How Do You Track Your Online Earnings?
Published November 22nd, 2006 in affiliate programs, blogging, blogs, incomeI see lots of other bloggers reporting their monthly online earnings and I’m curious: How do you track what you’re bringing in? Most bloggers who are making money online seem to be making it from more than one source. This, and the fact that many affiliate programs don’t make a payout until a certain threshold is reached, can make tracking more difficult.
So, what types of tools and methods are you using to track your online earnings? Spreadsheets? Databases? Paper charts? Do you update them monthly, weekly, daily? I’ll write another post summarizing any input I get.
I just use an excel spreadsheet on my Treo. I update monthly in most cases… With my affiliate programs that I’m working on, I’m keeping tabs weekly or even more often if I have time… want to make sure they’re profitable.
Excel is definately the best and most comprehensive way to keep this information… especially since it does the math for you - makes life very easy.
Thanks, Leroy. I was thinking of using excel myself, but I’m not sure exactly how I should set things up. I want it to be easy to maintain, but also to be able to quickly give me a snapshot of how various projects are doing as well as some history. Do you put each month on a separate worksheet? And do you record income only when it pays out or as it accrues?
I do keep every month separate, and I have a ‘header’ type page with a quick summary of each month, so I can see performance over time.
I record income as it’s earned, but also keep track of when it is received. Not sure how the technical accounting should be handled; I’m far from an accountant.
Whoever said this stuff was easy is either crazy or lying. Sometimes it’s a royal PITA.
Sounds like it. I kind of jumped into a bunch of things at once and now I’m having trouble keeping up with the details. I’d bet that most of those who attempt to make money online give up because of the difficulties in tracking income streams and making them profitable.
I’m in the same boat here - i’m stretched too thin, and each project is suffering accordingly. I need to work on culling my projects, and concentrating on the few with the highest potential.
Keeping track of what is and isn’t profitable is also a huge time waster, but it’s necessary . Getting to be a pain in the butt though. I guess the dream of not having to wear a tie every day is still worth it , or I would’ve given up by now.
Sometimes we just want out of the cublicle so badly that we don’t stop to plan more carefully before starting projects. I think I could spend 8 hours a day researching and studying just the free information that’s out there. Maybe I know enough to get things started and should just focus on one or two main projects…