business plan Archives - Mommy Ginger

Sharing this article with Sole Proprietorships and Freelancers / Professionals.

It’s almost December 31 and we’re still as busy as ever. I’m personally busy also as I need to “close” some things for my Sole Proprietorship business. As you know, I am a co-founder of Taxumo, but I have my own personal business which is registered as a Sole Proprietorship. We often hear the term “closing” from business people when it’s December, but we don’t know exactly what they mean. This is especially true if you are new in running a business or not in business at all but exploring this world (might be a plan for next year).

So I decided to write this as a guide for all Sole Proprietorships and Professionals/Freelancers, because we normally need to do the same things anyway when it comes to compliance.

The things that I will share in this article are the things that I personally do.

Collect all Pending Receivables

Receivables are funds that you need to collect from clients. So in my case, I monitor all of my collections in Trello. My handler, Niña and I then go through it and we try to contact the clients that we have to ask if they can pay before the year ends.

The reason why I do this is because I need to issue official receipts and collect 2307 (Creditable Tax Withheld) forms from these clients so that I can include it for this year.

Track and Compute the Taxes that you need to pay for January

People usually forget that you need to pay for their Percentage or VAT taxes as Sole Proprietorships in January, need to Renew their Mayor’s or Business Permits and even pay the Annual Registration Fee for the tax ministry (BIR or Bureau of Internal Revenue). Since they forget it, they usually end up not having money to pay these taxes or to even renew their businesses.

I use Taxumo so I know exactly how much I should set aside for my taxes for January and even for April’s Annual Income Tax Return (Annual ITR) tax deadline as early as now. This is how I efficiently plan my finances. It’s actually good that I collect in December, because I don’t have a problem anymore when it comes to funding these. I can sleep soundly at night.

What I do is I actually set aside these funds and place it in my ING account so it earns higher interest rate. I don’t touch it, too. 4% is huge so “yey” for me!

As for Business Permit Renewal for Sole Proprietorships, I secured the services of Taxumo for this. They have limited slots though since the government process in the LGUs is still very much MANUAL. To be honest, I’m not sure if they have slots to help you process your Mayor’s Permit / Business Renewal in your LGUs. Tauxmo Can cater to Metro Manila, Rizal, Cavite, Laguna, Tarlac, Pangasinan and Baguio clients. If you are interested to check if they have a slot, email customercare(at)taxumo(dot)com.

By the way, for Freelancers and Professionals, check your occupational tax receipts and professional tax receipts. Some of the LGUs require that you renew that on a yearly basis. You may need to go to your barangay to renew those. Some also require an NBI permit and a health certificate so that you can renew it (just a heads up!).

But, here is a checklist that you can use of what you need to compile. I’m proud to say that I’ve completed all of these things. I “printed” (shucks! super wasteful process 🙁 haay!) all of my tax filings and BIR confirmations that the Municipal Hall needs. They will need to know your gross sales for the year.

As for this, if you know someone from your Municipal Halls or work for Municipal halls, please let me know. For full disclosure, we at Taxumo have ways to help them really simplify all of these.

So going back, yes, you have to print all of these. Check out my complete files!

Sole proprietships Business Permit Renewal Documents

I’m so proud… I’m going to tear up. For some reason, I love that sense of accomplishment after completing this checklist. I feel like an adult! haha! Wait, I am one! haha!

It took me just a couple of hour printing since all of my filings (files and documents) are in Taxumo. I didn’t need to scramble through all of my files. I printed the form, BIR confirmation and the Payment record. I then signed all of the forms and used binder clips to distinguish the Income tax forms with SAWT attachments and confirmation, versus my VAT forms (I am VAT so for Non-VAT entities, you’ll have Percentage tax forms) versus the Annual Renewal fee or the 0605 form that I paid via Taxumo last January.

Update your Books

So I finished updating all of my books, too. For those who are wondering, YES, I write them all by myself. Taxumo allows you to generate and print a report that’s formatted already so you just need to copy it per column. Check out the picture above. The papers on the right side are the reports from Taxumo and one of my books is the one on the left. These books of accounts reports come with any of the subscription plans of Taxumo.

