My goal is to help handmade and creative business owners learn to handle their bookkeeping with confidence – one step at a time.
I’ve been teaching business owners about bookkeeping and using software for 35 years as a:
- career bookkeeper
- small business owner – where I write software and teach people how to use QuickBooks
- handmade business owner.
If you’re thinking of turning your love of handmade items (and perhaps your current hobby) into a real business
~ OR ~
If you already have a handmade or creative business and are looking to get your finances under control
Then you’ve landed in the right place!
I’m here to fill that gap left by the handmade business coaches who don’t teach you anything about bookkeeping or even basic recordkeeping, and:
- help you understand two common financial reports – the Profit & Loss and the Balance Sheet
- talk to you about your reporting obligations to the IRS
- teach you HOW to create a bookkeeping system using spreadsheets, Wave (free), and Zoho Books & Inventory (free)
- show you how to enter the common, everyday transactions
When I started my handmade business a few years ago, I subscribed to a membership site that was pretty popular with a lot of budding yarnpreneurs at the time.
I was appalled the just about the entire system was focused just on selling!
Sure, there was one module that talked about getting legit, that was written by a CPA. She talked about the drop dead basics:
- the importance of setting up a business checking, savings, and credit card
- not mixing business and personal expenses
- types of records to keep
- how long to keep your records
Then the CPA briefly talked about your Profit & Loss, Cost of Goods Sold, Inventory and a few other things. But she did it in such a way that I was left going “HUH?”, because it was so vague and so general. Even though I’ve been doing this for 35 years!
You’d think, if these handmade business coaches offered a course on how to start a handmade business, that they’d offer a module that actually taught you some basic bookkeeping procedures. Right?
I mean, none of us are born knowing how to do bookkeeping – OR – suddenly wake up one morning knowing everything that it takes years of schooling, lots of money, and daily practice to do.
I’m here to fill the gap left by the handmade business coaches, when they don’t teach you anything about bookkeeping or your reporting obligations to the tax man.
If you feel like you’ve been kicked to the curb, left to figure it out on your own, and you’ve ended up:
- doing a lot of “Google-ing” about how to handle your bookkeeping
- find a whole bunch of STUFF that was outdated, contained too many confusing terms, or just wasn’t what YOU were looking for
- contacting the SBA (Small Business Administration) and got hooked up with a SCORE Mentor – only to find that they didn’t have a flippin clue about handmade business
- figuring out that the SCORE Mentor just really wanted you to buy a subscription to a popular web-based (or online) bookkeeping software and spend $150.00 for it the first year – when you’re not even bringing in any money yet!!! (And after the first year that same software is going to cost you $300.00 a year – if the price doesn’t go up!)
- feeling like there has to be something better than that spreadsheet you download for free or bought and have to keep plugging in the same numbers in multiple places
- feeling dammed frustrated over the amount of time you’ve WASTED!
Are you’re wondering if that woman, Carol in a Facebook group you belong to, was right when she said:
- Oh honey, you don’t need to worry about that until you’ve made $400.00
- you’re just a hobby business because you made less than $1,000.00
- Or, you don’t need to worry about all that bookkeeping and financial stuff until you’ve taken this, that, or the other course
even though it sounded kina wonky….
Just when you were about ready to throw up your hands in total frustration and yell “I F-ING QUIT“, you ended up here.
Hi again. I’m Nancy, the YarnyBookkeeper, and I’m here to help you with your bookkeeping needs!
I can’t teach you everything that it’s taken me 35 years, thousands of dollars, and I don’t even know how many hours of doing bookkeeping tasks on a daily basis.
But, I can certainly help you discover what you ultimately want to get out of your bookkeeping system, how to set it up, and how to enter the day to day stuff by implementing good processes and procedures.
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