I'd love your input on this!

sewblessedcreations · 01-16-2010, 10:51 PM

Alright fellow crafters, I'd love to hear from you guys that do this as a business. How do you keep track of your expenses, sales, inventory, etc? I've been crafting as an actual "home job" for about 2 years now and I'd love some tips on keeping track of my business in a more organized fashion! I haven't found an "easy" way to keep up with it all!

Tina

weareborgswife · 01-16-2010, 11:25 PM

My sister and bro in law have a landscape design business and art studio and they use quick books- she said it does everything, and you can set it up to track all those things you mentioned.

**gma2rjc** · 01-16-2010, 11:35 PM

If you go on ebay and maybe Amazon, do a search for the name, "Barbara Brabec".

You'll find a list of her books you'll want to read about the crafting business. The 3 I have are:

*'The Crafts Business Answer Book'
*'Make It Profitable' (How to make your ART, CRAFT, DESIGN, WRITING, or PUBLISHING business more EFFICIENT, more SATISFYING, and more PROFITABLE.)
*'Homemade Money - Bringing in the Bucks!' (A Business Management and Marketing Bible for Home-Business Owners, Self-Employed Individuals, and Web Entrepreneurs Working from Home Base)

She has other books too.

Barbara Brabec is also a consultant. You can send her an email asking to set up an appointment to spend an hour on the phone with her. If you're in the Chicago area, she may meet with you. It's been 2 years since I spoke with her, so she may or may not be doing things differently now.

At the end of our 1 hour conversation, I felt like I'd hit the jackpot as far as the amount of information and advice she gave me.

FWIW

Barb

bcgamermom · 01-16-2010, 11:40 PM

well I took an easy out and found a partner whose mom is an accountant.
I put all my receipts in a basket and drop it off in January.

sewblessedcreations · 01-18-2010, 11:05 AM

Awesome advice ladies! I'll have to look into it further! I'd love to read those books mentioned! Maybe I'll even give quickbooks a try!!

Thanks so much for your responses!

Tina