28.8.09

I should have listended to my maths teacher.


After many months of procrastinating (and nagging by my other half) I finally sat done today to get my finances in order.

As ever, my first port of call was Business Link who have some great hints/tips on how to set up your accounts system. I always go there whenever I have a business query and this gave me a really good indication of what information I have to capture. There isn't much that is legally required but you do need to know the basics when it comes to tax time!


So here I am, sitting in front of my laptop surrounded by receipts (prove above!). Blah. I have finally set up a basic spreadsheet detailing all of my outgoings for the business and now the challenge for me is to keep it up to date. I plan to make time every two weeks to update it all and the only tough part is working out how much electricity to attribute to my baking. Does anyone have any ideas on how to work this out? It's pretty tough as my premises is also my home but my electricity bills haven't gone up that much so its not easy to see how much I have spent in that area.

I am also starting to realise that working full time and running a business is proving pretty tough so I have reduced my hours of work to 30 per week when my little man starts school. It isn't a huge reduction (I currently work 35) but it means my days will be a little shorter to allow me more time with the family and I won't feel so guilty about all my baking each night!

2 comments:

  1. i attended a one day course run by the tax office which was really good about setting up accounts etc. which link in to the tax returns. For example, did you know you could off set the current market value of you oven (or the % you use it for business) against your first years tax return?
    It was quite informative.
    I intend to attend one next April on how to fill in a tax return, as I will get my first one next April (oh joy!)

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  2. I need to get myself booked onto one of those, now I have more time on my hands I might actually ger round to doing some of the things on my to do list!

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