If you love bookkeeping, put your hand up. Thought so. Let’s be honest, the majority of us cringe at the thought of creating (and maintaining) an event budget, even though it’s an integral part of being a successful event planner.

If you’re like me you’d rather do anything (I mean anything!) other than your weekly or monthly bookkeeping for your events or event planning business.

Over the years I’ve learned the hard way that ignoring receipts, bills, and financial accounts causes a lot of stress, and that following small, simple bookkeeping tips makes organizing your events and events business a lot easier and more fun (OK, maybe not fun, but a lot less stressful! ;-)).

5 Easy Bookkeeping Tips

That’s why we’ve included an already done for you event budget template in The Event Toolkit and why we’re sharing these valuable bookkeeping tips so you can take a few simple steps that’ll make a (huge) difference in the way you approach and handle your business accounting.

No matter what type of accounting software you use (like event planning software,FreshBooks or an excel spreadsheet), these bookkeeping tips will save you a lot of time and many headaches!

1. Bookkeeping is all about getting into the habit of documenting your expenses and receipts. Determine a day and time each week to input your event expenses.
2. Have a separate business account that you use solely for your events or business. This way it’s easy to check your balance and monitor transactions.
3. On all your receipts, circle the date, amount paid, and write the event name on the top. By doing this it saves time when you’re documenting your receipts and makes finding relevant information easier if you need to search for it once the event is done i.e.: if you get audited.
4. Keep your receipts by either filing them appropriately or by scanning and saving them in a specific file. This reduces paper clutter and, if organized, can make it very easy for you to find the information later.
5. Hire a business accountant who can help you save money, answer questions, grow you business, and do your annual taxes.

Tip: Many accountants suggest saving 20-25% of your revenue to pay your annual taxes and to build a contingency fund.

I’d love to know, in the comments because when it comes time to know the bottom line of your events, these 5 bookkeeping tips are sure to help.

What is one important change you can make to the way you handle your bookkeeping (whether it’s personal or business finances)?

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To your success!