So there, that’s what I do at the end of the year. I got my stuff all in order, and I feel that I can enjoy celebrations now!

How about you? What’s your “end-of-year” business process? Shout out to all Sole Proprietorships and Professionals! Share it with us. Let’s help one another.

Here are other articles that you might want to check out:

A Freelancer’s and Consultant’s Guide to Using Taxumo

Business Renewal for Sole Proprietors in the Philippines

Every evening, I stare at the corkboard in my room. My corkboard has two bond paper sized sheets pinned to it and a few family pictures. The two sheets comprise my own attempt to create what people basically know as vision boards. I started creating my own vision board last year. I have always believed in the idea and the benefit, but I haven’t gotten myself to sit down and create one (well, not until last year).

Placing it in a tangible piece of paper and mounting it on the wall was the best thing that I have done for myself and the best thing that I have done to achieve my goals. Displaying it was like a tangible signal that said, “well, Ginger, this is it! You have to be who you want to be and achieve these things while you’re still on this planet.” And guess what? Those pieces of paper worked. I’m right on track in achieving my dreams and aspirations. Sometimes I get pressured when I look at it, honestly, but I think it was the good kind of pressure — pressure the make a difference!

I love my life as an entrepreneur and as a tech startup co-founder. I love my life as a professional blogger and as a vlogger. I know that each one of us is capable of achieving the life that we are destined to live. If it’s entrepreneurship that you want to aim for, I can honestly say that I can help you through my Love the Leap Entrepreneurship program.

I have handled a lot of different kinds of businesses and have dabbled even into things like makeup, yoga, styling, and network marketing. I have always believed that experience is the best teacher and I would like to share my own experiences with you and hopefully you’ll get to learn from them. Let’s all learn too from the experiences of my co-teachers for this run.

From the program, you will be able to get to make your own business plan and marketing plan. These are the tools that you will need to start your own business. So, please join me on July 4, 11 and july 25 🙂

For those who are interested to sign up for the program, details are on this poster.

If you want to sign up, you can use this form below.

Please deposit your payment through any of the following channels:

Paypal – Please use gymger80@yahoo.com

BPI – GPA Events Management Services (Account Number: 1923-1277-94)

Please email the validated deposit slip to ginger@manilaworkshops.com 🙂

I really hope that you can be part of the next batch of #BigLeapers. For thosw who will attend, I will add you to the exclusive Facebook group where you can ask me or your colleagues anything and where you can network with the other Big Leapers!

So, what are you waiting for? It’s time to take that leap!

P.S. Please don’t forget to subscribe to GTV, the youtube channel that I came up with to help aspiring entrepreneurs and business owners! (http://bit.ly/gtvchannel)

Hope you had a great day last Sunday! I love Easter. That day was basically a day for resting and contemplating on a lot of stuff, including my businesses. The celebration of Christ’s resurrection has made me think of resetting and making adjustments in certain portions of my life. Whether Catholic or not, there will come a point in your life when you want to make these adjustments. My article yesterday was about resetting portions and certain aspects of my life and it focused on the “physical changes” that I want for myself. Today, I will focus on making adjustments in business.

Whether still on the planning stage or already in the stage of expansion, there is always that need to step back and view the business from afar. By stepping back, you get to see the bigger picture.

The problem with sole proprietorship, start up businesses and businesses that are ran from home, oftentimes, it’s just one person working on different tasks. Or if it’s being worked on by a group, each one focuses on the task that is given to him or to her. No one really looks at the bigger picture and decides or tells the others if they are going toward the right direction. With this, there should be a time when everyone should take a step back and see if the business is really going towards the direction that they set for it.

This is exactly also why business plans are needed.

A business plan is a documentation that guides everyone so that they can make certain decisions on their own. Believe me, I have had a lot of experiences with different entities (being a part of some or just observing from a distance) and I have learned from a lot of these. Failures arise if the plan is not clear in your mind or if members make decisions that are not aligned with the organization’s plans and direction.

