An increasing number of independent professionals are building successful online businesses – successful internet based enterprises can include anything from blogs that are monetised via advertising through to subscription based information services or even online applications. With inniAccounts you can effortlessly manage your online business’ finances.
Getting started
You may find it beneficial to customise your company’s list of accounts – this will allow you to generate detailed reports to better track the success of your online business. You’ll find your account list in the Bookkeeping area. For a blog-based business you may wish to create the following accounts:
- Sales categories: advertising income; affiliate sales; subscriptions
- General expenses: hosting and domain names; advertising; SEO services; design and development services
Your account manager can arrange for these extra categories to be created – just raise a request or send them an email and they’ll create them for you.
Receiving income
For online business it is common for your business’s bank account to be automatically credited with sales income (for example, Google Adsense income or commission from affiliate partners). In order to record this income in inniAccounts, select the relevant account from the Bookkeeping area. You will then need to use the Enter new transaction button and select Other income.
Complete the entries using the information on your bank statement – you will notice that the accounts you created in the previous step are displayed in the category list. Remember to confirm that the entered details match your bank statement and save the transaction.
Dealing with multiple currencies
You may find that you have to deal with currencies other than Pounds Sterling (GBP) – for example, you may accrue advertising income in Euros or expenditure via PayPal in Dollars. In these cases just enter the converted GBP amount as detailed on your bank statement.
Managing expenses
Similarly, you will often incur expenditure that is related to your online business – be this web hosting charges or web designer’s fees. You should also record these outgoings via Bookkeeping – select Enter new transaction, then Other outgoing / expense.
Setting up regular payments
If you have regular outgoings such as hosting charges, advertising fees or support fees you may find it quicker to set up a regular, repeating payment using Regular payments & savings.
Reporting
Categorising your company income and expenditure using custom accounts makes it much easier to view the finances for your business in isolation. Your newly created accounts will be displayed in report centre reports, such as a profit and loss report. You can even download these reports to Excel for further analysis as and when you need to.
