Record Keeping!

[lunademiel]

Once again playfelt, you ROCK!

[Inspired by Reggio]

The KEY to claiming anything is that you have the RECEIPTS and MATH to back it up in an audit - how you do it is ultimately up to you whatever makes sense and you feel you can argue to a CRA representative should the case ever arise!

I track all my expenses in an Excel spreadsheet for the following:
Food & Kitchen Supplies
Toys & Equipment
Craft Supplies
Field Trips & Outings
Gifts & Seasonal Celebrations
Office Expenses
Advertising & Website
Daycare area only Maintenance & Repairs
% of Household maintenance
Professional Development
% Vehicle Expenses
Business Liability Insurance
% of annual Mortgage Interest
% of annual Property Tax
% of annual Gas bill total
% of annual Hydro bill total
Rogers Internet bill for business
Cell phone bill for business
Bell - additional services for answering machine, call display


I grocery shop for both family and daycare at the same time generally cause it is easier than 'keeping separate receipts' so to figure out how much I use the following equation for figuring out my groceries:

Kids % = # day you are open x # meals/snacks per day x # kids in care = # meals/snacks served

Our % = 365 days x 5 meals/snacks x 2 adults = X meals/snacks we eat

Total meals served = add them together

Total grocery cost = $xx, xxx.xxx divided by total # meals/snacks served = $X.XX is the average per meal/snack per person eating as we eat the same things and often the kids eat more than my spouse will at a sitting

So last year my calculation used for determining children's portion of groceries is $2.17/meal/snack served and a minimum of 3 are served daily so I went with $6.50/day/child on enrollment for last year.

I was open 240 days x 6.50/ day x 5 children = 7800 ... which will seem like a lot to others however I offer an almost entirely gluten free and high % of organic food in my menu to my crew because I have Celiac ... we spent almost $20,000 on groceries in total and have the receipts to back that up in an audit.

I will admit that hate this time of year doing up my taxes and seeing my 'income' shrink from the reality of how much it costs do offer this service for clients!

[lunademiel]

You wouldn't be willing to share this spreadsheet would you? I am absolutely NO good with excel!! If not don't worry about it, I totally understand that you probably put a lot of work into it!

I really appreciate the detail, Thank you!

The KEY to claiming anything is that you have the RECEIPTS and MATH to back it up in an audit - how you do it is ultimately up to you whatever makes sense and you feel you can argue to a CRA representative should the case ever arise!

I track all my expenses in an Excel spreadsheet for the following:
Food & Kitchen Supplies
Toys & Equipment
Craft Supplies
Field Trips & Outings
Gifts & Seasonal Celebrations
Office Expenses
Advertising & Website
Daycare area only Maintenance & Repairs
% of Household maintenance
Professional Development
% Vehicle Expenses
Business Liability Insurance
% of annual Mortgage Interest
% of annual Property Tax
% of annual Gas bill total
% of annual Hydro bill total
Rogers Internet bill for business
Cell phone bill for business
Bell - additional services for answering machine, call display


I grocery shop for both family and daycare at the same time generally cause it is easier than 'keeping separate receipts' so to figure out how much I use the following equation for figuring out my groceries:




So last year my calculation used for determining children's portion of groceries is $2.17/meal/snack served and a minimum of 3 are served daily so I went with $6.50/day/child on enrollment for last year.

I was open 240 days x 6.50/ day x 5 children = 7800 ... which will seem like a lot to others however I offer an almost entirely gluten free and high % of organic food in my menu to my crew because I have Celiac ... we spent almost $20,000 on groceries in total and have the receipts to back that up in an audit.

I will admit that hate this time of year doing up my taxes and seeing my 'income' shrink from the reality of how much it costs do offer this service for clients!

[lunademiel]

So last year my calculation used for determining children's portion of groceries is $2.17/meal/snack served and a minimum of 3 are served daily so I went with $6.50/day/child on enrollment for last year.

