How do you bookkeep?

[JenniferBergsma]

I've just recently started my own home daycare and as many other providers on here.. I'm struggling with how to bookkeep! Would you be so kind to share your document(s) with me?
My email address is jenniferbergsma@hotm ail.ca


Thanks in advance,
Jennifer

[mickyc]

What exactly do you need help with? I just create my own spreadsheets using Excel and go with it.

[5 Little Monkeys]

I'm old fashioned...I do it all on paper. I prefer doing it this way.

I keep all my receipts sorted into envelopes according to specific categories and about every 2-3 months, I tally them up. I keep all my household bills in envelopes as well and add these up at the end of the year.

Each parent has a payment sheet. It has the payment dates for the year and I write beside it the amount they pay, cash or cheque and we both initial it. At the end of the year I tally up their payments and give them a year end receipt and than with my copies, I add them up for my total income.

I have the km's to each store I go to and than I just put tally marks beside each trip I take and add up at the end of year. I write down any misc trips I took as well. My accountant said that if I wanted, I could just keep track of my normal trips for one month and then times by 12 and just add in the misc trips. I think I might do that this year since every weekend it's the same trips anyways and I will just keep track of the longer trips out of the city and the field trips I do in town.

[daycaremom9]

I've just recently started my own home daycare and as many other providers on here.. I'm struggling with how to bookkeep! Would you be so kind to share your document(s) with me?
My email address is jenniferbergsma@hotm ail.ca


Thanks in advance,
Jennifer

I also keep my receipts in envelopes, one for each type of expense. I have sheets where I record every weekend my cash expenses and distances travelled. I try to pay most of my expenses with my Master card and record on my bill what expense each transaction is as well as the distance travelled. I have a list of all the stores I go to so it's really quick. I have a business account that I use solely for my business. I use my deposit book to figure out how much my clients have paid me over the year. I make a copy of the invoices I have given my clients and write on them what type of payment , check or cash. I'm definitely old school but it works for me.

[Secondtimearound]

I'm using envelopes for food and expenses . I keep a monthly dayhome budget as well as a home budget . I love paper and office supplies lol

[cfred]

I keep all the copies of invoices issued to parents over the year so I can tally up the 'fortune' at the end of the year. Add up all my other bills pertaining to daycare which is....well....almost everything. Then I gather up all the receipts out of purses, pockets, the junk drawer and plastic bags, spread them out on the floor, open a bottle of wine and camp on my living room floor with them every night for a week till they're all sorted, added and looking so tidy that it impresses my accountant ;)

Every year I swear I'll do it month by month. 13 years later and it's not happened yet.

[Wonderwiper]

Ha ha cfred....I do pretty much the same thing! I put all receipts into a big ziplock in a kitchen drawer, not sorted. I write parents payments on my calendar. Come tax time I tackle the ziplock sitting on the floor with piles of rolled up receipts in a circle around me!

[cfred]

Holy Wonderwiper! You only have a ziploc? What's your secret??? LOL...when I sit down with mine pile of receipts, even my teenage sons feel sorry for me and offer to do housework to help out! It's much worse now that I live a 2 minute walk to a very nice little market with the best produce I've ever seen in a grocery store. It's killing me.....

[Wonderwiper]

Ha ha...I use the extra large ziplock freezer bags. I have 2!

[cfred]

I'm going to adopt your ziploc bag idea...especially the part where the receipts are all rolled up. I like that.....much better than my 'crumple and shove' method.

[bright sparks]

I shove everything in a draw and procrastinate :) LOL This year I have adopted a much better method, I bought one of those plastic wallets with 12-24 separate places to file. I bought one last year that was very small, hence why I went back to shoving everything in a draw but so far so good in 2014 with the bigger one. I just have it labelled for every month of the year and shove everything in there. I have always kept attendance and payment recorded daily in my agenda.

[Woodsy]

My Hubby has a business (Sole propriortship) Not the same as running a home daycare, but we have an excel spreadsheet that we use to track everything and a plastic bin with folders for each month of the year. at the front of the BIN is a "TO DO" folder, this is where he puts any receipts he has for the business.
At the end of the month, I pull a statement from our online banking account (a separate account for the business) and check back each receipt/bill payment/transfer etc. and log it on the excel spreadsheet
At the top of that spreadsheet is the starting balance
He also has a spreadsheet that he maintaines for invoices paid and when deposited
We have a final spreadsheet that has the following lines:
1 - Starting balance (this is a formula the pulls the starting balance from the statement spreadsheet)
2 - Expenses (this is a formula that pulls the total expenses from the statement spreadsheet)
3 - Deposits (This is a formula that pulls to total invoices paid from the invoices/deposits spreadsheet)
4 - Final balance (I check this back to the final balance on the statement)

The final balance gets manually moved by me to the next month spreadsheet for the "starting balance"
We balance it every month, and have never had a problem.
It takes up about an hour a month to do that.

Also, I staple all of the months receipts and bills to the statement for the accountant/audit purposes

Visa bills get paid and all receipts for the bill period are stapled to the visa bill which is then stapled to the statement

This system seems to work wonders for us... basically all our accountant has to do it file it...

Not really relevant ot daycare, but since my husbands business dosent always pay on time, he has a separate sheet for unpaid invoices so he dosent loose track of an unpaid invoice.

