For today’s post, I’d like to provide you with a simple tool you can use to estimate how much money you will make and how much money you will spend next year. With this tool, you can forecast your income and expenses and see how much money you will make (or not) in 2009.

Why should you do a forecast? First of all, it’s an element of a good business plan. Here are some other benefits:

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For today’s post, I’ll be revisiting an old one I wrote a few months ago regarding business expenses. I thought I’d share a list of deductible expenses today for your business. It’s by no means comprehensive, but maybe there are some items that you haven’t thought of:

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When you have a business it’s important to keep accurate records. Here are some ways to help:

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Why did you become a doula? What are your intentions for doing this work? Doulas enter this profession for many reasons. If you became a doula and your main intent is to do this as ministry work or to help friends and family, you may not necessarily have to classify your work as a business. If you became a doula as a way to earn income and eventually make a profit and you live in the U.S., you do have an obligation to make sure you are in compliance with state and IRS requirements.

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I have never been able to develop the habit of writing down my mileage whenever I drive somewhere for business. My accountants have let me calculate my annual business miles by using the calculations I obtain from Google Maps.

Simply plug in your start and end destinations into an online map program, map it out and print it. Write down the date, where you went and the purpose of your trip on the sheet. The total miles is your one way trip mileage. Multiply that by 2 and that’s your round trip mileage. If you went to several destinations, map the distance for each one.

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