4 Tips to manage your side hustle finances

Beyond the perks of increasing your income, having a side gig can have many personal and professional benefits. Pursuing your passions can help build your confidence, grow your skills, and open new doors in your career.

You’ve probably started a side hustle for all of these reasons, and to bring in more money on your own terms – not because you’re interested in complicated accounting formulas. But in order to reap the benefits of the hard work you’re putting into your business, you need to have a handle on your finances.

With the right tools and approaches, you can stay on top of your side gig finances and take day-to-day tasks off your plate, giving you the time to focus on what really matters​. In this guide, we’ll cover 5 tips to help you keep your side hustle growing. Whether you plan to keep your day job or have goals to turn your side gig into a full-time business, these steps can help set you up to succeed. While taking these steps may take some work upfront, they’ll pay off.

1. Separate your personal and business finances
2. Build a budget and track your expenses
3. Find the right financial management tools
4. Use smarter invoices for faster payments

1. Get a business bank account to separate your side hustle income from your personal finances

Understanding the money coming in and out of your business is one of the key ways you can keep it on track. If your personal and business finances are combined, it can take a lot more effort to understand how your business is performing and see the bigger picture. Setting up a business bank account to separate your personal and business finances is an important first step when you’re starting out. It’s a great way to take the work out of manually tracking your expenses and getting critical business insights. 

QuickBooks Money is designed to help – it’s an all-in-one banking and payments solution that’s free to open, with no monthly fees or minimum balance requirements, giving small businesses control of their money. With the QuickBooks Checking account in QuickBooks Money, you’ll get a debit card that allows you to spend from your checking account for business expenses. You’ll be able to see business money come in and out over time, so you can make smarter business decisions, reflect on historical data, and pivot as you grow.

If your business needs more accounting features, QuickBooks Checking is also available with other versions of QuickBooks. You can explore our plans to find the solution that’s right for your business.

2. Make a budget and track your business expenses

Once you’ve separated your business finances, a great next step is establishing a business budget. The exercise of creating a budget can give you better insight on your spending. This can potentially uncover unnecessary expenses and help you identify cash flow problems. A good budget will take into consideration your income and expenses, and will be realistic – one you can stick to.

QuickBooks has tools to help keep you on track. QuickBooks Money allows you to track your banking and payments in one place. With a QuickBooks Checking account in QuickBooks Money, you’ll have access to savings envelopes that allow you to separate your funds into buckets for different expenses. You can set up envelopes to save for supplies, taxes, advertising, or other business expenses. Any funds you keep in envelopes earn a 5.00% annual percentage yield that's 70x the U.S. average, making your money go further.¹

QuickBooks Solopreneur and QuickBooks Online offer more reporting for deeper insights and cash flow forecasts, and expense tracking that simplifies your bookkeeping.

Knowing your cash flow can be key to business success and longevity, it’s important to understand where you stand and avoid surprises. The right tools can help you stay informed and ahead of the curve.

3. Invest in financial management and business tools

Research by QuickBooks shows that businesses that invest in tools and technology see big benefits: time savings, lowered costs, and better understanding of their financial position. The right tools can help take the guesswork out of tracking the money from your side gig, taking busy work off your plate and giving you back time you can spend on the parts of your business that matter most.

Many entrepreneurs say the reason they haven’t tried new digital tools is because they are too expensive or too time-consuming to implement. QuickBooks Money has no subscription fees, and was designed to provide essential financial insights with ease. It gives you real-time insights on the money coming in and out of your business over time, so you can make smarter business decisions.

QuickBooks Solopreneur and QuickBooks Online unlock even more features. These tools offer bookkeeping and accounting tools like automatic transaction matching, financial reporting, and predictive cash flow projections.

4. Use invoicing tools to speed up payments

Waiting on payments can be frustrating. Our research shows that on average, 2 in 3 small businesses have unpaid invoices. When payments are late, it impacts your cash flow and can lead to issues with covering your own expenses.

Having clear payment terms and requesting payments from your customers as soon as possible can help speed things along. You can also use smart invoicing tools to help speed up the payment process. QuickBooks invoicing allows customers to pay right from the invoice, which can get you paid 4x faster than paper invoices.²

With QuickBooks Payments, your customers have many ways to pay: credit or debit, ACH, Apple Pay®, PayPal, or Venmo**. You can send invoices via email or SMS that include your products and services, sales tax and ways to tip. And when you use QuickBooks Payments and QuickBooks Checking together, you can get paid faster by depositing payments into your QuickBooks Checking account – eligible payments hit the bank instantly, and we waive the 1.75% fee.**

Set your side hustle up for success

When you treat your side gig like a real business, you’ll put yourself on track to achieve your goals. Successful side-hustlers understand what impacts their bottom line. They know how much revenue they need to make to pull a profit, which parts of their business that are the most profitable, and what their expenses are.

