Account/Inventory software?

[slaughteredlamb]

The Mrs and I are trying to generate a bit of extra cash for ourselves by doing a bit of wheeling and dealing in various ways. Some of that is just selling off stuff we have lying around the house, some of that is by me doing a bit of freelance audio work, some of that is from me selling photos, and some of that is from us buying the odd antique or collectible from a eBay and selling at a market or vica versa. This is in no way big business, generally speaking we are talking small amounts of cash on each transaction with only a few transactions a month as we are only doing this on a very casual basis as and when required in the evenings and weekends and don't have the time nor the money to do this on a more serious level.

The problem we are having is keeping a track of what our profit is especially as a lot of the money is tied up in various things. For example. We both initially sold some of our possessions to raise some cash which we then topped up by both putting in £100 each. This then bought some equipment for me to do some freelance audio work. The money from that audio worked raised more than the equipment cost and with some of that 'profit' we bought some antiques which we sold at a profit, some of that money then paid for me to get some prints made up to sell at a gallery and so on and so on. As a result we know we have now 'made' more money than we first 'invested' but some of that 'profit' is in cash in the bank, some of it is in stock to be sold and some of that is in equipment that continues to let me earn money from it's use.

Is there a piece of software (ideally for the Mac but PC would also work) that doesnt cost the Earth and that would help us keep a track of what we've bought, how much we sold it for or how much money it's allowed us to earn, what fees we've incurred, what profit we have and how much of that is available in cash and how much of that is tied up in 'stock' (for example I may only sell one photo every couple of months in the gallery yet they have 10 photos of mine for sale there).

In writing this out it sounds as though we need some kind of business package but this really isn't a business. At best it could be considered a hobby and we are only talking about a couple of hundred quid here and there.

At the moment we are just using Excel but it's not really helping us. Maybe that's because we don't know how to set it up properly but it just seems very hard to be able to track where the money from x has been used to do y etc.

Any ideas?

[sarahA]

Not sure if it'd be out of your budget but we (and a couple of others on DDN) use Kashflow (http://kashflow.aislinks.com - yes it's a referral link but it also gets you £1+VAT per month saving, http://www.kashflow.co.uk to pay for the full price)

It is a business accounts software, based online so Mac/PC is no issue, nor is which computer you use (and there is an iPhone app if you have one). It would allow you to keep a note of items sold, purchased etc. You could also set up projects for your more project style things, you can keep notes and info in that and link it to purchases and invoices.

You can sign up and get the first 2 months for free so you get a good 60 days to give it a go and see if it's what you need before you start paying. Plus it will do invoices/quotes for you if you need them, and repeat automated billing if you need it now or in the future.

I'll also give you plenty of reports to help with telling the tax man about anything and you can easily categorise sales so that specific items/profit don't get included (eg. selling your personal possessions would not require to be declared to the tax man).

It's £15.99 + VAT per month or £14.99 + VAT with the referral link. Whilst it may sound like more cost, it is really worth the saved time that you'll hopefully find. As I say, not sure if it covers everything you need but it's worth a free look around to check

[slaughteredlamb]

Cheers for that Sarah. I had taken a quick look at Kashflow and some of it was above my head whilst other bits seemed to be close to what I was after but the big stumbling block is the monthly fee. I realise for a business £15 a month is minimal but for us it is too expensive. I don't mind a one of purchase if it's not too expensive (£75 is really the most I can justify at the moment and would prefer cheaper) but obviously free would be better.

I suspect that if I knew more about accounts and about Excel I could probably set up a spreadsheet that would do what I need but as I don't really know how to do accounts I don't really know how to set up Excel

[sarahA]

Only thing I can suggest with excel is a different worksheet for each type of income stream eg. one for selling your personal stuff, one for your photography, one for antiques. Put in both your expenses and sales for each category in that worksheet, and either have one spreadsheet per month (if it's a lot) or one for either a group of months or for the year depending on how long and manageable it is or isn't.

[Whatever]

Not sure if this will do what you want, but my mate is launching this in a few days time - http://billfor.it

If it's along the lines of what you're looking for but not quite, let me know as I can get him to add features. Not bad for free!