At Pelican, we serve a lot of individuals with self-employment - and none of them are accountants by trade (go figure!). So, it can get a little tricky for the self-employed individual to come up with their deductions.
While we are happy to offer professional, tax-specific bookkeeping services, many of you actually are capable of doing your own bookkeeping! Yep, you saw it right here:
You can do your own bookkeeping.
We never want our clients to pay for services that they don't need, and that includes bookkeeping.
After a few years of trying to help our clients get an idea of what counts as a deduction and what expense categories exist, we decided that some of our more independent clients might appreciate a bookkeeping organizer that could help them track their expenses and prepare for their tax preparation appointment.
When accessing this free resource, please keep in mind that you must save the file on your computer (or cloud) before adding your own information. Each tab is protected against accidental input, but once you download it you should be able to access the input fields freely.
There are four tabs on the organizer:
Instructions: This tab will help you get acquainted with how to use the spreadsheet.
Profit and Loss: This is the page that you will print off for your tax appointment. You should not alter any of the categories on this page, as these are exactly the categories that we will use for your tax appointment. Don't know what something is? Just ignore it.
Transactions: Use this tab to record your business transactions so that the Profit and Loss tab will automatically calculate your totals.
Categories: A simple listing of all of the business income and expense categories.
The "Profit and Loss" information is automatically calculated from the "Transactions" tab, but if you already have a system you prefer for calculating you can simply replace the data with your figures.
If you prefer to use paper and pencil, you can print out the "Profit and Loss" tab and handwrite the numbers in the appropriate categories.
If you want the spreadsheet to automatically calculate the expense categories, you can enter the transactions manually, or you can choose to export (download) a ".csv" file from your bank, then import the CSV file into the spreadsheet. When importing your bank transactions, use the "Insert new sheet" option, then copy and paste the necessary values onto the "Transactions" tab.
Not sure what goes into which category? One month of intro bookkeeping service starts at $50.
Have Pelican do one month of your bookkeeping to get you started! This includes the personalization of the P&L, like the addition of specific categories that you'd like to track (such as labelling your income as "Credit Card Income", "Cash Deposit Income", etc) as well as the removal of unused categories that clog up your P&L (Do you need vehicle expenses for an online business? Probably not). Feel free to make an accounting appointment to sit with us as we perform your bookkeeping, answering your questions and providing guidance as we work through your transactions.
Download our Bookkeeping Agreement from the main navigation menu above, under "Resources", and make an accounting appointment!