Reviews, Recipes, and Random Slices of Life

Ah, the joys of filing taxes as a small business! You probably winced when you read that, as most people do when taxes are mentioned. Actually, this year was pretty easy for me, thanks to an up-to-date spreadsheet in which I'd already sorted my expenses by tax category: Advertising, including webpage hosting; Office Expenses, for paper and postage; Supplies, for books (including fiction) and equipment; Travel, and lodging for conventions; Food at events and workshops; Other - convention registration and miscellaneous membership fees; Other - movie tickets and DVDs; and the percentage of your internet you use for business.

Even if you're not planning on claiming your writing as a business this year, keeping track of your expenses (and your receipts!) is good practice.

However, one of the things I wish I'd known not to do earlier is to keep adding contracts and payment letters to the same folder over the years. It does get unwieldy eventually! Now I'm switching to putting the year's acceptances, payments, and paid contracts into a manila envelope and filing them away at the end of every year.