How to best keep track of your zzp administration

As a self-employed person, you have a lot of freedom, but also a very important responsibility: keeping your own administration. Naturally, you want to keep this in order to avoid any nasty surprises.

What is zzp administration?

Zzp administration is actually the overview of your turnover, costs and profit. It is the financial reference work you have to send to the tax authorities and which has to be correct. Make sure that your administration is not just the big picture, but also includes receipts, time sheets, travel expenses and bank statements. It's everything that goes out and comes in for your organisation. 

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To do your own administration or not? 

Keeping your records is not only compulsory, it is also extremely useful for you. It allows you to see how you are doing financially at that moment. As a self-employed person, you often have to submit your VAT return every quarter, and it is handy to have everything in order at that point. This makes it less time-consuming at that moment. 

Most freelancers outsource their administration so that they have extra time to focus on what they are good at. In most cases this is the best way, but it can also be very expensive. Bookkeepers are not cheap and often a self-employed person does not have such a complicated administration. However, if it causes you more stress than money, it is certainly advisable to outsource it. 

Do you have a feel for numbers and are you handy with spreadsheets? Then it is certainly advisable to find out how you can keep your zzp administration yourself. Always do this online, so that if your computer crashes not everything will be lost. Make a folder in which you put all your invoices and put the folders in order of dates. Make several tables within Excel with income, expenses, time registration, profit and loss account and a balance. 

There are also handy online accounting tools for your self-employed administration. Are you not so handy with spreadsheets? Then this is definitely recommended! You can often do more than just keep track of your administration! You can easily keep track of your hours, send invoices and create quotes. In addition, you can always save the data of your partners and make the quarterly VAT declarations. E-bookkeeping.nl is such a handy tool to use and you can now even try it out for free! 

In the end, there is no right or wrong way to do your administration. The important thing is that it is done and kept. Choose the way that suits you best, whether that is outsourcing or doing it yourself. 

Keep your zzp administration

It is extremely important to keep your records. It is even compulsory to keep them for at least seven years. Think about debtor and creditor administration, stock, purchase and sales, general ledger and wages! So think about this when choosing how you are going to keep your self-employed administration.