I was open 240 days x 6.50/ day x 5 children = 7800 ... which will seem like a lot to others however I offer an almost entirely gluten free and high % of organic food in my menu to my crew because I have Celiac ... we spent almost $20,000 on groceries in total and have the receipts to back that up in an audit.!

I am wondering if you always have 5 children at once? I am starting this year with only 1 DCK and my own 2 kids but will hopefully have 2 more DCK's in a couple of months. I also have 1 part time DCK. So I think this is going to be much more difficult to calculate!

[lunademiel]

[QUOTE=I track all my expenses in an Excel spreadsheet for the following:
Food & Kitchen Supplies
Toys & Equipment
Craft Supplies
Field Trips & Outings
Gifts & Seasonal Celebrations
Office Expenses
Advertising & Website
Daycare area only Maintenance & Repairs
% of Household maintenance
Professional Development
% Vehicle Expenses
Business Liability Insurance
% of annual Mortgage Interest
% of annual Property Tax
% of annual Gas bill total
% of annual Hydro bill total
Rogers Internet bill for business
Cell phone bill for business
Bell - additional services for answering machine, call display[/QUOTE]

How do you calculate the % for mortgage interest, property tax, hydro, etc?

[Inspired by Reggio]

How do you calculate the % for mortgage interest, property tax, hydro, etc?

I use the CRA equation for this - we have a specific one for 'home childcare care' because we have 'shared space' generally verses entirely 'dedicated space' like a hairdresser or someone would have where the space is not used for 'home use' at anytime.

(Square footage of home used for business / total Square footage of home) x (hours worked / 24 hours) x (days open / 365 days) = % of shared expenses

So for example if you use 850 square feet of your 1500 square foot home, are open 10 hours a day of a 24 hour day, and your program is open 240 days a year out of 365 your equation would be 850/1500 x 10/24 x 240/365 x 100 ... and would 15.5 % of your 'shared expenses' being business related.

If you suck at math you can put your equation into google and hit search and it will do the math for you

[playfelt]

It does seem like a lot to offer the service but do remember that if you went out to work and made the same amount it would be totally taxed on the full income so you save there with deductions. And there are a lot of things we are deducting that we would have spent anyways like mortgage, utilities that you would have paid anyways while you were at work.

[Inspired by Reggio]

It does seem like a lot to offer the service but do remember that if you went out to work and made the same amount it would be totally taxed on the full income so you save there with deductions. And there are a lot of things we are deducting that we would have spent anyways like mortgage, utilities that you would have paid anyways while you were at work.

Oh for sure ... I definitely know the pros as to why I do this outweigh working outside the home - I do not have any wee ones at home and am still home doing this cause I love it ... I also know I could make more on my bottom line if I chose to serve up a 'centre style' menu every day where cheese and crackers in reality were 'cheese whiz' verses real cheese and not do so much creative art or field trips and so forth ... I invest that in my business cause it makes ME happy to see the kids enjoying it and thriving and well an investment in my happiness is worth the smaller bottom line just that seeing in 'on paper' makes it that much more of a reality as to what that happiness costs me - I would prefer if I were able to live in oblivion of my bottom line

[Inspired by Reggio]

I do not know how to share a file on here

It is nothing fancy though - I just a file saved as 'Expenses 20xx' with a worksheet for each of those headings created within it and that I have column on each sheet for the date, description of expense, amount of expense and any KM driven associated with the receipt and than it auto sums the total of the expense and the KM columns for me at the bottom of the page. At the end of the year you can print them out for taxes or you can create another 'sheet' where you just put the 'tallies' of each expense heading and print that out. I also have a 'final tally' spreadsheet that I add up all my 'business KM' with for the vehicle equation in the car.

[lunademiel]

Thanks again for the info.

Now another question about record keeping but not about receipts. Do you also use a spreadsheet for income earned? What sort of format do you use for this?

Thanks
S