A Sound Recordist's Tips: Money Management

One of the biggest parts of life being self-employed and as a freelancer is money management and managing your finances well. Since I started my business as a Sound Recordist, I’ve learnt a lot about this, often learning from mistakes both big and small! I’ve made lots of different plans over the years to manage my finances in manageable, realistic ways that work for me and my family. In this blog, I’ll be exploring this and exploring ways in which I manage my income, tax and finances today.

Bank Accounts

For years now, I have had a few different current accounts, all for different purposes. One is for my ‘Business Income’, so all payments and invoices from my clients are paid into this account, nothing else. This keeps all my business income in one, separate place so I can keep a clear track of funds coming in and when invoices are paid. Outgoings for this account include Standing Orders to my other personal and savings accounts to pay bills etc and some direct debits for business expenses.

Other accounts include personal and joint accounts that are used to pay mortgage and bills. It’s important for me to keep all the day-to-day spending, mortgage payments and general bills separate from my business so I have a clear picture of where my money is going.

Credit Card

Credit cards can be a daunting prospect for some people, but they are an incredibly important tool in running my business for lots of reasons. One of the main reasons is they build credit history and improve credit score which puts you in better standing for loans, mortgages, contracts, etc. The other reason is credit cards are great for Consumer Protection (Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act), which basically protects you from a litany of things involving purchases of items and services between £100 and £30,000.

I personally only use my credit card for business purchases and expenses, such as fuel, equipment, rentals, consumables, etc. I then have a direct debit set up to pay my credit card off in full every month so there’s never any worry that I will miss a payment or be charged interest.

My philosophy is to not use a credit card for anything you can’t afford, the interest charged for not paying in full is often not worth it! This is something I learnt the hard way early on in my career.

Savings Accounts

I have multiple savings accounts for lots of different purposes and definitely recommend to have at least one set up if you don’t have one already. My main savings accounts for my business that I have set up are for Equipment investment/repairs and Tax payments. I also have personal ones relating to our family and a retirement fund (albeit very small retirement fund at this point!). Having these different pots of money again gives me a clearer picture of what funds we have and what we need it for.

Equipment Savings

my beloved Orca Trolley/bag was a fairly big purchase item from Equipment Savings

For my equipment savings account, I try and take a percentage of my monthly income and put it into the account. However, on quieter months this isn’t always possible, but even if it’s just a small amount, it keeps the transactions going which is important.

Tax Savings

For my tax savings account, I transfer roughly 20% of my monthly income into it, which gives me what I need towards my tax payments later in the financial year. This is based on what I earn annually, so sometimes I may need to increase that if my current annual income looks to be more than the previous year.  I also keep a good track of when invoices have and haven’t been paid, so I only transfer the percentage from my business account when all invoices for that particular month have been paid.

Financial Mistakes

I mentioned earlier about me learning the hard way when it came to interest on my credit card. Well that’s not the only mistake I’ve made financially over the years. One other big mistake I made years ago was miscalculating what I was to owe in tax (hopefully I’m not the only one who has done this!). One particular tax year, I miscalculated and actually owed a lot more in tax than I thought. It was a sudden panic, but thankfully I hadn’t spent all of the extra cash (yet!) and was able to take what I needed from savings. Since then, I keep a very close eye on my projected earnings (using a mix of my accounting software FreeAgent and my own spreadsheets in Excel) based on my income and expenditure. I then make sure the correct amount goes to my tax savings every month, keeping an eye on the savings balance to make sure there is enough in there to pay the next upcoming tax bill.

Summary of my Money Management

In summary, I feel like today I’m more on top of my finances than I have ever been before. Maybe having a mortgage and a child helps with that, but nonetheless it’s something I’m proud of and happy that I learnt from my mistakes early on in my career when it came to how and where to use the money I was earning. I hope that anyone fairly new to the industry, or even someone already established but struggles to organise their finances, can find something useful in my breakdown of my financial management.

Dan Guest

Sound Recordist