Bookkeeping for Freelancers Cumming, GA

Freelancers do not need the full small-business stack. No payroll. No AP queue. No sales tax (in most cases). What freelancers do need is rock-solid separation of business from personal, clean Schedule C categorization, accurate mileage logs, quarterly estimated tax math that matches reality, and a year-end package they can hand to TurboTax or a tax preparer without a January panic.

For most Cumming-area freelancers, that means a clean QuickBooks Online Simple Start or QuickBooks Solopreneur file, a dedicated business checking account at Truist or Bank of America, a single business credit card, and either MileIQ or QuickBooks Mobile mileage tracking. We set all of that up and run the monthly close. You focus on client work.

Most clients see us once a month for the close and once a quarter for an estimated tax check-in. That is it. Low-touch, low-cost, high-impact.

The Schedule C form has about 25 expense lines (advertising, car and truck, contract labor, depreciation, insurance, legal, office expense, supplies, travel, meals, utilities, and so on). We build your chart of accounts to map directly to those lines so when April arrives, the numbers flow into the return without manual remapping.

Common categories Cumming freelancers under-claim: home office (a real deduction if you have a dedicated workspace, not the kitchen table on Sunday afternoons), mileage (track every business trip, not just the obvious ones), software subscriptions (Adobe, Canva, Zoom, ChatGPT Plus, Notion, every $10 a month adds up), continuing education (courses, books, conferences), and a portion of cell phone and internet if you use them substantially for business.

We also catch common mistakes. The big one: putting personal Amazon orders on the business card and then deducting them. The IRS catches this on audit and disallows the deduction. We coach you to keep personal off the business card from day one.

As a freelancer you are responsible for paying federal and Georgia income tax (plus self-employment tax) in quarterly estimates due April 15, June 15, September 15, and January 15. Underpay during the year and the IRS adds an underpayment penalty. Overpay and you have given the government an interest-free loan.

We pull your year-to-date P&L each quarter, project the rest of the year, and calculate the right estimated payment for both federal and Georgia. You receive an email with the two amounts to pay and the links to pay them online. No more guessing whether to send $2,000 or $5,000 to the IRS in June.

For freelancers in their first profitable year, the first surprise tax bill can be brutal. We walk through this on the discovery call so you go in eyes open and start making estimated payments from quarter one rather than catching up in April.

Bookkeeping for freelancers starts at $375 a month for the simplest engagements (one bank account, one credit card, under 50 transactions a month, monthly close, year-end package). Monthly pricing increases based on volume and whether quarterly estimated tax support is included.

For freelancers who want a one-time year-end cleanup and Schedule C package without ongoing monthly service, we offer that as a fixed-scope engagement, typically $750 to $1,800 depending on how many months we are rebuilding.