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Make business spending easier to act on.

Give each cost a purpose, keep money movements clear, and see which commitment or conversation needs attention next.

Begin with the situation you are in

You may be paying for a first order before its customer pays you. You may have covered materials from your own account, inherited a collection of monthly charges, or have several supplier bills and limited cash. Begin with the situation that needs a decision; you do not need a complete financial system before recording one useful piece of it.

The tool connects five views: the coming week, bills and proposed spending, personally covered costs, recurring commitments, and customer-job timing. Add what you know, leave unknown amounts blank, and give unresolved questions a next action.

Separate the cost from the payment

Record the full business amount once, including charges and taxes that belong to that bill. For a mixed personal and business receipt, enter only the business portion you have identified. Keep the original document separately and put a useful reference here; the tool does not store receipt images.

A proposed purchase is something you are considering. A confirmed cost is a real supplier bill or purchase. Confirming it does not pay it. Record actual payments separately, including a purchase that was paid immediately. A 600 bill paid in two parts is one 600 cost, not two expenses and an extra bill.

Amounts use one currency per record and remain grouped by currency. The tool follows full payable amounts and cash timing; it does not decide deductible expenses, tax treatment, depreciation, or profit.

Keep personally covered costs visible

Record who actually paid the supplier. A purchase paid personally by the owner is different from money that has left the business account. Keep the expense and any later reimbursement separately identifiable in the book.

If you personally pay 200 toward a 600 bill, the supplier has 400 remaining. If reimbursement is intended and the business later returns 50 to you, the intended owner balance is 150. The original cost remains 600; the 50 return is a separate business cash movement.

Name the person for each personal payment. Record reimbursement intended, contribution intended, or undecided. These labels express a working intention, not a verified accounting classification. Confirm the appropriate treatment for your business. Link each reimbursement to its original owner payment so multiple owners or part payments remain understandable.

Background: SBA: Manage your business

Find the funding gap before accepting its consequences

Bring together the dates for this particular job: customer deposits or balances, supplier payments, remaining bills, and intended owner reimbursements. Review the timing before assuming the customer’s eventual payment will cover an earlier cash need.

Enter business cash set aside immediately before the first day of the plan. Earlier actual movements belong in that opening amount and are not counted again. Still-unpaid expectations dated before the start appear on the first day with a warning to confirm their timing.

The lowest projected day-end balance shows when this entered plan needs more funding. It is not a promise that the job is affordable: missing costs, uncertain receipts, other business demands, and payment order within a day can change the result. Personally covered supplier payments do not leave business cash; reimbursements do. Proposed purchases stay outside the baseline, with a separate comparison available.

Background: SBA: Manage your business

Update a customer expectation when reality changes

Use expected receipts for planned customer payments and actually received for money that has arrived. When a full expected receipt arrives, replace that entry with its real date and amount. The previous expectation remains in the history and is excluded from the calculation.

If 300 of an expected 900 arrives, replace the expectation with the actual 300 receipt and add a separate expectation for the remaining 600 on its revised date. Leaving the original 900 expectation in place as well would count money twice.

Customer invoices and job timing are separate working tools. A link lets you move between them while keeping this open book, but entries are not copied or synchronized. Check the source invoice and payment records when entering a receipt.

Review a recurring charge before it repeats

Put each ongoing charge alongside the result it should support and the use you are actually getting. An inexpensive service can still be wasted money; a larger charge may support work that matters. Record what to keep, change, discuss, or cancel after reviewing the arrangement.

Enter a first charge date and frequency. Monthly dates follow the original day, clamped to the last day of shorter months; a January 31 anchor therefore returns to March 31 after February. Annualized comparisons use 52 weekly, 12 monthly, 4 quarterly, or 1 annual charge at the current rate. They are not the exact charges for every calendar year.

Keep the renewal date, notice deadline, and your own review date distinct. An intention to stop does not cancel a contract. Enter a confirmed stop date only after checking when charges cease. A scheduled occurrence creates a proposed cost draft; check its actual amount and document before confirming it. Changing the schedule never rewrites existing bills.

Background: SBA: Manage your business

Turn a bill or query into a next action

The weekly view flags overdue or soon-due supplier balances, owner funding questions, reimbursement plans, review dates, and renewal deadlines. It does not choose who deserves payment first. Check the terms, consequences, service needs, and arrangements for your situation.

A query or dispute remains attached to the bill without erasing its balance. Write what needs checking, who will act, and when to return. A concrete step such as checking the delivery record or asking about an incorrect charge is more useful than a general note to sort it out.

Give discretionary spending an intended result and a review date. Later, record what happened: did the tool save time, did the materials support the order, did the experiment answer the question? Update or clear completed review dates so the coming-week view stays useful.

Correct a record without hiding the original

Confirmed bill details are protected from casual edits. Correct recorded details keeps the old values and an explanation. Correcting a transaction retains the old entry as excluded and counts its replacement once. Exclude entry mistake is for duplicates or incorrect entries, not genuine refunds.

A reimbursed owner payment cannot be casually removed or replaced while current reimbursements depend on it. Resolve recording mistakes in the linked entries first. Genuine refunds, credits, write-offs, loans, and accounting adjustments need the appropriate accounting records; this tool does not fabricate those movements.

The review date controls which transaction dates count. Past reviews use the current corrected history, not a snapshot of what you knew then. Status changes on the same day resolve to that day's final recorded status. Job timing uses the current payments and expectations across its chosen window.

Keep the working book and the reading copy distinct

Download editable book (.json) keeps the entries, links, notes, corrections, and unfinished recurring edits. Reopen that JSON file here to continue. Download after changes and before closing: this working draft does not automatically save to an account. Opening another book replaces the current book after confirmation; books are not merged.

Preview private summary PDF, cost record PDF, or job timing PDF opens a reading preview with a Download PDF action. Text downloads are explicitly labeled .txt. These reading copies do not restore an editable book. All outputs may include private owner and business details; review them before sharing.

A book holds up to 75 costs, 25 jobs, and 40 recurring commitments. Each cost supports 40 supplier-payment entries and 40 reimbursements, including corrections; each job supports 40 receipt entries. Cost and commitment changes have 20-entry history limits. Individual amounts support up to 1 billion currency units with two decimal places. A job timeline can span up to 366 days.

Try it in your own situation

Start with one decision that matters this week

  1. Choose a real bill, a personally covered purchase, a recurring charge, or a customer job with costs arriving first.
  2. Record the full business cost and purpose; leave proposed spending separate from confirmed obligations.
  3. Record actual supplier payments and who paid. Link any owner reimbursement to the original payment.
  4. If a customer job needs funding, enter its cash set aside, receipt dates, and linked costs; review the first gap and missing inputs.
  5. Choose a practical next action or value review, with a person and date where useful.
  6. Download the editable JSON book, and use a clearly labeled PDF or text copy when you want a reading summary.

Keep exploring.

Understand when the money needs to move. Explore Running a business
Sources and further reading

Original Brass Charter examples and exercises, with background reading from the sources below.

Keep your open draft?

Continuing will discard your unsaved changes. You can return to the draft and save or download it first.