[AccessD] Budget spreadsheet - was RE: consulting fees

Jim Dettman jimdettman at verizon.net
Fri Oct 5 09:07:36 CDT 2007


John,

<<Would anyone care to comment on what you use to know your financial
position.>>

  I take a pretty simplistic approach to my books.  My AR is setup in
Access, which gives me an aging.  I really don't look at it too much as I
bill bi-monthly and my terms are net 15.  If I don't see a check, work stops
until I get one (actually, I've never had to resort to that yet).  Part of
the idea behind that is if there is a problem, it surfaces real quick.  It
also keeps up a nice cash flow.

  As far as AP, I have so few bills really that it's just simpler to do them
by hand.  For payroll I have a single spreadsheet to calculate the FICA and
record Federal and State taxes owed.  Since I deposit monthly for both it's
easy to keep on top of those.  I also use Access for tracking my expense
reports, which I typically don't bother with till year end. 

  At the end of the year, I do an income/expense statement just by looking
at my billings and then running through the check book and cc statements to
pickup expenses.  I also come up with some balance sheet totals, and then
send it to the accountant.  He takes care of the corporate tax filings.
Actually, he's been after me for years to get it all computerized with
something, but client work always comes first, so it's something that I just
never seem to get around to.

  Only other thing I need to keep track of is Sales Taxes, but I try to
avoid selling any hardware or software directly anymore.  What I do is make
recommendations, scope out sources, and then turn it over to the client to
order it directly.  I do pay some use taxes on stuff I buy over the
Internet, like my MSDN Universal subscription, which I keep track of on a
spreadsheet and remit quarterly.

Jim.

 

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of jwcolby
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 10:51 PM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: [AccessD] Budget spreadsheet - was RE: consulting fees

I have developed a really cool and useful spreadsheet to allow me to track
my actual expenses, income, taxes etc.  It has so far been a work in
progress, leaving last month's sheet locked and copying it to a new sheet
for this month, then to new sheets for "out into the future".  It allows me
to input my actual billing (from the previous month) or projected billing
which will be the "income".  

I have columns for Expense name, Expense amount, "will pay this someday",
paid but not cleared and cleared checkboxes (actually little Xs).  

Putting an x in those columns copies the expense amount over to a "paid but
not cleared" and "Paid and cleared" column.  The Expense Amount, Billed Not
Paid and Billed and Paid columns get summed at the bottom.  Thus these three
columns show what my expenses are, what expenses have been paid but the
money has not been deducted from my account, and bills paid and deducted
from my account.   

I use internet banking and can see my bills clear and my account balance at
any given instant in time which I copy into the spreadsheet as I update the
Xs that mark bills paid not cleared and paid and cleared.

Off to the right side I have a pair of columns to track the bank account,
Billing not received, Paid not Cleared etc.

Also in the same column I have a small section for tax deductible items -
medical insurance, mortgage interest, SEP IRA, FICA (self insurance
actually) etc. 

Way off out of sight I have a section to compute the FICA using the rules
for Sole Proprietor.  Another area calculates the Progressive tax on the
actual (annualized) taxable amount.

And finally a section that computes my taxes (roughly) and feeds it back in
to the expense column.  

Doing all of this allows all of my totals to change as I enter any bill over
in the left hand "expense amount" column.  Also as I change my billing it
updates my taxes owed and subtracts all expenses (taxes are fed into the
expense column) to give me a "net after expenses" (truly sad).

But... The good news is that for the first time EVER I know my financial
state given my bills and a billing amount.  And it WORKS!  I can see what my
FICA is so I can save that in a tax account, and what my state and federal
taxes will be after legitimate deductions so I can save that in a tax
account.  In future months I can play with how much I pay to credit cards
(I'm paying them off), how much I pay into my various tax deductions such as
medical and SEP Ira and have that instantly feed back to tell me how much
has to go into the tax account (again, roughly) as my deductions change.  Or
how much I have to work (bill) to pay all the bills and have X dollars left
over.  It can be depressing but at least I know where I stand or where I
could stand if I worked 20 hours every day.

Would anyone care to comment on what you use to know your financial
position.

John W. Colby
Colby Consulting
www.ColbyConsulting.com 
-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Jim Dettman
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 11:43 AM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: Re: [AccessD] consulting fees

John,

  You make an excellent point.  There are some other things that do go up as
a result as well, like workmen's comp and disability insurance, but those
are minor when compared to the government's take<g>. 

Jim.

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