Makers who use Business Accounting Software

[logem]

I was wondering how many of the knifemakers on this forum use some sort of business accounting software to track taxes, inventory, costs, profits, etc.

If you don't use software, what method do you use. I could see that sales taxes might not be too hard to do manually, but what about your monitoring of expenses, sales, etc?

I recently opened a sole proprietorship and started using Quickbooks to track all of this. It seems to be quiet helpful to get my hands around incoming and outgoing costs, but it sure took a bit of work to get set up initially. After all, if this is to be an actual business, rather than a hobby, then the object is profits, right?

Also, do all of you who may sell at shows or locally keep track of sales taxes? This was the whole reason for me to get a sales and use tax permit, thus a business name.

Mike L.

 

[tomh]

quickbooks is the best way for a small business to track anything and everything! That said mine is on my crashed hard drive and I need to get a newer version anyway, so I am not tracking anything right now and I need to be!

 

[KnifeMaker.ca]

I'm going to follow this one with interest. The problem I had with progs like Simply Accounting - Quickbooks and others was that they demand everything in neat, well defined, trackable categories. Knife Making isn't like that in my world. (Nor is the supply business).

If I brought in a burl for $500.00, They all wanted to see it go out and at what price. When the burl became 23 handles - 18 of which got stabilized - plus 7 Ebay auctions of cutoffs, some giveaways to the guys who makes earrings and buttons and 2 nice pieces that go in my "special drawer", the programs would just freak out. Did I mention the piece my grandson used on his first knife - or the piece the neighbor's dog chewed up? Then I try to tell it I sold three of the blocks a week before the burl was purchased and that some will sit on the shelf for 10 years before they sell and, by the the way, the burl seller included a nice freebie piece of curly maple that I used on a custom order - and no, I have no idea how much of the shipping costs and stabilization charges that piece represented....

Now, Marilyn just tracks it all in Excel. These are expenses. These are income. We collected these taxes. We paid these taxes.

Once a year we do inventory for taxes and a few mini-inventories through the year to try to keep the store current.

If we could find a program that didn't presume you are just buying widgets at wholesale and selling them at retail, we would be interested.

Rob!

 

[cdent]

I think a program like quickbooks would work fine for purchasing raw materials and selling completely different finished products. I'd want as many categories in the accounting program as are on the customer invoices/receipts so they're matchable if needed. One could buy a roll of paper towel to help with many business needs, but never resell any of it. Something like quickbooks could be an inexpensive program that's recognized by many accountants if someone needs pro help.

Just thoughts, Craig

 

[Patrickknives]

I just use and accounting column book, its works really well. I have catagories for my expences and income and totals at the bottom. The 500$ burl wood go in as handle material, same with steel, tools, postage and the big misc column. You can create as many or few as you want I keep all my reciepts in a envelope and enter the info into the book and then I total each month and summarize for taxes each year.

Over time it has become a nice tool, if I see I have spent alot on handle material it might be time to pass over another batch of walnut burl and concentratrate on using some of the stock on hand. Just use enough columns to give you the info you need. If you get a wide column book you can always add a new catagory anytime you feel the need.

 

[Milt]

I use Quicken for other stuff as well as the knife biz. I thought I should try something with more bells and whistles and tried Quickbooks. I went back to Quicken. It works just fine for what I need, and is much easier.

Milt