For those who want to learn how to create a business plan, please do sign up for the Mastermind Session for this coming weekend. It will be held on April 26 from 11:00 am to 2:30pm at Mothercare Active Fun. I will be the facilitator for this mastermind class, so I really hope that you could join me. We will discuss how to create a business plan for your business. You can also ask me about business strategies and I will share you tips on how to analyze and make sound business decisions.

Mastermind Session 3: How to Create a Business Plan

Okay, so looking at the businesses that I am involved in, I think I personally need to clean up my act or suggest new process improvements. A new tip for others in looking for that perfect business or for the perfect mix of the businesses that you want to be involved in is that you need to be sure that it is in line with your long terms goals or your personal brand. For me, I thought of cleaning up and letting go of certain businesses since these aren’t aligned anymore with the direction that I want for my personal brand. It may be hard to let go of something that you love, but sometimes, you need to let go or focus on things that will help you achieve your long term goals.

Or sometimes, the vision that you set for your business doesn’t suddenly seem right anymore. This then requires a change in strategy. It’s not wrong to suddenly change your mind. We’re human beings so we have the freedom to change and make our own decisions. Just know that there are certain “effects” to these changes. Obviously for every cause there will have to be an effect. The effect may be something positive or negative. You just need to weigh all of these things and see what you’ll be happy with and what is more in line with what you want.

There are a lot of things that we need to talk about when it comes to business. If you have some topics in mind that you want me to discuss, please feel to comment below 🙂 I’d love to share my thoughts on these things (because honestly, right now, I have a gazillion things that I want to talk to you about). Just ask away!

For the other tips and realizations in creating a business, look for people who have the skills but also the same compassion (pagmamalasakit) that you have for the business idea or concept. Question the commitment of people who have the “can’t do” attitude rather than the “can do” attitude. I’ve worked with people like these before and these are people who are afraid of changes & improvements and are very close-minded. In a fast paced world like this, you need people who look for solutions rather than those who bring up “concerns” when faced with challenges. You need people who think outside of the box!

Are you stuck with a team who’s keeping the business from achieving its fullest potential? Share your thoughts below. What did you do? I’ve love to hear about it.

I have interviewed quite a number of mompreneurs and a lot of them mentioned passion as one of the things that you will need to have is your want to start your own business. I do agree with them when they mention that mompreneur passion to be one of the necessary requirements before starting your own business. For me though, this isn’t enough.

Passion is an emotion. When you look it up in the dictionary or in wikipedia, it is defined as a strong (positive) feeling for something or someone. I believe that you cannot start a business with merely having a feeling that that makes you want to get up and do something. I had the same feeling about businesses before that I just wanted to do. At one time, I was really passionate about being a freelance makeup artist. I attended classes for it. I knew I also had the skill and the artistic talent. I bought a lot of make up. I bought my own kit. I spent probably almost Php 75,000 from all the make up that I bought and the classes that I took. Was passion there? Yes, there was definitely passion there!

But, after a year of offering my freelance make up services, it died down. Why? Because I lacked planning. I just jumped the gun and offered my service. I didn’t study the market. I was too excited to start.

Planning is crucial in creating a business. With planning, you utilize not only the heart but also your mind. I remember my strategy when it came to creating new products for the corporation that I worked for before. I use it now for my business and for when I mentor mompreneurs. I create three plans. I create a full blown business plan, a financial plan or analysis and a marketing plan (which I normally just do in PowerPoint).

These are the three plans that I suggest that you create, too, before jumping into any business. Why create these plans? It will help and steer you into the right direction for your business. By going through the whole business plan, it will help you check on the feasibility of your business (to see if it’s not only your needs you are answering). It will help you see the potential market or customers for your business (to see if ‘passion’ actually addresses concerns and needs of a substantial amount of individuals). And lastly, it will help you see if this ‘passion’ is something that you can sustain financially (of course, all of us want to continuously do what we are passionate about).

In the next business tips that I will be sharing for mompreneurs, it will be on how to create effective business plans, financial analysis and marketing plans that are simple enough for us, mompreneurs.

What are your thoughts on passion and planning? I’d love to hear them!