Hi, I’m currently in the process of setting up my coaching business, which is a sole proprietorship.

I’m trying to figure out arranging my payments and accounting, and have a couple of probably very simple questions.

I see that most people use a payment processing system, and an accounting software. My payment processing system will create, send, and track invoices. The only money coming in will be from customers, and the only money going out will be on simple items that can be written off like renting space, paying for lunch, ordering business cards etc that will be purchased through my personal credit card. I have no vendors to pay, no employees, and very few (if any) extra or large expenses.

- Do I need to have a central accounting system where all my incomings and outgoings are all tracked? Or since this part of my business is quite simple, can I just use the native setup within my payment processing system to track invoices, and use something separate to track receipts to send to my accountant at the end of the year? It seems like spending more time entering info into multiple systems might be more work than it’s worth given the simplicity of my accounting - or am I missing something?

- Presumably fees charged by my payment processing system can be written off my taxes. What’s the best way to track this? For most payment processing systems, would this be as simple as filtering by all the payments made that year and adding up the fees taken?

If it helps, I’m looking to use Helcim as my payment processing system due to their low fees.