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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:

• Books – required reading for certification, your doula library, professional development
• Educational aids for use during prenatal/postpartum
• Clothing and shoes purchased for use at births
• Business cards and stationery
• Advertising and Marketing fees
• Cell phone expenses
• Business phone line expenses
• Office supplies
• Copying services
• Meals and/or Beverages at client interviews
• Meals with professional colleagues for networking purposes
• Fees to networking events
• Food and supplies that you take to a birth
• Certifying Doula organization and other professional membership dues
• Professional publication subscriptions
• Percentage of Internet and Utility fees used in the home (I highly recommend tax advice on deducting use of your home and utitlities for business)
• Website fees – hosting, domain, online subscriptions for services tied to your website
• Fees paid to professionals for outsourced services (logo and website design, accounting, legal advice, business coaching, etc)
• Business mileage
• Interest and annual fees for business credit cards
• Bank fees for business bank account
• Software for use in business
• Parking and toll fees
• Conferences and Travel Expenses – conference fees, meals, flights, car rentals, hotel accommodations, tips, taxi fare
• Professional development training workshops – for your profession as well as courses that help you build your business
• Liability insurance

For more information from the tax man himself, visit the website for the Internal Revenue Service. They also offer a variety of opportunities to learn more about small business taxes, by DVD, streaming online video, phone/webinars and in-person classes. So, there’s really no excuse to not be more in the know about taxes for your small business. To find out more about specific business expenses, do a search on the IRS site for Publication 535 – Business Expenses.

Tracking Your Expenses

On another note, how are you tracking your expenses? Here are some tips:

• Save all your receipts. Organize them in a way that makes sense to you. Some people have an envelope for each month of the year and store receipts by month. Others may have something as simple as a basket, folder or manila envelope to save all of them for the year.
• Keep up with recording your expenses. Some business owners use a program like Quickbooks, Quicken or Microsoft Money. Others track expenses by category in a spreadsheet program like Excel. Yet others manually record their expenses in a notebook.
• For expenses such as meals and coffee, write on your receipt who you went out with and the purpose of your meeting. For example, if you had a cup of coffee at Starbucks with a potential client for an interview, write "Name of Person, Doula Interview".
• There are all kinds of rules for deducting the use of your home for business. It’s a good idea to get professional advice about whether you should deduct these types of expenses, especially if you choose to do your own taxes. Sometimes these types of deductions can raise flags with the IRS. Your taxes may be affected if you have been deducting home use expenses and buy and sell your home within a certain time frame.
• If you are seriously building your business, you may want to consider hiring an accountant to do your taxes or get advice. They can often point out many deductions, business and otherwise, that lower your tax liability and be well worth the fees you pay to them. To find a good accountant, consult with other small business owners. If you have small business networking groups (doula or non-doula groups alike) in your area, seriously consider joining one or two to get business advice.

As always, I hope this information is helpful to you as you close out the year. If you have enjoyed these blog posts, please consider clicking on the "Share This" link below and share some posts on sites like Digg, Facebook and StumbleUpon. I’d appreciate your help in being able to help more birth professionals through these forms of viral marketing.

We’ve passed the halfway mark with the Reorganize Your Doula Business Series. I’m always curious to know how I can better help doulas and other birth professionals, so please email me your thoughts and send me comments, tweets and add to the Facebook group discussions.

Tomorrow we’ll touch briefly on the fascinating topic of financial reports for your business! (Okay, I’m being a little sarcastic) Have a wonderful day!

Tags: become a doula, business expenses, doula business tips, tax deductions

Other Savvy Posts You May Enjoy:

1. Day 17 of Reorganize Your Doula Biz – Getting Your Books Straight
2. Day 15 of Reorganize Your Doula Biz – Is This a Business or a Hobby?
3. That Time of Year is Creeping Up on Us Again. Are You Ready?
4. Quick Tip Wednesday – Learn Tax Basics for Small Business Owners Directly From The IRS
5. Day 30 – Reorganize Your Doula Biz for ‘09 – Joining Professional Groups For Business Growth