

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October 2012 Balance Sheet

October 2012

Another month without sales, but with two more eBooks finished, so it wasn’t a total wash. I need to sit down and get the rest of the monthly eBooks caught up and post some of the new horses to Etsy.

And win National Novel Wiriting Month of course. 😉

Actually the NaNoWriMo novel for this year is the rough draft of a novella that I’m hoping to serialize next year starting in January, so it a much more focused effort than past years. *pokes draft* I’ll be posting it as an eBook as well, so that folks can read it all at once if they’d rather.

Anywho, onto the carnage! (more…)

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September 2012 Balance Sheet

September 2012

I finally got an eBook done! (And that seriously deserves a few dozen more exclamation points, but I’m trying to be good. … !!!)

But since it’s the first eBook, I threw it up with a coupon so that folks could download it for free until October, which will hopefully let me get any formatting errors straightened out. (I’ve got a post in the wings on that whole song and dance, but I’m still hammering out the flaws.)

Once again, I’ve ended up in the red, but I’ve still got time to reverse the bleeding… (more…)

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August 2012 Balance Sheet

August 2012

Finally another month in the black, woo! 😀

Of course it’s for a sale made last month (Little Miss Margins), but the payment took a long and winding route through the old USPS so things got a bit delayed.

Still, that’s yet another horse galloping off to new shelves and while I’m glad to see her go I’m so happy she’s found someone who loves her as much as I do! *pats her sales herd fondly* (more…)

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