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Mokuhankan - first year financials ...
Posted by Dave Bull on February 14, 2007 [Permalink]
Tax time comes early here in Japan - personal income tax returns have to be filed before March 15th, so that's what I've been up to for the past few days.
I do all my own 'bookkeeping', but then send the summaries off to a pro for completion of the tax forms; I learned long ago that he can usually save me more than enough to cover his fee, and that's not even counting the savings in hassle and time ...
For the past few years I have been publishing my printmaking income summaries in my Hyakunin Issho newsletter, and I guess we might as well continue that tradition for Mokuhankan. (Not that there is much to 'show' yet!)
Here is a simple spreadsheet showing the main 'money in/money out' flow at the end of the first year's efforts:
Now this is not much of a 'financial statement', as it omits all kind of information - it doesn't show the assets I have accumulated (the prints in inventory), nor does it show liabilities (the designer royalties I have yet to pay, etc.). There is also a lot of 'cheating' going on - the printing paper was 'stolen' from my own personal stock, as was the wood for many of the blocks, but at this point, the flow of cash is the only score-card I need to pay much attention to ...
With next to no marketing done - nothing much beyond the web site - and only a half-dozen prints in the catalogue, I've brought in just about US$5000. Of course, it cost me around US$8000. to do that, so Mokuhankan is certainly not contributing to my income yet!
But it's early days ... and this is certainly within the range of an acceptable loss. If I had spent that much and got nothing back, I think the venture would need a re-think, but this seems reasonable to me.
Let's see how it will change for next year!
Added by: Maria on February 15, 2007, 1:20 am
Well, my first year of art festivals I brought in around $14K and spent around $38K!
So it seems to me worthwhile as well...
I think that is very respectable considering the online only nature of the biz.
I will get on those designs shortly!
Maria
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