Keeping track of sales

I'll be honest. I did not open up shop because I loved balancing numbers. I've never considered myself business minded. Keeping track of numbers is a bit of a challenge for me! I just like to make pretty things, haha!

But as January rolled around and a new year started, I knew I wanted to keep better track of things. With the help of my super talented husband, I created a spreadsheet to help me do just that! I thought I'd share that here in case any of you were wondering if you've made a profit yet.... (Note: these are all fake numbers I input for this example!)

You might notice a few things:

*All the numbers in red show the money I've spent (fake numbers though, remember?). Excel will do this automatically if you just put a minus sign in front of the number.

*You may or may not want to add a column on the left side for the value of amount of products you've given away for promotional stuff.

*Materials: Save your receipts, or have a little notebook handy to track how much your spending on your materials so you can input that stuff into the spreadsheet later. ALSO!! I don't count materials that I consider as an investment. For me, that would be rubber stamps, because I can reuse those over and over. For you, it might be your rotary cutter. If you want, you could create another column for start up costs.

*The right side of the spreadsheet is for money coming in. I sell advertising on my blog so I have a column for "Blog Sponsors". If you don't do this, don't add it!

*If you have other ways that money is coming in (like craft fairs), add a column for that too.

*Take your total profit (on right) and subtract your total spent (on left). Then try not to weep! Especially if you're in the beginning stages of your business, it will take a while for you to see all of your hard work and investments pay off!

Did I leave anything out? Is there a fool-proof way you track your business related stuff? If so, please enlighten the rest of us!!

Also, if you'd like a copy of this template, just shoot me an email (sarah at yesteachercrafts dot com) and I'll send it to you free of charge. Because I like you!