How to Track Your Income and Expenses as a Creator

Quick answer: To track your income and expenses as a creator, keep one running record of every brand deal (what you earned, what’s been paid, and what’s still owed) plus the business costs that come out of that money: props, samples, software, fees, and a slice set aside for tax. You do not need accounting software or an accounting degree to do this. What you need is one place that shows you what you earned, what’s pending, and who still owes you, at a glance, on your phone. That’s the whole job. Call Me Claire builds that money view automatically from your invoices, so the tracking happens for you instead of you maintaining a spreadsheet you’ll forget to update.

Let’s get one thing out of the way first, because it’s the reason this whole task feels heavier than it should.

You’re not bad at money. You’re just running your entire business in your head.

“Missed deadlines. Forgotten invoices. ‘Wait, where is that file?’ That’s not a skill issue. That’s a systems issue.” (@aplussocials)

That line is about organization, but it’s exactly true of money too. The sick feeling you get when someone asks “so how much did you make this year?” and you genuinely don’t know? That’s not a character flaw. It’s what happens when your income lives in PayPal, your expenses live on a credit card statement, your invoices live in a Google Doc, and the whole picture lives nowhere. Nobody handed you a system. So let’s build the simplest possible one.

What does “track income and expenses” actually mean for a creator?

For a creator, tracking income and expenses means keeping a simple, ongoing record of two things: the money coming in from brand deals, UGC, affiliate links and tips, and the money going out to run the business, minus a slice set aside for tax. That’s it. It’s not full-blown bookkeeping, and it’s not something you do once a year in a panic.

Here’s the reframe that makes it doable. You’re not becoming an accountant. You’re just answering three questions any business owner should be able to answer on demand:

• What did I earn? (total in, this month and this year)
• What’s still pending? (work delivered, money not yet paid)
• Who still owes me? (the named brands sitting on unpaid invoices)

Notice none of those require debits, credits, or the word “ledger.” If your system answers those three questions in under ten seconds, you’re tracking your money well. Full stop.

And the moment you start, you’ve quietly stepped into it. As @loopwell.co puts it:

“The moment you cash your first brand deal check you are a self-employed business owner whether you feel like one or not… most creators find out way too late.”

You don’t have to feel like a business to be one. You just have to keep the receipts.

How do creators track income and expenses without an accountant?

Most creators track income and expenses with one of four setups, ranging from “free but you do all the work” to “it tracks itself.” The right one is whichever you’ll actually keep updated. A perfect spreadsheet you abandon in March beats nothing, but it also loses to a tool that updates itself. Here’s the honest comparison.

Method	What it costs	What it’s good at	Where it breaks for creators
Notes app / memory	Free	Nothing, really. It’s where money goes to be forgotten	Can’t add up, can’t tell you who’s unpaid, vanishes the day you have three deals at once
Spreadsheet (Google Sheets / Excel)	Free	Flexible, you own it, fine for totals	You have to update every row by hand; a sheet can’t tell you who hasn’t paid unless you remember to type it in
Accounting software (the generic kind)	Often a monthly fee	Real bookkeeping, tax categories, payroll	Built for accountants and small businesses, not for tracking 20 brand deals from your phone; overkill and full of words you’ll never use
A creator money tool (e.g. Call Me Claire)	Free for your first 3 invoices/month; Pro $19.99/mo or $149.99/yr	Income, expenses, and unpaid invoices in one phone-first view that updates itself from your invoices	You still set aside your own tax slice (no tool decides that for you)

The best part of that table is the last row: the tracking is a by-product of invoicing. When you create and send an invoice through Call Me Claire, the money side updates itself. That deal is now “pending,” and the second it’s marked paid, it moves to “earned.” You’re not doing bookkeeping as a separate chore. You’re just sending invoices like you already do, and the dashboard quietly keeps score.

If you’re still living in a Google Doc and a PayPal link, the single best move is to stop using a Google Doc and PayPal to invoice, because the moment your invoices are tracked, your income tracking comes free with it.

A simple 5-step system to track your creator money

You can set this up in an afternoon and then mostly forget about it. The goal is a system that does the remembering so you don’t have to.

1. Separate your business money from your life money. Open a free second checking account, route every brand payment into it, and pay every business cost out of it. Now your income and expenses sort themselves. You’re not fishing your work out of your grocery runs. (Record-keeping tip, not a legal requirement.)
2. Set aside your tax slice the moment you’re paid. When a payment lands, move a chunk (many creators use roughly 25-30% as a placeholder) into a separate “don’t touch” account. More on the number below, and read the tax line carefully: it’s not advice.
3. Log every deal as an invoice, not a memory. Every time you agree to work, make the invoice. Even for a small deal. This is the step that does double duty: it’s how you get paid and how your income gets tracked. (Yes, even a gifted or PR collab sometimes belongs in your records.)
4. Keep a running list of expenses as they happen. Props, samples you bought, ring light, editing software, the percentage Stripe or PayPal shaves off, paid subscriptions, your phone bill’s business share. Snap the receipt and note it the day it happens. Reconstructing a year of expenses from memory is where most creators leave money on the table.
5. Check the whole picture once a week. Two minutes, same time each week. What came in, what’s still pending, who’s gone quiet on an invoice. This tiny ritual is the difference between “I have no idea where it went” and “I know exactly where I stand.”

