Accounts

Father and I have started doing the 2012 accounts for our family's used book business.  (There was a delay because our old account books were filled, and we had to get new ones.) We have the first five months completed.  Since we do it month by month, if we were better organized we wouldn't wait till the end of the year and do it all at once but do the early months earlier in the year.  But it's so easy to let it slide...

We sell our goods under the brand name Aquilon Books, through the website ABEBooks.  It's a hobby that nets a few thousand dollars every year.  We did unusually big business in February, but the next two months were in the red.

We have the same routine for doing each month.  We start with expenses, and I'll write $25 for our Sympatico internet bill.  Then Father takes up our biggest expense and reads off our Canada Post receipts one at a time, and I'll write them down and when he's finished I'll total them up and write down the sum.  We often have expenses for envelopes and printer paper and ink and such from Staples.  And  there are also expenses for the new books we've bought with an eye to future sales:  we buy a lot from Goodwill and an Iranian with a bazaar-like store called Buy and Sell just north of St. Clair. (TORONTO LIFE magazine mentioned him once!) But recently we've been buying fewer of those.

Then we turn to income.  Most of that is from ABEBooks, and Father will tell me the weekly statements from that source.  But we also sell a few books directly to people in the Toronto area, and the proceeds from each of those sales also get written down.

After determining the overall balance, Father will give the money to me and Moira, partly because he doesn't need it, and partly because our own income is low enough that we won't get taxed for it.