Setting up accounts for a small home craft business

AMFMglass

I have Quicken Home and Business and use it for my small home based glass craft business which includes an Etsy shop, Paypal, credit card, Square, and a checking account. I receive revenue and have expenses in all of these accounts. I am struggling to understand how many different accounts do I need. Originally I had checking, cash, and credit card accounts. Expenses and revenue incurred were recorded in checking or the credit card account (expenses). I was told I had to have an individual account for everything (Etsy, Paypal, Square, checking, credit card and cash) and further more I had to have an invoice for each sale.. even if it was an outdoor festival where people are coming in and buying from my booth.

Can someone share how they set up (accounts) a very small home based business (bonus if its a craft business) in Quicken that accurately but simply records their revenue and expenses without making the accounting a complicated nightmare for a non-accountant?

Chris_QPW

This really just echoing what @NotACPA said, but with a bit more detail.

In situations like this I really wonder if the person should be using Home and Business or not (or at least the features in it).

Home and Business has all the formal trappings like invoices, account receivables, ...

When in fact for some businesses that really doesn’t make much sense.  I don’t use Home & Business, so if someone that uses Home & Business thinks what I’m about to say is wrong, please chime in.

For simple businesses like yours is seem more it seems to me that invoices are unnecessary and extra work for nothing, that goes for the account receivables, and such.  These are for a business model where the “request for work” is “delayed”.  For instance I do consulting for one company so I send them a monthly invoice (Done in Excel), and their payments for that are made 30 days later.  I suppose that I could have an account for how much they owe me, but all I do is just keep track of which invoice is paid when they send me a check.  The check was recorded with a tax line of other income.

I also use to sell a software program.  This was paid from PayPal/upfront.  This was downloaded as a gross amount and a PayPal fee.  All I did Is make sure I had the right tax lines on the categories I used.

So basically with this in mind the number of accounts you need is equal to wherever you are recording the payments (plus any for other finances).

NotACPA

I'd suggest that you pull out your tax return from last year and see what business tax lines you used.

THEN, if those categories don't already exist in your Q, you can create them.

JUST BE SURE that any categories that you create have an appropriate TAX LINE associated with them.

Q can't read your mind to know that category "Glass" is supposed to be tax related ...  you need to use the tax  line assignment to  tell Q that.

Chris_QPW

This really just echoing what @NotACPA said, but with a bit more detail.

In situations like this I really wonder if the person should be using Home and Business or not (or at least the features in it).

Home and Business has all the formal trappings like invoices, account receivables, ...

When in fact for some businesses that really doesn’t make much sense.  I don’t use Home & Business, so if someone that uses Home & Business thinks what I’m about to say is wrong, please chime in.

For simple businesses like yours is seem more it seems to me that invoices are unnecessary and extra work for nothing, that goes for the account receivables, and such.  These are for a business model where the “request for work” is “delayed”.  For instance I do consulting for one company so I send them a monthly invoice (Done in Excel), and their payments for that are made 30 days later.  I suppose that I could have an account for how much they owe me, but all I do is just keep track of which invoice is paid when they send me a check.  The check was recorded with a tax line of other income.

I also use to sell a software program.  This was paid from PayPal/upfront.  This was downloaded as a gross amount and a PayPal fee.  All I did Is make sure I had the right tax lines on the categories I used.

So basically with this in mind the number of accounts you need is equal to wherever you are recording the payments (plus any for other finances).