Bookkeeping and Accounting for Life Coaches

As a life coach, there are numerous expenses you can claim for your tax deductions. These include:

• Training and Professional Development: Courses, seminars, books, or any materials that help improve your skills as a life coach.
• Office Supplies: Purchases that facilitate your day-to-day operations, such as paper, pens, computers or software.
• Home Office Expenses: If you use a part of your home for work purposes, you may be eligible to deduct a certain percentage of your home expenses including rent, utilities, or home insurance.
• Travel: If you need to travel for work, costs such as flights, hotels, meals, and transportation can be deductible.
• Marketing and Advertising: Expenses associated with promoting your services, such as website hosting, online ads, business cards.
• Insurance and Licenses: Licenses required to practice as a life coach, professional liability insurance premiums.

As each individual's tax situation is unique, it's recommended to consult with a bookkeeper or tax professional for specific advice.

The simplest and most reliable way to handle accounting for various income streams as a life coach is to use online bookkeeping services, such as Bench Accounting. These bookkeeping services help you categorize and manage all income streams, ensure tax compliance, handle expense tracking, and provide financial statements for a comprehensive overview of your business finances. It is also a smart move to separate personal and business finances and maintain a detailed record of all transactions related to your business. Creating different categories for each income stream can also help you to effectively track and manage your money.

Regardless of whether you are offering one-on-one coaching services, group seminars or online packages, the fundamental principles of bookkeeping remain the same. You need to meticulously record your income and expenses, categorize each transaction and reconcile your accounts regularly. However, the financial considerations may differ based on the nature of the services.

One-on-One Coaching: For one-on-one coaching services, you would typically track income per session or per package of sessions, along with any additional materials or resources provided. Expenses to track might include wages for any support staff, facility costs, equipment, and training materials.

Group Seminars: For group seminars, your income would come from the fee charged per participant. Expenses might include venue costs, marketing costs to attract participants, hospitality expenses, and the cost of materials provided to participants.

Online Packages: The main income for online packages would be the fee charged for access to the material or course. Expenses may include running costs for your digital platform, marketing expenses, cost of producing the course content and payment gateway charges.

No matter what services you provide, having a specialised bookkeeping service like Bench can take the hassle out of tracking these finances, leaving you more time to focus on what you do best - helping your clients succeed.

Nope! All bookkeeping is completed in-house.

Your bookkeeper will be your main point of contact, but at times you might hear from another member of your team. This is usually when your bookkeeper goes on vacation, is sick, or otherwise unavailable.

We handle the bookkeeping for you but sometimes we’ll need your input, especially at year-end. On average, expect to spend 15 minutes each month answering questions for your bookkeeper, or uploading supporting docs.