SIMPLE BOOKKEEPING INSTRUCTIONS using “Party Income/Expense Report” and “ Monthly Income/Expense Report” 1. Keep all your customer order forms together by party 2. After each party fill out a “Party Income/Expense Report” : (To arrive at the “Cost of Retail” .if you are at 25% profit you use 75% of the sales figure. Include the full amount of product that the hostess received on the Party sales line, we will subtract her credit under expenses. All other prizes or hostess gift that you paid for must be listed at your cost (include sales tax on these items) “Demo Items replaced” are new opened wax or items or missing items at your cost. (include sales tax on these) Do not include any order forms/bags/catalogues are this form. 3. At the end of the month list all outside orders/phone orders on one “Party Income/Expense Report” obviously there will be no Hostess credit, prizes etc. 4.
At the end of the month take all your “Party Income/Expense Reports” and total up each line…..log it on your “ Monthly Income/Expense Report”
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Next if you received a check from the corporate office (overrides, volume bonus, sponsor bonus etc.) list that income.
6. Now go through your corporate invoices and pull out total for Catalogues and all other Party paperwork (bags, orderforms, invitations etc.) List the total of these items plus their sales tax. 7. Now pick up any new demo items from your corporate invoices and lastly add up any freight costs (including COD) from the invoices. Add the addition demo items costs to your figure “Total Items Replaced for Demo” (if you started in the current year, your initial passion pack cost goes here as well) List your freight total under “Freight to You”). 8. The Mileage expense may not be 37.5 cent a mile so check with your accountant or the IRS on that. But all roundtrips to parties, meetings, biz oppty appointments, picking up orders from the corporate office, meals with your downline or scentsy sisters all are deductible. So go back through your calendar….because it adds up. 9. The rest of the “Overhead Expenses” are picked up from either your business checkbook, your credit card statement or saved receipts. If you have two telephone lines…you can claim one as business and even deduct the monthly base charge. (You may choose your cell phone as your business line).
10. Meals (either traveling due to your business or meeting with distributors) are 50% deductible but log the full value on these sheets and let your accountant make that adjustment. All postage paid to mail out any business material (orders, promos etc.) is fully deductible….all business advertising, trade show costs, office supplies, and copying etc. are fully deductible. 11. Talk to an accountant if you are interested in taking an “Office in the Home” deduction. 12. At the end of the year you should have twelve “Monthly Income/Expense Reports” which you can add each line and make one “Annual Income/Expense Report”. If you take that to your accountant (H&R Block or whatever) they will love you. If you do your own taxes, you will need to transfer that information on to a SCHEDULE C. You will also need to prepare a SCHEDULE SE. If you have only been with this business a short time or are doing the business VERY parttime….it may be a LOSS, but that is okay….you can take that “loss” against your other income and get more taxes back or pay less. To describe these instructions on paper may sound confusing but once you do one month of parties….you will see how EASY this is. If you use this system, please make many copies of these two forms. If you are using another method that works for you…keep using it! If you need to change something on these two forms to make them work for you….than change them!