what's up guys thanks for joining me for
a video today today i'm here with
brendan he is the creator of the perfect
accounting system that aims correct me
if i'm wrong but it's tailored
specifically to etsy sellers right
yeah that's correct specifically for
etsy sellers and we were just talking
before
um i started recording about how your
it's a course i know sometimes people
hear course and they tune out but guys
like listen for just another minute at
least like
this course is really just a how to stay
out of trouble with the irs
how to save money filing your taxes if
you are selling
on etsy and in general it sounds like um
if you're selling online if you have an
online business do you want to talk
really quickly about like
some of the introductory level things
that you cover for instance i thought it
was cool you said you
talk about registering your business
yeah sure so thanks for having me
um yeah so i have three different
courses all the courses cover kind of
the same
general ideas um just like a background
on what they do
so i kind of start off and go over what
you do when you first start out your
business
and some of those things include like
should you register for an llc
are you even a business like a lot of
etsy sellers run into this like
in my hobby or my business so i go over
that in a different tax some
implications with that um some of the
more broader things i go over
like the taxes in general like what
taxes you're gonna need to file what
forms you need to file how to do them
um also go over like different kind of
um administrative things like
like receipts and inventory and how to
keep track of the inventory and the
receipts
um and i also go over like sales tax
like what the heck is going on with
sales tax
server how to register for sales tax if
you need to collect it what you need to
do for selling etsy or outside of etsy
and then the main part of the course is
actually go through like a real
so i'm an accountant i have a client
that's an etsy seller and i walk you
through from start to finish
like she had nothing done for her books
so i walked you through step by step
like how to set up a bookkeeping system
and then how to keep track of it i
provide you with all the data so you can
do it with me
you can kind of follow along so that's
kind of the the general uh
overview of the course the main i guess
differences i have three different
courses the
the main difference is in this in the
intermediate and advanced course
you get one-on-one um access with me so
the intermediate course which i know
like one of your subscribers has
once a week i go on a zoom call just
like this and you can cop on and you can
ask me about the course you can ask me
about
your store you can ask me anything about
the finances and taxes um
outside of your etsy shop so that's just
a you know one-minute overview of the
course
no that's good and just in case you know
anybody wants to tune out now if this is
not something you're interested in if
you're not selling on etsy
may not be for you however i mean just
understanding like
having somebody there that's a
professional that can help you make
sense of something as simple as like
opening your business you know because i
do get that i see that question a lot
and i'm never that confident in the
answer it's like
for me personally as soon as i left
college i uh i had
a family friend assist me who had their
own business in
opening my business and it was so that i
could do like freelance web development
you know i just kind of
carried that over to e-commerce you know
it's just a business tax id but
so i was fortunate in that like i got it
out of the way and i had somebody to
show me the ropes but
i think you the basic version of the
course is like 99
yeah so the basic version is 97 the
intermediate course is 197
and then the advanced course is 4.97 so
like i said the intermediate
course the only difference is um you get
access to like these weekly zoom calls i
do with everybody
and the difference with the advanced
courses for 497 you get like three
free one-on-one calls with me um you
know whether through zoom and like i
said you can talk about whatever you
want your etsy shop how to open a store
um how to do the taxes how to do the
bookkeeping you know all that good stuff
yeah so it's all good in general if
you're operating an online business
so um that's good and then also do you
talk about things like
uh what kind of business to open like
sole proprietor
versus llc yeah yeah yeah i'll kind of
just go into that real quick because
that that's a question that a lot of
people bring up it's like
should i be an llc or not and at what
point and i'll just say this
everybody i talk to they think that
there's like a dollar amount
where all of a sudden you're an llc now
there's no dollar amount and there's
really no
um there's no tax consequences with
being a sole proprietor or an llc
so the main difference between a sole
proprietor and llc is a legal one
so it's only a legal one now i explained
it like this like
if you're selling on etsy and let's say
that you send me a product and it's
a terrible product and i want to sue you
if you're a sole proprietor i can sue
you and i can take
all of your personal assets whatever you
have your house your car whatever
if you're an llc and you follow the
rules of being an llc
then i can only take what the llc has so
