Tracking business and personal finances without full accounting software
Solo business owners are tired of bouncing between business accounts, personal accounts, spreadsheets, and scattered tax notes. Full accounting setups include extra features they will never use, preventing them from fully understanding their cash flow or knowing exactly what percentages of money to transfer and when.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
Tracking business and personal finances without full accounting software
- 1Using Google Sheets to manually track everythingDid this help you?
- 2Juggling multiple business and personal debit accounts and credit cardsDid this help you?
- 3Using separate apps like Monarch for personal finance while keeping business on a spreadsheetDid this help you?
- 4Transferring money straight from business accounts into personal savings or vaultsDid this help you?
- 5Divvy your expenses every month when you pay the billDid this help you?
- 6Keep all receipts for business stuff in a different shoeboxDid this help you?
- 7Get a second card dedicated to business expensesDid this help you?
- 8Building custom personal projects by pushing financial data into Salesforce or other CRM/database tools to gain full control and manipulate data as needed.Did this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I really want to understand my flow fully and what should be transferred there and when, and for what percentages?”source ↗
“I’ve been keeping ALL of my business income in just one personal bank account. 😅 So technically, I don’t really have a proper system for separating business money from my own money.”source ↗
“In SF, I have full control over how I want the data to look and feel and how I want to categorize things etc. I haven't found a system that has this type of flexibility that works for me.”source ↗
“I use Monarch to track my finances - it does a decent job but there are limitations.”source ↗
“I'v been meaning to split it between my personal and business for three years now. Every April I sit there trying to remember whether a 40 dollar lunch was with a client or just lunch, and every April I give up and don't claim a chunk of it..... I know the answer is a second card. I'm asking what people do in the meantime, because let's be honest I'm not going to sort the card out before next April either”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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- 3Why is business invoicing and deposit billing so messy?
- 12How do you keep track of clients, projects, deadlines, and follow-ups?