[5 Little Monkeys]

My OCD with organizing receipts is going crazy reading some of your methods!! LOL

[Secondtimearound]

Lol I am the same 5lm !!!!!! I sit and staple and highlight !!! I would LOVE to have it done all organized on the computer like you described woodsy !!!!!

[daycaremom9]

My Hubby has a business (Sole propriortship) Not the same as running a home daycare, but we have an excel spreadsheet that we use to track everything and a plastic bin with folders for each month of the year. at the front of the BIN is a "TO DO" folder, this is where he puts any receipts he has for the business.
At the end of the month, I pull a statement from our online banking account (a separate account for the business) and check back each receipt/bill payment/transfer etc. and log it on the excel spreadsheet
At the top of that spreadsheet is the starting balance
He also has a spreadsheet that he maintaines for invoices paid and when deposited
We have a final spreadsheet that has the following lines:
1 - Starting balance (this is a formula the pulls the starting balance from the statement spreadsheet)
2 - Expenses (this is a formula that pulls the total expenses from the statement spreadsheet)
3 - Deposits (This is a formula that pulls to total invoices paid from the invoices/deposits spreadsheet)
4 - Final balance (I check this back to the final balance on the statement)

The final balance gets manually moved by me to the next month spreadsheet for the "starting balance"
We balance it every month, and have never had a problem.
It takes up about an hour a month to do that.

Also, I staple all of the months receipts and bills to the statement for the accountant/audit purposes

Visa bills get paid and all receipts for the bill period are stapled to the visa bill which is then stapled to the statement

This system seems to work wonders for us... basically all our accountant has to do it file it...

Not really relevant ot daycare, but since my husbands business dosent always pay on time, he has a separate sheet for unpaid invoices so he dosent loose track of an unpaid invoice.
Oh my gosh , sorry but I'm computer illiterate, my hubby is the computer genius. I think he really gets frustrated asking him the same questions regarding the computer. This just sounds so complicated.

[5 Little Monkeys]

daycaremom...I am the same!! I can do basic things on the computer but when it comes to some stuff, I just don't have that part in my brain LOL. My fiance also gets annoyed sometimes because I ask the same thing over and over with the computer programs haha.

My illiteracy with computers is exactly why I much prefer pen and paper and a calculator!

[momofnerds]

I too have ziplock bag full, usually2 bags full. I use to write everything on my calendar but it was alot of forgeting so now I hav this chart on my fridge that shows a whole month and everyday I just fill it our, super easy. And at the end of the month I just fill it in my books.

I do everything by hand I too love office supplies.

[Samantha33]

I have a folder for each month. I usually only get around to entering them at the end of the year. I make up an excel spreadsheet with the month, underneath I add categories such as groceries, crafts-gifts and anything else that is 100% deductible, vehicle insurance, mortgage, bank fees, etc. Then they I program excel to total the columns individually. This is what the accountant uses to do the income tax. I tried copying my spreadsheet for you but it won't take.

[Woodsy]

My hubby would be considered the "computer illiterate" one in our family, that is why I manage the excel spreadsheet (I should be fair and state that he is really on "excel" illiterate though)
Once you have the spreadsheet set up, it is extremely simple!

[gravy_train]

I track everything on excel spreadsheets. I have categories for groceries, office supplies, general supplies (toys, crafts, etc), furniture and repairs.
I claim 50% of my grocery bill and 100% of the other items.
I organize my columns by month, then enter each expense and have formatted the columns to add everything automatically. I also have a payments received spreadsheet for tracking when I get paid, individualized per client. I write down the amount, cheque number (or EMT confirmation number), date and any notes (if they picked up late or paid late).
I also photocopy all of my receipts and organize them by month. Then I staple the original to the photocopy and print off my monthly spreadsheet and attach that to the bundle.
The plan was to do this monthly to avoid a big uproar at tax time but of course it didn't happen so I did all of this in two sittings and it took me about 4 hours in total. It might be overkill but I feel really organized now and everything is set up so easy to re-use for this year.

[5 Little Monkeys]

This is really dumb but even if I used a computer to do all this...I would still feel the need to sit down and double check it with pen and paper. lol

[JenniferBergsma]

I track everything on excel spreadsheets. I have categories for groceries, office supplies, general supplies (toys, crafts, etc), furniture and repairs.
I claim 50% of my grocery bill and 100% of the other items.
I organize my columns by month, then enter each expense and have formatted the columns to add everything automatically. I also have a payments received spreadsheet for tracking when I get paid, individualized per client. I write down the amount, cheque number (or EMT confirmation number), date and any notes (if they picked up late or paid late).
I also photocopy all of my receipts and organize them by month. Then I staple the original to the photocopy and print off my monthly spreadsheet and attach that to the bundle.
The plan was to do this monthly to avoid a big uproar at tax time but of course it didn't happen so I did all of this in two sittings and it took me about 4 hours in total. It might be overkill but I feel really organized now and everything is set up so easy to re-use for this year.

WOW gravy_train!
That sounds amazing, any chance you'd be willing to share your expense and payment spreadsheets?? It sounds very organized... what I need but am having trouble envisioning the layout.
jenniferbergsma@hotm ail.ca if you wouldn't mind
Thanks