Jewelry Software

Jewelry making often starts as a hobby, but people with talent and a flair for salesmanship often turn jewelry making into a profitable hobby. However, because you make and sell jewelry from your home, doesn’t mean that you made the crossover from hobbyist to businessperson. The successful home-based business person realizes that they are no longer making jewelry just for fun. Instead, they own and operate a business, and treat it as a business, with their studio as their place of business. This doesn’t automatically happen when you hang your shingle. Instead, you must discipline yourself, and often friends and family to the fact that you are running a business and are no longer a hobbyist.

Having the right business attitude will show others how serious you are about it and help them realize that making jewelry is no longer just a hobby. Explain to family and friends that you need certain hours each day during which you can work undisturbed in your studio, but you will still have time for them and your home life. You now have a business to support, and you can no longer afford to be distracted from you set work time by household chores, people dropping by or calling just to visit. At the same time, you need to keep open communication with all your people, including your children, and let them know that you still want to spend time with them, but only when you aren’t working. Once you become more established in your jewelry business, finding a good sales rep will allow you more free time to concentrate on your craft rather than running around looking to sell your wares.

Setting and maintaining a dedicated work schedule is another facet of treating your business as a business. Your productivity is the life’s blood of your business, and if you are unable to commit to a set production schedule, your business will suffer for it. Here are a few suggestions to help you work at your peak performance.

• Set up your workspace so you will have enough privacy to work undisturbed.
• Planning and designing your own jewelry ahead of time will greatly increase your productivity.
• Create a weekly work schedule and post it outside your workspace so your family will know when you are working.
• Allow time in your work schedule for checking your e-mail and making phone calls, preferably at the beginning and end of each work period.
• Schedule set days for doing paperwork, such as bookkeeping, ordering supplies, paying bills.
• Set a time limit within which to complete each project
• Discipline yourself to keep your schedule!

When you treat your jewelry making as a business, so will others. Eventually everyone will become accustomed to the changes you make to accommodate your new business schedule, and honoring your work time will become part of the daily routine. As your business grows, you almost certainly will need to readjust your work schedule to keep up with the demand for your jewelry, but if you worked outside your home before turning your hobby into a business, it will be like going back to a former routine, and won’t seem such a drastic change to your family.

Technorati Tags: jewelry business, jewelry hobby, Jewelry Making Business, Starting a Jewelry Business

The most daunting task for many home-based business owners is managing business finances. Poor financial management can wreck any size of business, with Enron being the best-known example. Without a sound financial management plan, even the best selection of home-based businesses has a high risk of failure. Before you do anything else for your business, take the essential steps to managing the money end of your business and you have a far better chance that your business will be a profitable one.

Before you even start your business it is important to make a business plan. This will help you keep track of your goals and see how the business is fairing. Researching all that you need before you start and making sure that your suppliers are reliable, you know the costs of postage and packaging etc will make sure that you don’t undercharge or lose orders because of unreliable wholesalers. This is the time to find out where to source everything you will need. There may be some stores locally that sell clasps, handmade glass beads, clay etc, but make sure that you have back up suppliers in the event that these places run out of stock.

Finding out how to source the best wholesale jewelry can be time consuming and it is best to be done at this early stage as having to find something in the middle of a project can be costly. It the customer has to wait too long they may cancel their order and you are left with materials that may not be used in the future.

Paying overdraft charges is one of the most humiliating and funds-eating part of mismanaging money, but keeping your personal and business funds in a single account raises your risk of accidentally overdrawing on the account. It can be avoided by keeping separate accounts for your business. By separating the accounts, it is easier to control your spending and keep track of your business cash flow. You’ll also have an easier time at tax time because your business taxes are figured and paid separately from your personal income taxes.

Having more than one business account is both highly beneficial and recommended by owners of successful businesses. At the very least, you should open two accounts: one for receiving income and one for paying expenses. Determine a set percentage of your monthly income to be deposited into your expenses account, and specify how much should be set aside for each debt. With these two accounts, you will see from whom your funds are coming in and to whom expenses are being paid, making your accounting jobs easier and less time consuming. Include a set monthly wage for yourself in your business expenses; you work hard for your business and deserve a reasonable wage! Just be certain you don’t give in to the temptation to withdraw more money than your salary for personal use. Although it is your business, it is still a business, and you would fire an employee who stole money from your business!

Manage your business finances as conscientiously as possible. Throughout the year, keep your business funds for business use, and at the end of the year, you may pay yourself a well-earned bonus! If you keep to a strict budget and keep account of every bit of income then it won’t be long before jewelry making is a profitable hobby.

Technorati Tags: costing, expenses, finance, jewelry business, tax