Self-Employed
Self-Employed
Self-employed? Manage expense tracking, invoicing, and travel expenses with Expensify
Seamlessly track your self-employed invoicing and business and travel expenses
Being your own boss has a lot of perks. But it also comes with a lot of challenges, including how to manage your finances. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a freelance business consultant or run your own event planning agency with a few employees. One thing remains the same: your obligation to track and report on your business expenses.
Luckily, you can take advantage of all that Expensify has to offer, with small business expense tracking, invoicing, and managing your travel expenses as just a few of the things our all-in-one app does. With Expensify, keep your finger on the pulse of your business expenses and never miss a beat while you juggle everything else that comes with being self-employed.
What business expenses should self-employed individuals be tracking?
Self-employed folks generally incur a variety of costs as they establish, run, and expand their business. These can include things like:
Home office expenditures
Office supplies
Equipment
Software subscriptions
Marketing costs
How to track expenses for a small business
Most solopreneurs and self-employed individuals wear many hats, and managing their business finances is just one of them. Tracking self-employed business expenses like receipts and invoices and keeping tabs on travel costs are vital to maintaining a healthy cash flow and ensuring tax compliance.
Here’s a quick breakdown of how to track your self-employed business expenses:
Keep all receipts: keep all your receipts for business-related expenses, including meals, transportation, accommodation, and other necessary expenses.
Use expense management software: utilize spend management or expense software for small businesses to track your expenses on the go.
Maintain a log: keep a detailed log of all your business expenses, including the date, amount, purpose, and category of each expense, especially for tax purposes.
Separate personal and business expenses: keep personal and business expenses separate to make sure you accurately track only your business-related expenses and stay within IRS guidelines.
Understand IRS guidelines: familiarize yourself with IRS regulations for deducting business expenses, including any limitations or exclusions that may apply to certain expenses.
Seek professional advice: consider seeking advice from a tax professional, especially if you have any questions or concerns about tracking and deducting your business expenses so you stay compliant with IRS regulations.
Features you’ll love when tracking expenses with Expensify
Think of Expensify as the ultimate self-employed expense tracker. It helps you simplify the financial logistics of being self-employed, allowing for easy capture of receipts and automation of expense reporting, streamlining the process of tracking business expenditures and saving the one thing you can’t get back: time.
Here are some highlights:
Scan receipts on the go
Snap photos of receipts using our receipt scanning app for instant upload and categorization for your expense reports. It makes small business receipt tracking as easy as 1, 2, 3!
Track mileage
Use our mileage tracking feature simply by entering your start and stop addresses. Expensify will automatically map your mileage, making sure the current IRS rate is applied.
Manage invoicing and payments
Easily create invoices for customers and manage your payments. Your customers will love the quick and easy payment options of credit or debit cards, ACH, and PayPal.me – and you’ll love the convenience.
Integrate with your accounting tools
From travel to HR to accounting, Expensify’s integrations can automatically sync with the systems you use most as a self-employed professional, saving you time and keeping you compliant for audits and tax season.
Reconcile credit card spending
It doesn’t matter if you use your own corporate card or the Expensify Card – both work when it comes to confirming statement amounts, reviewing expenses, and managing spending in the expense management app.
Get insights and custom expense reporting
Create custom expense reports to get a realtime view of your financials, building any type of report that suits your business’s needs while keeping an eye on cash flow.
Manage travel expenses with Expensify
With Expensify, tracking your travel expenses is a breeze. Say goodbye to the hassle of trying to keep all your paper receipts together and instead use the app to scan, capture, and automatically organize them. Plus, if you get digital receipts for using a rideshare app like Uber, the Expensify and Uber integration makes it easy to log all the little details so you can sit back and enjoy the ride.
FAQs
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“Solopreneur” refers to a self-employed individual who operates their business single-handedly, typically without building a team or hiring employees. Solopreneurs often focus on personal branding and manage all aspects of their business. In contrast, a self-employed business owner might work alone or with a team, and aim to grow their business beyond their personal capabilities, possibly hiring staff or outsourcing certain tasks to manage and expand their operations.
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Yes, small businesses and those who are self-employed absolutely need bookkeeping. This critical task involves recording, organizing, and managing financial transactions, including sales, purchases, payments, and receipts. Done effectively, it helps small business owners maintain accurate financial records, comply with legal obligations, monitor their business performance, plan budgets, and prepare for self-employed taxes.
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The 50 30 20 rule is a budgeting technique where you allocate 50% of your after-tax income to needs (like rent, utilities, and groceries), 30% to wants (like dining out and entertainment), and the remaining 20% to savings and debt repayment. This simple framework not only helps people to manage personal finances but is a great rule for those who are self-employed.
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To make a simple expense report, do the following:
Choose a format: select a template or software that suits your needs.
List expenses: add all business-related expenses with dates and amounts.
Categorize: group expenses into categories like travel, supplies, or meals.
Attach receipts: include copies or digital images of receipts for documentation.
Calculate totals: sum up the expenses for each category and the overall total.
Review: double-check for accuracy and completeness.
Submit: finalize the report and submit it to the relevant party, such as an accountant or tax preparer.
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Self-employed business owners can deduct a variety of travel expenses that are “ordinary and necessary” for their business. These may include the following:
Airfare, train, and bus tickets
Accommodation costs
Car rentals and mileage (standard IRS mileage rate)
Parking and toll fees
Meals (subject to 50% limitation in most cases)
Other travel-related expenses like baggage fees, business calls, and tips
Manage your self-employed expenses with Expensify
Enter your email or phone number below to start simplifying your self-employed expenses with Expensify’s expense management services.
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