Bookkeeping for Bakers Who Are Not Accountants

Bookkeeping does not need to be complicated. What it needs to be is consistent. You are building a weekly habit, not a career in accounting.

Option 1: Spreadsheet Tracking (Best for Starting Out)

A simple spreadsheet with two tabs — Income and Expenses — is enough to run your business in year one.

Your income tab columns: Date | Customer name | Description | Amount received | Payment method

Your expense tab columns: Date | Category | Description | Amount | Business/Personal (always “Business” — nothing personal goes in here) | Receipt saved?

Update it weekly. 15 minutes every Monday morning. Go through your bank account and log everything from the prior week. If something is fuzzy a week later, it becomes impossible to reconstruct after 6 months.

Option 2: Wave (Free Software)

Wave (waveapps.com) is free accounting software with no transaction limits. It connects to your bank account and automatically imports transactions, which you then categorize. It generates profit and loss statements, which is what your CPA will ask for at tax time.

If you’re comfortable with software, Wave is worth setting up from the start. The learning curve is about 30 minutes.

Expense Categories for Bakers

Use consistent categories from the beginning — this makes tax prep much faster:

• Ingredients / COGS
• Packaging supplies
• Kitchen equipment and tools
• Insurance
• Marketing and advertising
• Professional fees (CPA, legal)
• Software and subscriptions
• Mileage / vehicle expenses
• Education and training
• Permits and licenses
• Miscellaneous supplies

The Weekly Bookkeeping Session

Block 15–20 minutes every week. Non-negotiable. Go through every transaction in your business bank account and categorize it. Save receipts digitally — a photo on your phone uploaded to a folder in Google Drive is enough.

Bakers who do this weekly close their books in under an hour at year-end. Bakers who skip it spend two days in February trying to reconstruct a year of transactions.