Book keeping

[Scubaf250]

So reading through the tread about who makes money breeding got me thinking, how do you guys that keep track of your expenses do it? Pen and paper in a ledger of some kind? Excel spread sheet?

And my next question is what kinds of things do you need to have for tax reasons and what not?

Thanks!
-Steve

[C&H Exotic Morphs]

For keeping track of our expenses we just save all of our receipts and keep them catagorized (Animals, Supplies, Food, Vet and Business ie. Traveling, Lodging, Meals, Gas, Mileage and Maintance on the car). Then when we go to our Accountant to file our taxes we just go thru and Total up each catagory and that is what we give to the accountant. They really don't want or need you to bring in the receipts for everything. Keeping the receipts is for your personal records if you were to ever be audited.

As far as what you need for taxes. Save everything! Bring in the totals for all of your directly related expenses that I listed before. And copies of all of your household bills. Cell Phone bill, electric bill, gas bill, internet, mortgage/rent, car payment.

[QuidsBalls]

Just for keeping track of expenses for my Ball Pythons, I keep all of my receipts, and I document everything that I spent using Excel.
I try to budget myself Yearly, so far is hasn't work out so well, haha

[Scubaf250]

I'm not very good at sticking to my budget ether haha I think it's about time to get use to tracking expenses though so I will remember to do it when I have more snakes.

Thanks guys!

[wendhend]

I track everything with QuickBooks. I have to put all of my sales in right away in order to be able print receipts for the customers, so I keep up on it really well. Then I save receipts for my own expenses in one location and input them when I have time. Quickbooks has worked really well for me ever since I started my business.

[el8ch]

For keeping track of our expenses we just save all of our receipts and keep them catagorized (Animals, Supplies, Food, Vet and Business ie. Traveling, Lodging, Meals, Gas, Mileage and Maintance on the car). Then when we go to our Accountant to file our taxes we just go thru and Total up each catagory and that is what we give to the accountant. They really don't want or need you to bring in the receipts for everything. Keeping the receipts is for your personal records if you were to ever be audited.

As far as what you need for taxes. Save everything! Bring in the totals for all of your directly related expenses that I listed before. And copies of all of your household bills. Cell Phone bill, electric bill, gas bill, internet, mortgage/rent, car payment.

^^ This.

I've started doing the same, except instead of an accountant my wife takes care of everything.

At first I always misplaced receipts, but I went and got one of those receipt folders from walmart and keep one in both cars so as soon as I make a purchase it gets filed under the month and then organized into categories on a weekly basis.