Now that I am officially finished with the Aperture Vs. Lightroom series on Inside Aperture, I decided to spend a little time working on my business plan. Well, I have to admit, my plan is pretty simple, and really not very interesting. So, I decided to walk on down to the old accounting department, or actually, open Quickbooks, and see what the heck has been going on.
I spent a good deal of time bringing things up to date, and then I began reorganizing the structure of my business. Simply by working on setting up accounts and organizing my Quickbooks file, I was able to sort of redefine what exactly it is that I do. I mean, I do many different things these days, and I split my time between them depending on what is going on at the moment. Sometimes I’m a photographer, sometimes a writer, on occasion I am a teacher, and who knows what else. Apparently I design websites too!
So, I went through all my accounts and service items, and all these sort of ugly little things in Quickbooks (by the way, why can’t Quickbooks for Mac be as fully featured as its Windows counterpart?).
To tell you the truth, I had some fun doing all this, and in the end came up with a few reach goals for my little business and a number of solid reasonable plans. It is always fun to check out how I am doing via Quickbooks and see my growth, though I must admit, it can at times be a little depressing!
Lately I have been reading John Harrington’s website, which is dedicated to all things business for the photographer. I mentioned him here on the site before, and also pointed to his very cool Cost of Doing Business Calculator, on the NPPA website. His blog has certainly taken off and it has been a joy to read. He has many good ideas, and if anything his site is a constant reminder that this freelance photo thing I do, is in fact a business.
I have also been checking in on another business blog. This one seems to be more about the state of the photo industry, but it is always a good read. His constant search for a new business model is very interesting, and I look forward to his posts popping up in my RSS reader.
Well, my Quickbooks thing is still underway. I am hoping that one day I ‘ll be able to afford an accountant to take care of all this stuff for me, keep me updated with constant reports as to how my business is booming, and remind me when I shouldn’t buy that new lens. But, for now, I am on my own, and doing a pretty good job of it. Happy over here in Dominica. More soon….
In the mean time, be sure to check out my final article, which summarizes my thoughts on the whole Aperture Vs. Lightroom series on Inside Aperture. If you read through the whole thing, you will be able to leave comments and find all the links to the blog posts from the week. It came out pretty good and I am pretty happy with the results. So, go on over and have a look!
For those of you who don’t already know, Adobe is planning to launch Creative Suite 3 (CS3) on March 27th as a special event in New York City. This is pretty exciting news as we have been having a ball trying out the new Photoshop CS3, which was placed into public Beta some time ago. 