Bookkeeping for people who make things with their hands and sell them

Potters, printmakers, illustrators, weavers. Sales from a website, two fairs and a shop that takes thirty per cent; stock that is half-glazed. We have sold at fairs ourselves, and we know what a kiln is for.

A long studio bench under a sunlit window, with bottles, baskets and small sculptures in the warm light.

£85 a month, fixed

This monthA ceramicist with three stockists and a kiln bought in March

Clay-covered hands shaping a vase on a turning wheel. — Once a yearA morning in your studio, counting stock with you

A printmaker pulling a screen-printing frame by a window in a dark workshop. — Every monthSales from every place you sell, in one list

Two bookkeepers who used to stand behind a trestle table too

We are Hester and Dami. Between us we sold prints at fairs for eleven years before we did this. We know that a stall fee is a cost, that a commission shop pays late, and that the mug you gave your aunt still counts.

What the fee covers

One monthly price, the same in December as in March. If something here is not on the list, we tell you the price before we start.

Monthly bookkeeping, all sales channelsincluded
Fair and stockist sales reconciledincluded
VAT returns, if you are registeredincluded
Year-end accounts and tax returnincluded
The studio visit and stock countonce a year

What to keep for us

A pile of unglazed handmade cups and bowls stacked on a table.

A woman working at a desk in a bright studio full of plants, an easel and pinned-up drawings.

Kind words

"They asked how many unsold tote bags were in the loft. Nobody had ever asked."

For six years I did my own books in January and cried. Now I get one page a month that tells me which fair is worth the train fare.

Folake, illustrator and printmaker

Before the year end

Three things makers get wrong most often. None of them is hard; all of them are cheaper to fix in November than in January.

A hand painting glaze on the inside of a bowl with a fine brush.

Count what is unfinished

Half-glazed, unframed, waiting for clasps. It is stock, and it changes your profit. Rough numbers are fine.

A hand rolling black ink across a flat plate with a small roller.

Keep the small receipts

Ink, clay, postage, stall fees, the train to the fair. Photograph them the day you get them; paper fades.

The average maker misses £640 a year

Hands trimming the foot of a clay pot with a small knife.

What we will not do

Price your work for you. We will tell you what each piece costs to make; what it is worth is yours to say.

Rows of white handmade mugs on pale wooden shelves.