Tax Question - how to count hours spent interviewing new clients

[AcornsFalling]

Hi everyone,
I have spent approximately 1 1/2 to 2 hours each interviewing 6 or so families over the last year, plus spent time responding to emails, posting ads, etc. Since this is business-related activity outside of my regular child care hours, how could this be counted against my income as it is unpaid time spent working? Say, for example, that I spent 30 hours on this in 2013, how could I charge that against my income as a deduction?
Thanks!

[Mike]

Time has nothing to do with income. For accuracy, you would include that if you want to figure out your average hourly pay, but income is just sales, expenses, and cost of goods sold. Travel expense, meals, etc for the interviews count, but not the time.

[5 Little Monkeys]

I didn't realize that was something you could even deduct? I couldn't even begin to add up the hours I spend doing daycare related activities during non-work hours!

I get paid for the day not by hours so I'm not sure I even understand lol. If you are trying to figure out an amount to charge for those unaccounted hours, wouldn't that increase your income anyways?

[nschildcare]

When determining how much of your home is used for the daycare and for how long, I claim 10 hours though my dcc are only here for 9. That takes into account interviews, clean-up, prep work, etc.


This is how I do it, too.

[5 Little Monkeys]

I'm sorry, I should have been more clear :) When determining how much of my household bills can be claimed as a business expense, I count the extra time I spend on daycare-related work outside of the nine hours the children are here. It doesn't affect the amount of income I claim, as I'm not being paid extra for that time.


No worries. It's early for me and I thought I was probably misunderstanding lol. I use half of my house for daycare only so I don't use the calculation to figure out my percentage, it's just 50% so I'm not sure!

[bright sparks]

No worries. It's early for me and I thought I was probably misunderstanding lol. I use half of my house for daycare only so I don't use the calculation to figure out my percentage, it's just 50% so I'm not sure!

It should be calculated based on both percentage of your house and percentage of the day it is used unless you never set foot in that space outside regular working hours.

[5 Little Monkeys]

It should be calculated based on both percentage of your house and percentage of the day it is used unless you never set foot in that space outside regular working hours.

Yes, it is 50% because my downstairs is only daycare. :)

[Busy ECE mommy]

I claim an extra hour per day on top of my usual operating hours. When I added the extra time up and averaged it out, it's probably more like 1.5-2 hrs a day, when I look at time spent on the weekends/before daycare opens/ and after daycare closes. I didn't want to raise any red flags with CRA, so I just added 1 hour. Think of the time spent advertising/emails/making contracts/creating websites/cleaning the house/dishes/laundry/shopping/banking/meal prep/craft prep/interviews/weekly bookkeeping of receipts etc/repairing damaged items/your house etc.
I have always used an accountant, and never once did she let me know I could claim the extra time. I found the info. last year on this site, and asked her about it, and she said that was fine.
It would have been nice to know sooner!

[AcornsFalling]

Exactly, there is so much time spent outside of childcare hours on childcare activity. Great suggestion to add more time to your day.

[2cuteboys]

That's a good idea! I wouldn't thought to include prep time!