Accounting Q

[Hartingirl]

Good morning!

I am about to open and as of right now, have no idea how I'll track my expenses and tuition payments for each family.

I'm assuming the easiest way to track expenses is with a ledger of some sort and just log items and save receipts. Is that the best way?

How can I stay organized regarding tuition payments for each family and keeping track of that?

Thank you!

[holly333]

I keep a wall calendar to track schedules/payment week to week and use minute menu at year end to do billing-parent receipts and taxes.

[permanentvacation]

If you research online, you can find some software that is designed for daycare providers to keep track of income, expenses, mileage, etc.

Personally, I write a hand written receipt from a receipt book I buy either at Walmart or the local office supply store to my parents each time they pay me. I always buy the receipts that have duplicate copies so the parent gets the top copy and I keep the bottom copy for my records. On the bottom of the receipt is a space to write the dates the receipt applies for. Whenever I need to check to see who has or hasn't paid, I just flip through the last week's worth of receipts.

For my expenses; I have a brown expandable file folder with sections labeled for each month. Throughout the month, I just toss my receipts in that month's section.

My state's food program requires that we keep certain documentation from them. So I have a folder in my daycare file box where I keep my food program paperwork. It includes my copy of the meals/children I have served for each month. As I get a paycheck, I attach the paycheck receipt to that month's menus.

At the end of each month, I total up all of my income from my receipt book for the parents and that month's pay from the food program and all of my expenses. I keep my paper with my running total in the front of my expenses file folder.

I used to use the computer to keep my records, but after 2 daycare provider programs blew up and one computer blew up losing all of my records, I decided to just do everything by hand!

[melilley]

I use Minute Menu Kids to track expenses. If you join the food program, some of them offer it for free or a reduced cost. You could also make spreadsheets to keep track of expenses or there's a calendar keeper by redleaf that you can buy (my food program gives me one for free), also be sure to check out Tom Copeland. He has a ton of resources and books available to help child care providers!

[earlystart]

I use an excel spreadsheet to track my daycare income (tuition/food program). There is one master page, with everyone's payment on it in the order it was received by date. Then there are separate pages for each family (with the same information). At the end of each month I use the "auto sum" feature to automatically add up all their tuition and record that on a separate line. Then at the end of the year I can save each families separate page and it's their record of all their payments for the year. I do that instead of making a receipt for every payment (unless a parent needs one, then I have a separate excel template for that, found it online). Then I have a separate page that tracks the monthly totals, so I can get the grand total at the end of the year or for any given month.

For expenses, just save all the receipts, and file them according to the categories you will be using at tax time (not by date, because date doesn't matter): art, cleaning supplies, licensing fees, toys, food, etc.

Oh, and most importantly I save this file to a "cloud drive" that is automatically backed up on the internet, so I never have to worry about my computer crashing and losing my files. Dropbox is an example of a free cloud drive, it's just like a regular folder on your desktop, but every time you update the file it automatically uploads/syncs it to the internet. I use cloud drives for all my daycare documents, and all my personal documents I care about losing for that matter.

I'll attach a photo of my excel spreadsheet

[syricketts]

I love the fact that you can save your information to the cloud. Do you have a sample spreadsheet that I can see because I have no clue on how to create one and I am trying to get a way from paper.

[Thriftylady]

And photocopy your receipts. They fade these days, and if you get an audit, the IRS will not feel sorry for you if you can't prove your expenses!

[NillaWafers]

I too, use minute menu and have found it irreplaceable.

[AmyKidsCo]

Minute Menu Kids!!!

In August the Accounting section will be available across all platforms, which will make it perfect IMO.

[Blackcat31]

Old thread just in case anyone is answering OP

[Michael]

Originally Posted by Blackcat31

Old thread just in case anyone is answering OP

But it was never tagged so I upped it on the search results.

[Blackcat31]

Originally Posted by Michael

But it was never tagged so I upped it on the search results.

The other "cat" is our resident tagger

I try but she's really good at it and she remembers to do it so thats important too.

[AmyKidsCo]

Originally Posted by Blackcat31

Old thread just in case anyone is answering OP

Dang! I usually catch that before replying. I'm just way too excited about getting MMK on my Mac.