How DJs Track Business Expenses and Taxes: Real Methods That Actually Work

Most DJs handle their bookkeeping differently, but the key is staying consistent with whatever system you choose.

The next question is about the business side of things — where you have to keep track of your numbers, whether they're expenses or whatever else is involved when it comes to getting ready for taxes.

Everyone does it a little bit differently.

How Dan Tracks His DJ Business Expenses

Dan tracks receipts digitally, stores them in Dropbox, then compiles everything into a spreadsheet for his accountant at year end.

He tries to do as much digitally as possible so that all his receipts are right there. He dumps them into a folder within Dropbox so that it's backed up.

At the end of the year when he's tabulating everything, he puts it into an Excel spreadsheet, breaks it all down, and gives that to his accountant.

His income is tracked through DJ Event Planner because it tracks all the income right there. Every event is taken care of, and he can quickly look at it from a year standpoint and his bottom line is done.

He uses DJ Event Planner for income and a separate spreadsheet system for expenses. He acknowledges DJ Event Planner has the ability to track expenses too, but he's more used to doing it the other way.

How Cubby Tracks His DJ Business Finances

Cubby keeps things digital using DJ Event Planner and QuickBooks, and limits himself to one credit card to keep statements simple.

He uses DJ Event Planner along with QuickBooks and tries to keep as much digital as possible. He also uses the Benz card for purchases through that company.

For anything purchased through another company, he has one dedicated credit card he goes back to for all statements. Using just one card means everything follows in cleanly without having to sort through multiple accounts.

He's been doing it that way for years, and when he made the move from a previous company, he just kept the ball rolling the same way.

The Credit Card Statement Warning You Need to Hear

If you don't regularly download your digital credit card statements, you could lose access to them forever if your card number gets stolen.

He runs two credit card accounts for two different businesses, and Lori has hers for her business. One of the cards had its number stolen, and when the card was shut off, all access to downloadable past statements was gone.

He was left with only printable statements he had to manually sort through. It happened twice — once in October 2019 while they were down in Vegas.

His fix is a calendar reminder set to pop up every two months prompting him to download the digital statements from that credit card. So far it's been working.

Tracking Mileage for DJ Business Tax Deductions

Mileage is one of the hardest expenses for DJs to track, especially when a personal vehicle doubles as the business vehicle.

He keeps a note on his cell phone for travel throughout the year, logging what each trip was for. Every week to ten days he goes to the truck and writes down the current mileage reading.

On December 31st or January 1st he records the exact mileage so he knows how many miles were driven for the year. He then tracks how many of those miles were for each specific business.

The way taxes work is you put your total miles in, then how many miles you drove for this business and how many for that business when it comes to your vehicle. He tried fancier ways to do it, but this just works for him.

He admits he likely cheats himself out of some mileage deductions because his personal vehicle is also what he uses to tow his DJ trailer. He tried setting venues up inside DJ Event Planner with distances from his house, hoping to get an automatic mileage report, but it didn't produce one.

He suspects he may have set it up wrong, or that the feature works differently than he expected. He believes DJ Event Planner does have a mileage feature because some events did show mileage when set up correctly.

Summary: DJ Business Expense Tracking Methods Compared