Hi friends,
New here and hoping for some tips from the community regarding my particular business model. In a nutshell, we have 12 independent contractors providing in-home music lessons in 3 states. We charge a flat rate for each confirmed lesson. About 30% of our revenue is customer prepayments, and other 70% comes in the same day as the service is charged.
Since sales are directly tied to labor, as soon as revenue comes in for one of the contractors, I know the percentage of it that will eventually need to be paid via wages. In my own haphazard system thus far, I've used a "virtual envelope system" (using an outdated OS X app called MoneyWell) where I'll set aside that percentage to make sure we always have enough for payroll.
I'm switching to a proper double-entry system (using Xero) and I've been trying to figure out how to emulate this approach. My main concern is setting aside money for Payroll as soon as I get it— is using Wages Payable the right approach?
There's also the additional complication of customer prepayments, but I'm not sure if using unearned revenue would be record-keeping overkill for a business with less than $500k in revenue. I do have a way of using our SaaS scheduling/invoicing system to show me at any point how much "unearned revenue" we have— could I simplify things by just using that number as an "adjusting entry" when generating financial statements rather than painstakingly tracking a ton of individual lessons (service appointments) as debits to unearned revenue?
I'm new to much of this terminology, so let me know if I'm not using it correctly.
Thanks a ton for any help!
New here and hoping for some tips from the community regarding my particular business model. In a nutshell, we have 12 independent contractors providing in-home music lessons in 3 states. We charge a flat rate for each confirmed lesson. About 30% of our revenue is customer prepayments, and other 70% comes in the same day as the service is charged.
Since sales are directly tied to labor, as soon as revenue comes in for one of the contractors, I know the percentage of it that will eventually need to be paid via wages. In my own haphazard system thus far, I've used a "virtual envelope system" (using an outdated OS X app called MoneyWell) where I'll set aside that percentage to make sure we always have enough for payroll.
I'm switching to a proper double-entry system (using Xero) and I've been trying to figure out how to emulate this approach. My main concern is setting aside money for Payroll as soon as I get it— is using Wages Payable the right approach?
There's also the additional complication of customer prepayments, but I'm not sure if using unearned revenue would be record-keeping overkill for a business with less than $500k in revenue. I do have a way of using our SaaS scheduling/invoicing system to show me at any point how much "unearned revenue" we have— could I simplify things by just using that number as an "adjusting entry" when generating financial statements rather than painstakingly tracking a ton of individual lessons (service appointments) as debits to unearned revenue?
I'm new to much of this terminology, so let me know if I'm not using it correctly.
Thanks a ton for any help!