That’s the entire system. Five steps, most of which run themselves once they’re set up. For the bigger picture of how this fits with deadlines, contracts and campaigns, see the pillar guide on how to organize your content creator business.

Should I have a separate business bank account as a creator?

A separate business bank account isn’t legally required for most solo creators, but it’s the single easiest thing you can do to make tracking painless. When all your brand-deal money lands in one account and all your business costs leave from it, your income and expense tracking is basically done for you: every transaction in that account is, by definition, business. No more scrolling a personal statement trying to remember whether that Sephora charge was content or skincare.

You don’t need a fancy “business banking” product to start. A free second personal checking account is usually plenty in the beginning. The point isn’t the account type. It’s the clean line between “money my business made” and “money I spent on life.” Just confirm your bank’s terms and your local rules, since this is a record-keeping habit, not tax or legal advice.

What expenses can creators actually track (and why it matters)

Most creators wildly undercount their expenses, which usually means they overstate what they “made” and pay attention to the wrong number. Tracking expenses isn’t about being stingy. It’s about knowing your real income, the number left after the cost of doing the work. Common creator expenses worth logging the day they happen:

• Gear and props: ring light, tripod, backdrops, the products you bought specifically to film
• Software and subscriptions: editing apps, scheduling tools, your invoicing tool, cloud storage
• Payment fees: the cut Stripe, PayPal or your bank takes off each payment (small per-deal, real over a year)
• Samples and shipping: products you purchased, return postage, packaging
• A share of mixed costs: the business portion of your phone bill, internet, or home workspace
• Outsourcing: an editor, a VA, a designer you paid for a one-off

Logging these does two jobs. First, it shows you your true take-home so you can tell whether you’re actually undercharging once costs come out. Second, it keeps your records tidy for tax time. Many of these may be deductible where you live, but whether they are is a question for your local tax authority, not this blog.

How much should I set aside for taxes as a creator?

A common rule of thumb creators use is to set aside roughly 25-30% of every brand payment for tax, in a separate account you don’t dip into. But please read this as a placeholder, not a promise: the right percentage depends entirely on where you live, how much you earn in total, and what you can deduct. Treat that range as a “set aside something, starting now” nudge, not a calculated figure.

This isn’t tax advice. Call Me Claire helps you keep clean records; it doesn’t tell you what you owe. For your actual rate and obligations, check your local tax authority or talk to an accountant once. The reframe that helps here is the one from @loopwell.co above: the day you cashed your first brand check, you became a self-employed business owner. That’s not scary. It just means future-you will be very glad present-you set aside a slice and kept the receipts. Tidy records turn tax season from a panic into a paperwork afternoon.

”A Google Sheet can’t tell you who hasn’t paid yet”

Here’s the gap a spreadsheet will never close. A sheet can add up the money you type into it. It cannot tell you who still owes you, because the brand sitting on your unpaid invoice never logs into your spreadsheet to update a cell. You’d have to remember the invoice exists, remember it’s unpaid, and remember to chase it. That’s three places for a busy creator to drop the ball, and it’s exactly where money quietly disappears.

This is the real reason “tracking income” and “tracking who owes you” are the same job. As @aplussocials nailed it: “Missed deadlines. Forgotten invoices.” A forgotten invoice is unpaid income you never even chased.

This is the part Call Me Claire is built for. Every invoice you send carries its own status, sent or paid, so your money dashboard always shows three numbers without you maintaining anything: what you’ve earned, what’s pending, and who still owes you, by name. No “wait, did they ever pay me?” Just a list. (If chasing is your real pain, Pro can send the polite payment-reminder follow-ups for you, on schedule, so you never have to write the awkward “hey, just checking in” message again. That’s about handling the follow-up, not making brands pay any sooner; their net-30/60 terms are their terms.) For more on staying on top of every deal end to end, see how to keep track of brand deals as a creator.

You don’t need accounting software, you need a money view

Let’s name the thing you’ve been quietly dreading: that “getting on top of your money” means QuickBooks, categories, double-entry, and an interface designed for someone with a finance background. It doesn’t. That category of tool is built for accountants and businesses with payroll, not for a solo creator tracking a couple dozen brand deals a year from her phone.

What you actually need is a money view: income in, expenses out, who still owes you, all in one place you’ll actually open. That’s a much smaller thing than bookkeeping software, and it’s the thing the scattered free patchwork (Notes app + PayPal + a Google Doc) can never give you, because those tools don’t talk to each other. The fix isn’t more discipline. It’s one place where the money side keeps itself current.

And when tax time comes and you do want to hand something to an accountant, you export a clean record instead of a shoebox. The point isn’t to do less for your business. It’s to stop doing the parts a system should be doing for you.

Start free with Call Me Claire. Your first 3 invoices a month are free, no card needed, and your income and expense tracking builds itself from the invoices you’re already sending.