Ask HN: Accounting for Self-Employed/Contractors

[_mgr]

For those of you working for yourself in a self-employed/contracting capacity how are you managing your accounts?

Are you using something like Xero or an alternative? Do you have a completely seperate set of bank accounts or do you just have a side account off your main personal banking account?

Any suggestions you may have on managing the communications side of things would be interesting as well. Do you keep a seperate email address or even mobile number for "business" communications keeping everything seperate from your personal communication accounts?

I am located in New Zealand for what it's worth but I think a lot of this could be universal.

Thank you in advance.

[pavornyoh]

How is this different from http://www.freshbooks.com ?

[_mgr → pavornyoh]

How is what different?

[fbashir → _mgr]

Xero is a full fledged accounting system where as freshbook is more like a billing system with few accounting things mixed in.

I personally use xero for my small business. It allows me to see a complete picture of my financials for my business. my bills that I have to pay, invoices that are coming in. expenses etc and at the end of the year I generate reports that my accountant uses to do his business.

Xero also links to lot of online systems, I have it linked to insightly for CRM.

As for the bank accounts I am personally in favour of having separate accounts. My company has its own bank account that is used for all business stuff and I draw a monthly salary which I deposit in my personal account. Where I am from we have no taxes etc. So it might be a bit more complicated than your situation.

Other comparable systems to xero are freeagent, kashoo, quickbooks and less accounting.

Let me know if you have any questions and I will be happy to help.