how like i kind of explained it is like
how risky are you
like do do you want to be sued and if
you're sued like
what are the chances getting sued on
etsy probably pretty small i would say
but like do you want that extra
protection and if you do
if you want to kind of avoid some risk
that's why i would say get the llc
um but the main difference between the
sole proprietor and llc
is a legal one there's no tax
differences with an llc
or with um a sole proprietor
good to know um and then i was gonna ask
too like do you give
any insights in the course about
like in general organizing uh your
finances
around your e-commerce business there's
got to be best practices like the
biggest difference when i think back
about my journey i'm
over four years into it now dating back
to wait
yeah late 2016 so yeah over four years
is
like going into it really not having in
this case not having guidance as far as
what it meant to operate a business and
to me the biggest thing was getting
structure like literally
getting friction and spending time in
excel just kind of like
keeping this data organized that i was
going to need and that really translated
into every single
income stream that i have now yeah yeah
and that's something a lot of people
struggle with like the biggest question
i hear is like i don't even know where
to get started like how do i even start
so in the course the majority of the
course itself
i um i walk you through how to set up a
proper bookkeeping system
so i do it in quickbooks online
quickbooks self-employed and i do it in
excel
so i start with nothing i i have a
client in seattle she had
nothing so i start with getting all the
data that you need
and putting it into like a concise
system that you can like
use for your business that's the whole
point of the course is to like
have this information available to make
whatever decisions that you need to make
um so in the course yeah the majority of
the course probably four or five hours
of the course
is walking through how to set up a
proper system and then how to maintain
that system moving forward
um so that all your information is
easily accessible
you got it right
in building a system and learning the
fundamentals
is there a uh you know like is
quickbooks enough like are they is there
kind of a
you know because i'm also a believer in
teaching the fundamentals sure
at the same time since this is tax
related you know like an accounting like
you know it's kind of a not to insult
your profession but some people like
like a little bit of a dry subject so
for sure i
i don't disagree with that um as far as
like the fundamentals
i hate on excel i always talk crap on
excel just because
it's not perfect not professional i
would say but
excel is like a perfectly viable option
to keep track of everything that you
need
whether it's for tax purposes or just to
like see
where your money's going i know that
accounting and bookkeeping is definitely
a dry subject i do not think that it's
like some
exciting thing to do but i think a lot
of people
uh don't realize that being a business
owner you know whether it's an etsy
business or an online business like
you need to have these skills and you
need to be able to like read this stuff
to make decisions like i see a lot of
people just fly around blind
they have no idea what they're doing
money's coming in left and right money's
going out left and right they don't know
where it's going and
you know six months down the road
there's no money left in their bank and
they're wondering where it went
and it's because they don't have a
system set up so that's you know
my little pitch on that nah man
i see when i'm like i'm not saying i see
it all the time
but i do on occasion you know my
subscribers know
that i do like some shop reviews and
i'll be doing like etsy shop reviews and
it's one thing to be like you know we
were talking a little bit about print on
demand but
certain platforms will let you
essentially
like essentially they'll do everything
for you and pay you a royalty so you
can't go in the red
the worst you can do is break even or
you know have zero basically
whereas etsy lets you you know it opens
the box right because the way i
etsy is to you know sell products that
don't exist yet until after the sale and
then we outsource the
you know creation and fulfillment of the
order and if you don't set your pricing
correctly and you don't understand
the little nuances and hidden fees you
know maybe they're not that hidden but i
think etsy does a pretty good job of
hiding their little fees and uh you know
it's like if you miss anything you can
be spending all this time and effort
selling at a loss
you know and it's it's unbelievable that
that's
that's a big question i guess like what
do i price my item for it's like well
what are your costs
and they're like i don't know and it's
like okay you know how much shipping
costs you know how much your etsy fees
cost well what about your rent what
about
the products what about you know the
material that you needed to buy that
like the
the product itself like it's super easy
to
and i get hated on this all the time but
you know sales are different than
profits you know you can sell a million
items but if you
don't make any money like you're not
you're not going to ipo your etsy
business
like you know the whole point of it is
to make a profit i think and
