Homesteading Income Expense Spreadsheet (for Homesteaders & Small Farms)
This Homesteading Income Expense Spreadsheet is designed to make the financial side of homesteading easier. Maintaining a working farm takes dedication, attention to details and time. A lot of time. But we love most every minute of it. I say most, because taking care of the numbers can be frustrating and time-consuming.
When the income is less than the expenses, it can be heart-breaking. But the flip side can be even worse – not keeping up with the financial numbers. If you don’t know how much is coming in, or how much is going out, you could very easily lose everything you have worked so hard for.
Most accountants want a breakdown of everything you spend. The IRS wants to make certain you make a profit at least every 1 to 3 years. But how can you effectively know if you are?
Simple & Easy to Use!
This Homesteading Income Expense Spreadsheet is an Excel spreadsheet and does all the calculations for you. With the spreadsheet, you can break down each item under income and expense sections. Within your expense categories, you can break it down even further. With the formulas already in place, all you have to do is input the actual numbers, and Excel will calculate everything for you.
If spending less time on the numbers end of farming is appealing you, the Homesteading Income Expense Spreadsheet can work easily into your routine. I keep all my receipts, notes on cash income and invoices in a box on my desk. One day a week I sit at the computer and input all the information in the correct category.
Even on a heavy week, I usually spend one hour or less taking care of the financial business. Once I am finished with inputting the information, I store all the receipts in a Manila envelope with the year written on the front (just in case there are questions). That frees me up to work outside, or do other things.
The Homesteading Income & Expense Spreadsheet also comes in handy when it is time to do a budget. You can easily refer to last year’s expenditures to determine how much to budget for the next year. If you find yourself in desperate need of a large purchase, such as a new tractor or just expensive tractor parts, you can quickly access your budget and your Homesteading Income Expense spreadsheet and see where you stand financially.
DIY with the Homesteading Income Expense Spreadsheet
I now have a spreadsheet budget and Income & Expense sheet dedicated to track my small farm finances. It makes the accounting so much easier, and less of a headache. I know exactly how much money I have, and where it is going.
There is also a chart that can help make decisions on what to keep and what to cut. For instance, with the chart I can see at a glance that our egg sales produce enough to provide feed for our chickens, plus a little profit. However, rabbits cost three times as much as the income they produce. It just would make sense to let the rabbits go, and put the money towards something else on the farm.
Once you have input amounts in the Income or Expense sections, a formula automatically transfers the information to a Chart Calculation section. This information is transferred to the chart. The chart lets you see at a glance where you stand in any category.
The Benefits of the Homesteading Income Expense Spreadsheet
Keeping strong financial records is one of the most important aspects of homesteading. It not only helps you keep track of your finances, but should you choose to create a business from your homestead, you will need to be able to provide other financial documents, such as a Profit & Loss sheet and financial statements in order to get get a loan.
The Homesteading Income Expense Spreadsheet can help you prepare your yearly taxes. All of your financial information is in one place, and a printout of your spreadsheet included in the packet will make it easier to fill out the appropriate forms.
Another benefit of having a Homesteading Income Expense spreadsheet with a chart is that you can free up time for other things. However, to do it from scratch, it can take a full day, and up to several days to do the design work, input the categories, get all the information down and create working formulas for each category. And that is before you begin adding your numbers. It seems to defeat the purpose.
But with the Homesteading Income Expense Spreadsheet, the hard part has already been done for you! Categories, formulas, and a chart are completed, and ready for your customization. Below you can easily download the Homesteading Income Expense Spreadsheet, complete with an Income/Expense/Difference chart that shows you where you stand. There are even categories for diversified income and expenses, such as a website, speaking engagements and classes you may teach.
In order to capture as many aspects of homesteading as possible, there are categories that may not apply to your homestead. No worries! The Homesteading Income Expense Worksheet can easily be customized specifically for your homestead.
Once you download (and save a copy to your Excel program – PLEASE!) you can easily go in and personalize it to your homestead, either by deleting sections that you don’t have, or overwriting them for categories that aren’t listed. For instance, you may not have cattle, but you do have Alpacas or Llamas. It’s easy to go to the Cattle category, click on the category cell, and type in ‘Alpacas’. Then in the breakdown categories, you can change anything that doesn’t apply. You can also add rows for categories that aren’t listed, and simply copy and paste the formula into the correct cell.
Yes, you may have to take a few hours to get everything set up initially. At least a basic working knowledge of Excel is recommended, as there may be some formula changes that may need to be made to accommodate the changes made for your homestead. But one day of set up, and then an hour or less a week for maintenance is easily better than a full day every month, or several days at the end of the year.
Plus – if you have any questions on how to set it up I am just an email away!
Are you Ready?
Are you ready to invest in your homestead? Having a firm knowledge of your income and expenses is one of the blest places to start. Take the worry, frustration, and confusion out of keeping track of your homesteading income and expenses with the Homesteading Income Expense Spreadsheet!
