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What do you use to track expenses? (9)

03-08-2012 05:00 AM #1 mattmatt483 (Senior Member)
What do you use to track expenses?

Hey everyone, I am looking for a software to use to track my expenses so next time its time to pay taxes I'm not spending hours looking through my bank statements to find write offs / other stuff. I was looking at quickbooks but was hoping one of you guys had something that you use that is better / easier to use. Because sometimes I'm putting money into my pof spending a few times a day and it seems like a real time waster having to go into the quickbook each time to input the amount spent. Let me know what you guys use!

03-08-2012 05:10 AM #2 jimcrim (Member)

I guess I'm old school. I just track P&L on a spreadsheet. Then again, I just send my CPA my biz statements at tax time and he figures the expenses out.

03-08-2012 08:48 AM #3 ianz63 (Member)

For my SEO projects I use my own software. For PPC where I'm spending every day, I just keep a spreadsheet manually, or if the traffic source provides it I export spreadsheets of spend. Honestly it's really easy since for example facebook shows you whatever you need... no need to go through bank statements.

Do you absolutely need to input your spend amount every day? Does POF not provide better historical stats?

03-08-2012 06:37 PM #4 mattmatt483 (Senior Member)

Quote Originally Posted by ianz63 View Post
For my SEO projects I use my own software. For PPC where I'm spending every day, I just keep a spreadsheet manually, or if the traffic source provides it I export spreadsheets of spend. Honestly it's really easy since for example facebook shows you whatever you need... no need to go through bank statements.

Do you absolutely need to input your spend amount every day? Does POF not provide better historical stats?
I don't need to because I could end up doing it with a spreadsheet but that takes a decent amount of time when I got to get it all together for taxes. And if there is something easier out there I would rather do that

03-08-2012 10:16 PM #5 luscioust (Member)

I still put everything in quickbooks. If I get emailed a receipt, I put a label on it such as "2012 receipts" that way when tax time comes around I just click on the label and it pulls up all the receipts

03-09-2012 03:21 AM #6 ianz63 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by mattmatt483 View Post
I don't need to because I could end up doing it with a spreadsheet but that takes a decent amount of time when I got to get it all together for taxes. And if there is something easier out there I would rather do that
I guess I must be missing something as I don't see how it takes so much time. In case a traffic source goes bust and they no longer have my spend data saved, I note down how much I spent monthly in a spreadsheet. But never needed it after all.. In February after I've received all my 1099s I just do my taxes in turbotax over a couple days and grab my ad spend from my traffic sources by simply logging in and checking it, then entering in turbotax.. Not much time taken

03-09-2012 05:33 AM #7 heavyt (Senior Member)

I use one card for everything and expenses between other accounts and I use quicken business and home and have it download the statements and imports automatically.

03-09-2012 02:44 PM #8 mattmatt483 (Senior Member)

Quote Originally Posted by ianz63 View Post
I guess I must be missing something as I don't see how it takes so much time. In case a traffic source goes bust and they no longer have my spend data saved, I note down how much I spent monthly in a spreadsheet. But never needed it after all.. In February after I've received all my 1099s I just do my taxes in turbotax over a couple days and grab my ad spend from my traffic sources by simply logging in and checking it, then entering in turbotax.. Not much time taken
Hey Ianz I don't mean just my ad spend I also want to be able to have all of my write offs in one place like accountant / web hosting / legal fees ect. I mean I could do the spreadsheet idea like you are saying it's just that I want to see if there is anything that could make it a little easier on me

03-09-2012 02:53 PM #9 mattmatt483 (Senior Member)

Quote Originally Posted by heavyt View Post
I use one card for everything and expenses between other accounts and I use quicken business and home and have it download the statements and imports automatically.
Just got the quicken business and home last night still trying to figure everything out but so far it looks pretty good

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