Musings from an overworked translator

Show me the money – Part 2 September 4, 2008

Just in case you missed it, my post entitled “Show me the money” has generated quite a few hits and inspired several good posts on other blogs. Most notable is The Masked Translator’s post today on taxes, “Crappy paperwork and the ideal accounting software for translators.” MT makes a very good point that you “should count the number of hours [you are] putting into tax-related crap, multiply this by [your] hourly [rate], and if the amount was greater than what [you] would pay a CPA and/or bookkeepers to handle the stuff, [you] should switch over,” following it up with the very wise words: “…you should always farm out tasks you do not enjoy as a freelancer to keep your job as fun as possible.” Later on in the comments MT states that “No freelancer should be doing business if not incorporated as an S Corporation or a single-member LLC.”

Yeah, I know. I just haven’t gotten around to incorporating… and if I am doing my job correctly I should not get sued. I think errors and omissions insurance is a waste of money for that very reason. There has only been one documented case of a translator being sued for an error, and a good proofreader would have caught the mistake. I have most of my work proofread by a colleague before delivering it to my client (and I do the same for her). But I digress… I want to focus on taxes. E&O insurance is another post for another day.

I do most of my bookkeeping myself, but hire a CPA to do my taxes. It may sound weird, but I actually enjoy doing the bookkeeping. Being the daughter of an accountant I keep meticulous records, and it only takes me about an hour to prepare my stuff for the CPA. However, it is important that you understand the tax system so that you can check and verify the CPA’s work. My CPA screwed up last year and added $4,000 of capital gains from someone else to my income. Luckily I caught it, and he had to fix it a couple days before Tax Day. It saved me from having to pay several hundred dollars. Instead I got a small refund.

I’m not saying everyone should adopt my system, but for those of you just starting out or looking for a quick system this is how I handle my bookkeeping. I use an Excel spreadsheet for my invoices (one spreadsheet for each tax quarter – 2008-1, 2008-2, etc.) and copy or write the job info with all the pertinent information (PO number, file info, word rate, etc.) on the worksheet as soon as I accept the job. I copy and paste worksheets from previous jobs for the same client so that I can ensure all the information is included and is consistent. Once the job is finished I enter the final word count, copy the worksheet into a new Excel spreadsheet, delete the extra worksheets, save the file (invoice_jsommer_2008-123.xls) and then convert it to a PDF (invoice_jsommer_2008-123.pdf), which I then send to the accounting department’s or project manager’s e-mail address (I have my client’s specified e-mail addresses saved in my e-mail address book with the alias “invoice@clientsname.com”). As soon as I send the invoice I then enter it into MS Money as a new deposit and specify the due date. I also put a little x in the top left-hand corner of my ongoing quarterly Excel spreadsheet indicating I have submitted the invoice. It sounds more confusing than it is.

In addition to an Excel spreadsheet for my invoices, I maintain a separate Excel spreadsheet for my quarterly income (one worksheet per quarter) that I use to track payments as they come in (if they are in euro I convert them according to that day’s exchange rate and enter the total in the dollar column) and automatically add the dollar column up for a quarterly total. I take the grand total for the quarter and multiply it by 20% for my quarterly estimated tax payment [=SUM(C42*0.2)]. I usually don’t owe any taxes this way and have gotten small refunds the past two years (just the way you want it – why give the government a non-interest-bearing loan when you can keep it in the bank for yourself?). In late February/early March I print out the four “quarterly income” Excel worksheets and my Tax Report from MS Money and pop the MS Money back-up file onto a memory stick for my CPA.

I have gotten to the point where I am considering becoming an LLC and hiring a company to do all this for me though. I just need to find the time to actually do it…

And special thanks to Sarah Dillon for her post “Making sure you get paid: part II.” It’s nice to hear my ramblings helped inspire someone to change their system. That made it all worthwhile!

Show me the money September 2, 2008

No, this is not another post about clients who are late payers. This is about my dismay with some of our colleagues who wait weeks to send their invoice. I simply don’t understand that – especially in light of slow-paying agencies. Why wait a couple weeks to send an invoice and then wait another 4-8 weeks to get paid? That makes no sense to me. I send clients my invoice either with the job or no later than the next day. Chances are too great that I will get busy and/or forget to send an invoice entirely.

I forgot to invoice one client for a year until I was writing the invoice for another project manager and noticed I hadn’t been paid – and hadn’t ever written the invoice! One time was enough for me! I’ve been vigilant ever since. Our project managers and agencies are too busy to send reminders, so I can’t even imagine the number of invoices that simply don’t get submitted.

I subcontracted a job a few weeks ago and had to send a reminder this morning to my colleague, who claimed she has been busy with work and family and thanked me for the reminder. I have to regularly remind another colleague to send me invoices. She’s also constantly complaining about money problems.

The following example is drastic, but I swear it is true. I used to work with a guy in Germany who would wait months to invoice our company. His invoices were then quite large, covering practically full-time employment for 4 to 5 months at a time. The company wasn’t happy about it either, because they had to shell out a huge amount all at once instead of spreading it over the regular time frame. I have no idea how he managed to pay his rent and eat in the meantime.

I know many of our colleagues wait until they have a slow day to invoice. This just doesn’t make sense. First of all, the need for translations keeps growing, and we keep getting busier and busier. You may find yourself issuing tons of invoice at the end of the month to cover all the translations you did that month. This doesn’t make much fiscal sense. You want to spread your payments evenly – not all at once – to cover your cash flow. If you wait too long you may find yourself out of needed capital to pay your mortgage/rent, buy groceries, pay for gas, etc.

If your invoicing process takes up so much time that you need to spend more than 5 minutes to generate an invoice and enter it into your accounting system, you need a new system!!