I don't get paid in a traditional fashion...how to handle?

corfieldb

Brand new to Quickbooks [edit: Quicken] and am using the Deluxe version.

I'm a musician who works roughly 35-40 gigs a month. Some places pay me on the day of the event, others send me a check in a few weeks. Every month is different.

Q1: The planning component that I set up last night seems way, way off and under-reporting our income because I don't know how to set it up given my particular situation.

Q2: Over time, as I record the various deposits related to my income, will the planner start to forecast that income?

Thanks for any help you can send my way!

Bill

GeoffG

Quicken cannot predict unpredictable income streams, which is what you have described. The best hope you have is to manually enter a single amount on the 1st or 15th of the month and estimate on the amount of bookings you anticipate. You can enter this as far out as you anticipate the bookings and amounts. There is no way Quicken can know what how to adjust for your variances.

volvogirl

Are you using QuickBooks or Quicken?  They are different.

corfieldb

> @volvogirl said:
> Are you using QuickBooks or Quicken?  They are different.

My bad... I'm using Quicken Deluxe...

corfieldb

> @GeoffG said:
> Quicken cannot predict unpredictable income streams, which is what you have described. The best hope you have is to manually enter a single amount on the 1st or 15th of the month and estimate on the amount of bookings you anticipate. You can enter this as far out as you anticipate the bookings and amounts. There is no way Quicken can know what how to adjust for your variances.

Looking at February, I see twelve dates where I typically get paid. Some are monthly occurrences, some are not. If I enter an amount, let's say $1800.00 as being received on the 1st, but I don't actually have all of that $1800.00 right then, wouldn't it throw off my checking account balance?

Conversely, if I enter a bulk amount on the 15th & 30th, it would still be inaccurate when I want to see what our actual cash balance in our checking is ...

Over time, will the program consider my miscellaneous deposits and begin to reflect them in the planner section?

Thank you very much for your response...

GeoffG

corfieldb said:

Looking at February, I see twelve dates where I typically get paid. Some are monthly occurrences, some are not. If I enter an amount, let's say $1800.00 as being received on the 1st, but I don't actually have all of that $1800.00 right then, wouldn't it throw off my checking account balance?

No because you are entering the estimated income stream under Planning (budgets) and not the Account register. What's under Planning does not flow to the account register. Income reminders found under Bills & Income, on the other hand do, but given your situation, it would be too cumbersome to use (in my opinion). If you now a week out you might attempt, but you will need to continually make changes.

I would suggest estimating your income under Planning only and deposit income to the account as it actually occurs.

Given your situation, your amounts will always be inaccurate. Unless you can reasonably know your anticipated amounts and when.

markus1957

You may be more of a Home & Business version candidate.  It costs more, but it might be easier to manage your situation.  It would allow you to set up projects and vendors as well as invoice your gigs against those. Partial payments for a gig would be reflected against an invoice.

It would take more time to manage, but I'm guessing you are trying Quicken because it's getting harder to manage on notepads and envelopes. On the other hand, if you already have an accountant handling the business/tax matters for your profession, using Bill & Income Reminders in Deluxe to predict cash flow might suffice.  Starting with Deluxe and learning your way around that will be helpful in any case before upgrading to Home & Business when you get wildly successful.

While Quicken is not going to automatically begin to predict your income stream, as you record the stream and review it periodically in Quicken, you will be better able to predict it.  Good Luck to you.  Wishing you much success.