QuickBooks has tools to help you grow your business with confidence at any stage in your entrepreneurial journey. Check out our plans to discover solutions that are right for your business.

This information is intended to outline our general product direction but represents no obligation and should not be relied on in making a purchasing decision.

*Customer testimonial based on usage of QuickBooks Solopreneur Beta.

**Product Information

QuickBooks and Intuit are a technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by our partner, Green Dot Bank, Member FDIC.

QuickBooks Money: QuickBooks Money is a standalone Intuit offering that includes QuickBooks Payments and QuickBooks Checking. Intuit accounts are subject to eligibility criteria, credit, and application approval. Banking services provided by and the QuickBooks Visa® Debit Card is issued by Green Dot Bank, Member FDIC, pursuant to license from Visa U.S.A., Inc. Visa is a registered trademark of Visa International Service Association. QuickBooks Checking Deposit Account Agreement applies. Banking services and debit card opening are subject to identity verification and approval by Green Dot Bank. Money movement services are provided by Intuit Payments Inc., licensed as a Money Transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services. For more information about Intuit Payments' money transmission licenses, please visit

https://www.intuit.com/legal/licenses/payment-licenses/. No subscription cost or monthly fees. Other fees and limits, including transaction-based fees, apply.

QuickBooks Payments: QuickBooks Payments account subject to eligibility criteria, credit, and application approval. Subscription to QuickBooks Online required. 

QuickBooks Checking Account opening is subject to identity verification and approval by Green Dot Bank.

QuickBooks Checking account: Banking services provided by and the QuickBooks Visa® Debit Card is issued by Green Dot Bank, Member FDIC, pursuant to license from Visa U.S.A., Inc. Visa is a registered trademark of Visa International Service Association. Green Dot Bank operates under the following registered trade names: GoBank, GO2bank and Bonneville Bank. Registered trade names are used by, and refer to, a single FDIC-insured bank, Green Dot Bank. Deposits under any of these trade names are deposits with Green Dot Bank and are aggregated for deposit insurance coverage up to the allowable limits. Green Dot is a registered trademark of Green Dot Corporation. ©2022 Green Dot Corporation. All rights reserved. QuickBooks products and services, including Instant Deposit, QuickBooks Payments, Cash flow planning / forecasting are not provided by Green Dot Bank.

Users must apply for both QuickBooks Payments and QuickBooks Checking accounts when bundled.

No minimum balances or monthly fees: There are no minimum balance requirements to open or maintain this account or obtain the listed APY. Other fees and limits apply. See Deposit Account Agreement for details.

Annual percentage yield: The annual percentage yield (“APY”) is accurate as of December 31, 2023 and may change at our discretion at any time. The APY is applied to deposit balances within your primary QuickBooks Checking account and each individual envelope. We use the average daily balance method to calculate interest on your account. See Deposit Account Agreement for terms and conditions

Envelopes: You can create up to 9 Envelopes within your primary QuickBooks Checking account. Money in Envelopes must be moved to the available balance in your primary QuickBooks Checking account before it can be used. Envelopes within your primary QuickBooks Checking account will automatically earn interest once created. At the close of each statement cycle, the interest earned on funds in your Envelopes will be credited to each Envelope in proportion to the average daily balance of each Envelope. See Deposit Account Agreement for terms and conditions.

Instant Deposit: Instant deposit is an additional service offered by QuickBooks Payments subject to eligibility criteria, including delayed eligibility for new users and availability for only some transactions and financial institutions. The service carries a 1.75% fee in addition to standard rates for ACH, swiped, invoiced, and keyed card transactions. This 1.75% fee does not apply to payments deposited into a QuickBooks Checking account. Deposits are sent to the financial institution or debit card that you have selected to receive instant deposits. Scheduled instant deposits are run automatically; QuickBooks checks for eligible funds up to 5 times per day. Non-scheduled instant deposits are sent within 30 minutes. Transactions between 2:15 PM PT and 3:15 PM PT are excluded and processed next day. Deposit times may vary due to third party delays.

For more information about the services provided by QuickBooks Live Tax, refer to the  QuickBooks Terms of Service and TurboTax Terms of Service.

Apple Pay: Apple Pay is a registered trademark of Apple Inc.

Google Pay: Google Pay is a trademark of Google LLC.

Venmo is available only in the US.

# Claims

1. Over 70x U.S. average APY: Average interest rate: The average interest rate is based on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's national rate published the week of October 16, 2023. Learn more.

2. Get paid 4x faster: Four times faster based on U.S. customers using QuickBooks Online invoice tracking and payment features, compared to customers not using these features, from Aug 2022 to Jul 2023.