Never miss a tax deadline!
The Sunlight Tax downloadable calendar will help you track important tax deadlines and keep those bookkeeping and accounting timelines on your working radar - with helpful tips from me. It will also point you towards trainings in Money Bootcamp that become relevant at that time of year so that you review the right training at the right time.
Each month, I recommend that you budget time:
to watch the videos in the section once for a general understanding
then watch again to take notes on your questions about the material, and to make a to do list for yourself
budget additional time to implement your to do list (this may look like planning time, discussions with your partner, bookkeeping time, or time on the phone with your bank)
Here is your roadmap for navigating the Money Bootcamp course material.
Recommended course order:
1. Taxes for Creative + Mission-Driven Freelancers: Self-Employment
This 3-part section gives you the foundation to understand everything else in Money Bootcamp.
If you're on a deadline to get your books started, you can skip ahead to 2. Deductions and then 3. the No Fear Taxes training. But you'll need to come back and complete the Taxes for Artists: Self-Employment section before proceeding with everything else.
The rest of the modules are in a logical order and build on each other, so I recommend doing them in order.
Your pace is up to you, but I recommend doing one training per month. You might want to watch the videos twice: the first time to wash over you, the second time to take notes and create an action plan for yourself. You may want to keep a list of questions related to each training section as well.
Aside from the Taxes for Creative and Mission-Driven Freelancers module, all the trainings have a written outline that the videos follow closely. Especially if you're a visual learner, I recommend printing out the outline and following along as you watch.
Bookkeeping is your key action in getting your financial shit together. I won't lie: setting it up is a big job. To curb the overwhelm, I recommend taking it in small chunks. Try to get years of mess settled neatly in a new system in one day? You will have an emotional breakdown. Give yourself some space to learn the system, and schedule regular sessions to use it? Yes - that's how you succeed. Aim for improvement, not perfection.
There are two options here.
Option 1: No Fear Taxes: Simple Spreadsheet Bookkeeping System. This is my own system I use for my painting practice, and developed over 15 years as an artist and accountant. If your goal is getting your numbers organized for a simpler tax experience, this is for you. You can use it to calculate estimated quarterly taxes, for sure, and it has built-in formulas to help you. However, because it is simple, it has some limits: if you need payroll, reports (like a Profit & Loss statement, Balance Sheet or Cash Flow statement), or if you are a product-based business that tracks Cost of Goods Sold and does not file a Schedule C as an "Independent Artist Writer or Performer" (NAICS code: 711510), then you will need bookkeeping software, not my spreadsheet setup.
Option 2: Bookkeeping with QuickBooks Self-Employed Tutorial. If you need bookkeeping software, this one is for you. Note: I don't love Quickbooks, it's just the industry standard, and that's why my tutorial is on it. Other softwares you can try are Wave (free, but hiring help may be worth it), Xero, Sage, and Freshbooks. These are just a few of many.
You can watch both and then decide, or use this guide to determine if you're better to set up on software or a simple spreadsheet.