I practice intuitive spending so tracking expenses is really challenging for me. I find it restrictive and intrusive so I avoid it in my personal life. But, since I’m self-employed I have to track my business expenses for tax purposes.
This week I sat down and went through all of my expenses from the past six months and created a profit and loss statement. Surprisingly, it only took me about an hour! My business expenses are pretty minimal so I prefer “batching” my money dates rather than having a monthly one. (I still skim my bank statements every month in case there are any false charges on there, but I currently do not track my profit and loss monthly.)
**side note: If you have good money habits, there is nothing wrong with having rare money dates. But, you have to have the foundation in place before you can go six months without reviewing a profit and loss statement. Maybe in the future I will have more regular money dates, but as of now I am okay with the way I currently handle things.
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Business Expenses I Track
I currently use a Google sheet to track my expenses. I like using Google sheets because they saves automatically and I can access them from any device.
Based on conversations with my CPA, here are the expenses I track as a real estate agent. (I’m not a CPA so these are just my interpretations of what to track!)
- Advertisements and marketing – I include listing photography, online lead sources, and any other marketing I do in this category.
- Dues – as a Realtor, I have a lot of dues I must pay to my brokerage, local association, lockbox, the multiple listing service, and government. Luckily, these are items I can write off.
- Education and seminar – Any continuing education courses or seminars I take I can write off my income!
- Gifts – I track client gifts but the amount per client is limited. Ask your CPA about this.
- Meals – I don’t typically eat out with clients very often, but when I do I track this too.
- Supplies – I track business cards and folders as well as other supplies needed for my business.
- Parking – If I go downtown and have to pay for parking, I add the costs to this section.
- Postage – I love sending cards to my past clients so I record the postage stamps I purchase.
- Taxes – CPA’s aren’t cheap but they are so worth it for me! I write off the cost of this as well.
- Mileage – I use the app MileIQ to track my drives. It’s really easy to use and you can classify the drives as business or personal.
My Real Estate Money Date
My business expense tracking money date is pretty simple. I sit down a few times a year- print/pull up all of my bank statements, my Venmo history (I pay photographers with this), and calculate every single expense and income deposit.
I make sure to verify my deposits with the number of transactions I’ve had on my Zillow page. Sometimes they show up in the wrong order on bank statements and I miss some so I make sure every transaction is counted by referencing my Zillow profile.
If you’re a Realtor and found this helpful, comment below!
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