Expense Report

As an addendum to the GenCon post, I’m also adding an expense report template that you can use to track your expenditures.  You can use this same form for any business-related trip.  Keep in mind that not everything you do is a business expense.  A business dinner, yes, but eating out at a steak restaurant just because you feel like it?  Probably no.  Just be reasonable- if you think you could successfully argue it to an IRS agent, you’re probably alright.  If not, you’re slipping into dangerous territory.

You can find the Google Doc Template here.

You want to keep a record of your expenditures, along with the receipts to prove them, for your Schedule C come tax filing.  We’ll get more into Schedule C’s in a later post.

If you’ve been taking advice, you already have a separate bank account for your business income and expenses, in which case your Schedule C will write itself infallibly with a printed out yearly bank statement.