Deductible meals: Most years, business meals are only 50% deductible, unless you eat them on a business trip.(Side note: If you use the standard mileage method instead, check out our free template for mileage logs!) Put this in row 8 of Column E, which is highlighted in yellow. If you opt for actual expenses, you'll have to enter the percentage of time you drive your car for business purposes. Car and truck expenses (Actual expenses only): There are two ways to deduct car expenses, the standard mileage rate and the actual expense method.Still, there are some categories with special rules: Your advertising expenses, for instance, aren't going to help you out in your personal life. That’s because your business purchases are generally used exclusively for work. In most cases, the business-use percentage column is blank, meaning the default percentage is 100%. Here's the only part of this tab where you might have to enter some numbers. You won't have to enter anything by hand.

Great news: The sheet calculates this automatically by adding up the expenses you enter on the other two tabs of the template. You'll automatically see that number in row 10 of this column, for contract labor. Here, you'll see how much you spent on each Schedule C category over the course of the tax year.įor example, say you've spent $1,200 between your personal assistant, your marketing freelancer, and your web designer. With the Schedule C line number right there, you can be confident that, if the IRS ever comes knocking, you can provide them with required information that matches up exactly with the form. This column provides a great way to do that. But with taxes, it always pays to give things a once-over before you submit. The column is a great way to double-check your return and avoid the IRS’s attention - something no freelancer wants.Įspecially if you're filing online, it's easy to rush through things because you were hungry for that tasty refund. Advertising expenses, for example, are on line 8 of the form. This column shows you how to match up expense categories on this sheet with the lines on a Schedule C. Visit an office supply store? Have a meal to talk about your business? All of those are tax deductions. Travel to meet a client? You get a deduction. Schedule C forces you to split up your write-offs into different, somewhat arbitrary categories.ĭo you pay for advertising? You get a deduction.

But in a nutshell, your Schedule C is the form you use to tell the IRS what business expenses you're writing off every year. If you'd like a detailed run through of this tax form, I recommend checking out Keeper's guide to filling out your Schedule C. If you've ever been through the process of filing self-employment taxes by hand, everything in this column will look pretty familiar from your Schedule C. So add your write-offs, and watch that number go up! It's calculated automatically based on everything you fill out in the template.

Daily expense sheet format in excel