31 Days - Day 5: Make an Expense & Profit Sheet

For the 31 Days Until a Craft Show, I have done the following posts:

If you haven't read those posts yet, you should check those out. I know this initial stuff is not really the fun stuff of doing a craft show, but they are necessary to be successful.

Today's topic is to make a profit/loss sheet and keeping track of all losses and profits. I have to admit, this is not my forte. I would rather go on the bliss of thinking I did a great craft show, but to establish whether your craft show is profitable and viable as a business, it's important to keep good records.

Now, I highly recommend keeping this as simple as you possibly can. Don't spend hours trying to make this or even obsessing over every detail of your profits and losses, but do keep track of how much you spend. You can use a General Profit and Loss Sheet like This One, which is free to download, or you can make your own using a spreadsheet format.

~~I made~~ Mr. Right helped me make a spreadsheet specifically for Profits and Losses at craft shows. The spreadsheet headings are:

Date
Item
Description
Cost
Sold Price
Tax Collected
Profit/Loss

We made this in Excel and left plenty of room to itemize everything I buy and sell. I also included in the Profit/Loss column, a cumilative profit or loss, so each line, tells me where I am at. You can use whatever you feel comfortable with. (or let me know your email, so I can attach the file for you. Much to my frustration, I haven't been able to figure out how to attach the exel file for you to the blog. Sorry!) You could even use an expense and profit sheet from the office supply store to record it by hand.

So there it, is, basically, you need to keep track of how much you spend and how much you make. (I don't like the spending part myself, because I like to think that I'm all about making money!) I hope that this information can help you get going in this area. Please let me know what you do for tracking your Craft Shows in the comments.

For a complete list of the 31 Day Until A Craft Show series and links to each post go Here to Day 31.

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