pricing is part of that and accounting
is part of that absolutely
and let's bring it back how
you can benefit people that may join
the um the course the accounting system
talk about like
ways that you can save money you know
bottom line like is there any
deductions and also i'm sure somebody
watching this is asking about returns
like how they work how they factor in
sure so i'll answer that one first
returns
not to go into too much detail but
basically have all your sales here at
the top
and then your returns or your refunds
are right here so your total
gross sales is just your total sales
minus your refunds
you don't pay you don't pay income tax
on the refunds it's like it's not an
expense necessarily
but it's not income either so if you
have a hundred dollars of sales
twenty dollars of returns you really
have eighty dollars of gross sales and
that's what you're reporting the taxes
on
um as far as like the common tax
deductions i would say
i would say i'm more conservative you
know i'm not going to tell anybody to do
something that's
that's not you know in line with what
they should do um however i think a lot
of people miss
like obvious ones like any i say this
anything that's related to your business
is is a common tax deduction
you know whether it's buying a course
whether it's buying the materials
whether it's buying you know
pens and papers you know shipping a lot
of people like to do the home office
deduction you know which is kind of like
a
you know outsider one that you can use
and as far as like you know
another one like mileage a mileage is a
big one that you can use like
if you're traveling to michael's if
you're traveling to you know your
supplier's place
you can track those mileage as a
business deduction um
you know as far as that though it's
really just pretty simple like materials
anything that related to your business
advertising cost the shipping cost
um the etsy fees all that stuff is an
actual business expense
got it yeah
i haven't taken a lot of these expenses
honestly just because
i've needed a streamlined way of um
tracking them you know so
yeah i'll probably benefit from you know
taking the course myself
yeah yeah i show you how to keep track
of your mileage i show you how to keep
track of your home office deduction you
know things like that that are
overlooked like some of them are obvious
like if you buy a cup you know and you
sell a cup that's obviously a business
expense cost of goods
but there are other common ones that you
may miss because you don't just don't
know how to do it
yeah it makes sense um so i guess to
wrap up
like one question i think makes a lot of
sense to close with
is based on your experience working with
clients
when is it time to look for help
like who is how does somebody know that
they are an ideal candidate to be taking
the um the course sure so as far as
looking for help you know
i have people that haven't sold an item
yet just because they want to get legit
like that's the big thing i hear i want
to be legit i don't want to get in
trouble
so if you're just starting out i think
it's a good place to
um to grow with like
it's a lot easier to manage um your etsy
shop when it's smaller
than when you have 200 000 in sales
because there's going to be data all
over the place
obviously i you know i can teach you how
to deal with that amount of sales too
but the perfect candidate is somebody
that's just honestly clueless like when
it comes to the numbers
the finances the taxes and just kind of
gets like overwhelmed at it
you know i try not to be overwhelming
and like i said with the intermediate or
the advanced one i'm
there with you literally on the phone so
i can walk through you you know how to
do it or if it's set up right and things
like that
um but you know my ideal candidate
somebody that's
newer or is honestly just kind of lost
when it comes to this stuff
all right awesome hey program
is the perfect accounting system i'll
put a link right there in the
description
if anybody has questions uh is there a
way to like maybe field them
or yeah yeah sure so i'm i'm definitely
active on instagram
um you can go on instagram my name is at
etsy
accounting on instagram um that's that's
probably the best way to get in contact
with me honestly
i'm not super popular or like super
active on facebook
um so just hit me up on instagram if you
have that um i'm sure ryan can put you
in touch with me too
some somewhere another through email or
you can check out my website too the
website is
www.thetheperfectaccountingsystem.com
cool hey brandon thanks for being here
guys i'm going to put a link to the
the website and to his instagram in the
description so
hey i hope this is helpful and also i
mean if you guys have questions
too that you think maybe i can help with
i'll answer them in the uh comments
underneath the video and if you want to
chime in too i don't know if you yeah
sure yeah
doing that because this video will be up
for a while too that's the only thing
it's like a year from now people will be
posting questions i did do a video
where i talked about like state sales
tax and
etsy and it did like really well i wish
i knew you back then because i was
literally like
reading from the tax jar that we were
talking about prior to yeah
on the call but hey man i really
appreciate you being here yeah sure
thanks for having me
all right take care all right
you