A Monthly Checklist That Saves You Time and Money

Record keeping is not an exciting task for most family child care providers. One way to reduce the time and stress of record keeping is to conduct a monthly review of your records.

If you throw every business receipt and record into a big box and wait until the end of the year to sort them out, you will create a much bigger job for yourself and you are more likely to miss something. A regular monthly review will save you time and money later.

At the end of each month ask yourself:

Have I recorded all payments? If not, make sure your records show how much each parent paid you, how much you received from the subsidy program and the Food Program.

Do I have complete attendance records? If not, reconstruct the days and hours children were in care.

Have I recorded all the hours that I used my home for my business when day care children were not present? If not, pick two months each year where you will carefully track on Minute Menu these hours. Use this average for the rest of the year.

Have I kept a record of all my business trips in KidKare or elsewhere? If not, go back through your records and update this information.

Have I saved all my business receipts? If not, reconstruct your expenses with cancelled checks or credit/debit card statements. If you have no records at all, make a note of what items you purchased, how much it cost, and then take a picture of it.

Do my receipts clearly identify what I bought? If not, mark on the receipt what is missing (date, name of item, cost).Use this monthly checklist to help you save time and money on your taxes!

Tom Copeland - www.tomcopelandblog.com 

Image credit: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/checklist-list-check-check-list-911841/

For more information see my Family Child Care Record Keeping Guide.

Tom Copeland, www.tomcopelandblog.com