The wife has just started her beauty business working from home.
We could do a spreadsheet but for the small cost it seems like it would be best to use one of the many apps available to track income and outgoings etc as I believe you can scan in receipts etc to keep all the info required for a tax return etc.
Don't expect to earn enough to pay tax this year but will need to keep proper records etc.
What apps do people recommend? Most seem to go with QuickBooks which is £4 a month for 4 months and then £8 thereafter.
I've used a spreadsheet for many years. Pretty simple to use and gives a lot of options to extract data as required. I'd be tempted to start with that and if you hit a limitation then find an app that solves that particular issue.
We used to keep proper records on ledgers and in ring-binders!
As nickjb says - start with a spreedsheet and see how you go. Then you'll see what you need and can better choose an online system should you want to go that way.
We used Wave accounting, it was free and easier and quicker to use than a spreadsheet after a wee bit of initial setup, so we just used it right from the start. Some of the more complex systems may auto populate tax returns, or sync seamlessly with your accountant (if you use one) but we felt all were overkill for us as it was a fairly simple low income business.
I can't fault Freeagent (about £20 a month). I moved from double-entry manual bookkeeping several years ago and immediately wished I had done it sooner. And their support is great too – UK based and usually reply within the hour if you have any questions (which I did recently having just had our business being ordered to undertake a VAT Assurance check so I needed lots of details for HMRC)
freeagent is free if you are a natwest business customer
I've been using it for a number of years and it works - does what i need at least
I use self employed QuickBooks.
Really simple to use, email invoices, pop through expenses, easy to export into TaxCalc (Landlord) at the end of a year. It's connected to my bank, so has now learned what payments are what each month, speeding things up even more.
It's got my tax return down to an hour these days...
