I purchased a 10 column disbursement journal/check register to organize/catagories to make tax time easier….

Columns – 1.rent 2.phone 3.electric 4.water 5.gas 6.insurance 7. office supplies 8. cleaning supplies. 1st. question is : what do I write in the last 2 columns? – 2nd. question – if I go to Sam’s wholesale club & purchase both cleaning & office supplies on one ticket, so I have to totals of the ticket into seperate columns ? This is a salon business. No employees / booth rental only. I recently purchased this and I’m currtently doing alot of remodelling. How do I list payments to the contractor and credit card payments to home depot? A friend suggested to place the two together under repairs ?? If I put misc. in a collumn what sort of things qualify ? what about car expense? city tax paymts.? co. parties? Do I need a larger journal with more columns?? what do I do??

Rather than using a 10 column journal, why not use software for small business like Quick Books? It think at the end of the year you will end up with way more than 10 categories and this might get you in trouble. Quick Books comes with preestablished general categories and allows you to add any more that you might need and you can add those at any time without having to change your ledger book at all.