Affiliate Marketing Accountancy

Drexl Spivey

Hi,

I have a practical question.

If you become self employed and do some affiliate marketing, how do you go about accountancy? Do you have to print out the online statement from the company you are an affiliate of?

I imagine for another type of business you normally keep paper receipts of transactions.

Cheers.

mneylon

If you're going to be self-employed you will probably need to find an accountant to help you as there's a lot of things you can (and can't) do that they'll be able to advise on

As a general rule - keep records of all expenditure and earnings.

Most of the affiliate networks have some kind of "statement" system, while some will provide you with invoices for payments

Mrs OBumble

Whether or not you need an accountant depends on how large you get.

If your income is small (say less than a couple of grand then it's likely that the tax payment which an accountant would save you will be less than the accountant's fee.

To start with, just keep income and expenditure records. If the things you're getting affiliate payments from doesn't let you log in and see your payment history, then you may want to keep screen shots to use if you're ever audited. (Auditors are generally bright enough to know that that screen shots can be enhanced, so personally I prefer to only sign up with companies that store my payment history - if I get audited, I'm happy to log them in to my reports.) Be conservative about the expenses you claim.