The financial and time freedom of being our own boss is incredible. But let’s be real: having financial freedom means being tuned into our personal and business finances. A.k.a.: bookkeeping. Keeping track of what we’re spending and what we’re making in our businesses.
Some businesses outsource bookkeeping. Even though I have enough money to outsource my bookkeeping, I like to do it because it keeps me in touch with my business expenses. I can see where my business costs are not rising proportionally to my income. Or I can see the opposite: I have the money to invest in myself and my business where I might have assumed I needed to be more prudent.
I do my personal and business bookkeeping at the end of every month when I do my monthly reviews. I’ve developed this bookkeeping method over the course of the last 3 years. It’s saved me money by 1) not hiring a bookkeeper and 2) being in touch with what I’m spending so I’m spending on my business mindfully.
I hope this helps any of those who decide to do their business bookkeeping. It’s best to start this at the beginning of the year, but better now than never.
My bookkeeping as an independent escort
There are lots of things you can use to track your own expenses if you do it yourself. I use Excel to record my business expenses and income. I’m an escort with multiple 6-figures of revenue and here are the things I track:
Date the transaction happened.
This is straightforward.
Company or client.
Who I’m paying or who is paying me. With expenses, this helps me track where my money is going and helps me look up a transaction in my credit card history if I need to. With income, this helps me know where my money is coming from.
Reason.
For expenses, I use IRS categories (e.g. advertising, travel, repairs and maintenance, etc, etc.) If you’re not in the USA, you might have different categories For income, I’ve made my own categories such as: virtual, deposit, or the # of hours they booked.
Category.
Income or Expense. Easy.
Amount.
The amount I expected to pay/receive or the amount in another currency if I spend in EUR, GBP, etc. I’ll talk more about this below
Actual amount.
I’ve developed the “amount” vs “actual amount” because the actual amount is the amount I pay or get in USD. For example, if I paid in GBP, the converted USD amount will be here since I do my books in USD.
One way I use this in my income is when I get a credit card payment or CashApp payment, I’ll put the real amount here if I have to deduct transaction fees. Or in the case of a client adding a tip, I’ll add the expected amount to the “amount” column and the total amount I was paid in the “actual amount” column.
Method.
For expenses: which credit card or payment method I used. I have several business credit cards, so this is for keeping track of credit card payments and if I ever need to look up a transaction in the future.
For income, I state how people paid (CashApp, Cash, payment processor, etc). Again, this helps me if I need to look up the payment later. And I can get a trend of how most people are paying.
Location.
For expenses: I want to know where the expense was intended for, if any. Not all expenses have this filled out. However, it will be filled out if I paid for an Eros ad. I want to know how much I paid for Eros ads in DC and Virginia separately, for example.
For income: I label income according to location. DC, Virginia, California, etc.
Ultimately, I want to know how much money I am spending versus making in a certain place. It isn’t worth visiting or advertising in a certain city if I’m consistently spending more than I make or barely coming out ahead.
Notes.
Any additional notes I’d want to make about that transaction. For example, if a professional I’m paying has a different LLC name than what I know them for, I’ll add that note. Or if I make a purchase at Target, I’ll add a note about what I bought. On the income side, I’ll add the date of the future appointment for my deposit payments so I know what appointment the deposit is connected to.
Platform.
When paying for a client or advertising expense, I’ll add the platform they found me on. Eros, Tryst, P411, Twitter, TikTo… the list goes on.
When I note income, I state where the client found me. I use the same platforms across the board in this case because it helps me understand total expenditure of a marketing platform compared to total income of a marketing platform.
# of times.
This column is only for client expenses or client income. This is how many times a client has seen me. Over the last few years I’ve been working on my client turnover, aiming to see clients repeatedly.
Final tips
One other big thing I use in my bookkeeping is using color codes for line items.
If a line is colored light green, it means its’ a recurring expense. That helps me find it so I can copy and paste the Excel line and simply update the date of the transaction. This makes my monthly bookkeeping easier!
If I use light yellow, that means it’s a transaction I need to go back to. Perhaps, I need to contact customer service about a charge or I need to look back at what I bought so I can properly categorize it.
My Elite and Unconventional expenses are in light pink, so I can distinguish how much it costs to run my two separate businesses.
For Americans: AT THE VERY MINIMUM, I recommend tracking your expenses and IRS categories if you plan to write off expenses when you do your taxes. You do NOT want to be going through a year’s worth of receipts, credit card statements and emails to figure out what you spent money on and why.
As I don’t know the tax laws in other countries, I recommend you do something similar.
Bookkeeping with this data has allowed me to analyze my business expenses and make decisions going forward. For example, at the end of 2023 I was able to analyze where all of my sex work income came that year. And I could see how much money I spent on my escort business and compare it to how much money I earned. Doing it on a monthly basis allows me to avoid overwhelm at tax time and analyze on a monthly, quarterly and yearly basis.
If you want more business advice as a sex worker, read my other articles on Sassy Escort blog or join my Elite & Unconventional newsletter.
