Pro tip: Filing taxes for a side gig took me 4 hours longer than I budgeted

I picked up a small freelance bookkeeping job on the side back in March, nothing too crazy, maybe 10 hours a week. When tax time rolled around I figured it would take me maybe 2 hours tops since I do accounting for a living. But I spent the better part of a Saturday digging through PayPal statements and matching them to bank deposits because I never set up a separate business account. The PayPal fees threw off my totals and I had to manually adjust every single transaction from January to April. It ended up taking me 6 hours total, double what I planned. Has anyone else found a decent system for tracking freelance income that doesn't turn into a weekend project?

3 comments

3 Comments

charles_mitchell4d ago

yeah thats exactly why I started using a separate checking account just for side gig money, makes reconciling way easier since everything is in one place. also set up quickbooks self employed which auto sorts my transactions and calculates my quarterly estimates. it cost me like $15 a month but it saved me way more than that in time and headache at tax time.

angela_harris4d ago

Charles Mitchell nailed it with that separate account setup. I tried that myself last year after getting flagged for mixing personal uber eats charges with equipment purchases. The auto sorting software is a lifesaver honestly.

phoenix2464d ago

Tbh it's wild how much of adulting is just learning to separate things that got blended together.