How to track expenses when you're self-employed - Video

Today's special: Self-employed tips on expense tracking and what you should know about separating your business and your personal finances. 

Hi, I'm Joe Sasto, professional chef, creator, and like you, a business owner and solopreneur. Expense tracking is an important part of running your business. You can use it to understand your business profitability and prepare for key milestones like tax season. But it can be tedious, manually saving receipts, tracking every expense. It takes time, and as a business one, you don't really have time to spare. That's where automated expense tracking comes in to save you that time and hassle. 

Automated expense tracking is like having a sous chef for your business, taking care of prepping ingredients for you, running around and tracking inventory, and gathering, washing, and organizing everything into the right places, so when it comes time to cook, it's easy. But once you get the hang of it, it's chef's kiss. 

Did you know QuickBooks Solopreneur automates expense tracking for you, so that you can skip the tedious paperwork? All you have to do is connect your bank accounts. Then QuickBooks Solopreneur automatically imports, sorts, and categorizes your business and personal expenses for an easy review. Separating and categorizing bank and credit card transactions is now like auto magic. Think of it this way: Rather than saving every physical receipt in a shoe box, sorting through them all during tax season, your expenses and transactions are automatically categorized when you sync your bank account. That way, you save the time and headache of manually expense tracking. How's that for a recipe for success? 

Having all your expenses categorized and connected in one place with QuickBooks Solopreneur makes tracking your business expenses all year long easy, so you can run your business confidently and clearly. Finding potential business tax deductions is so much simpler. Bonus tip: Don't make the mistake that many self-employed business owners starting out make when it comes to expense tracking. Keep your personal and business expenses separate. You might think, I'm a self-employed person or an independent contractor, and maybe once my business grows, I'll open a business bank account, but for now, I'll keep using my personal bank account for business purchases.

No matter what stage you're at with your business, having a business bank account is always a good idea. Keep in mind, a personal bank account may not offer business protections. Business accounts give you several perks. For example, accurate accounting, streamline tax reporting, and enhancing your brand are all benefits of keeping your accounts separate.

In my experience, opening a business bank account requires a little more administrative setup and documentation than opening a personal account, but the benefits can be worth it, and, in some cases, felt immediately. 

These are the types of things you may need to open a business account: State-issued ID, Social Security Number of Employer Identification Numbers (also known as EIN - a business license) articles of organizations for LLCs, and articles of incorporation for corporations.

Set up your business bank account, sync it with QuickBooks Solopreneur, and you're in business and ready to cook. Check out the QuickBooks Blog resources below to learn more about how to run your business of one with ease. And don't forget to subscribe and like for more solopreneur tips!