If your profit lives in your head, not on a spreadsheet, we need to fix that. The thing most soloists learn the hard way is that being busy is not the same as being profitable. You can have a full calendar, happy clients and money coming in… and still be going backwards.
What you need isn’t a complicated accounting system. You just need a simple spreadsheet that tells you, in black and white, whether your business is actually working. Your spreadsheet gives you the truth about your finances
Zero in on your finances
Set up a spreadsheet with these columns:
Month
Revenue (money in)
Costs (money out)
Profit (what’s left)
That’s it.
Profit = Revenue minus Costs. It’s simple maths and makes it easy to understand your financial position. Let’s work through an example. Say you’re a freelance copywriter:
January revenue: $6,000
Costs: $2,500 (software, laptop repayments, subscriptions, a bit of marketing)
Profit: $3,500
Looks decent, right? Now zoom out.
February revenue drops to $4,000 but your costs stay the same. Suddenly your profit is $1,500.
In March you take on more work, bring in $7,000… but outsource some jobs and your costs jump to $4,500. Profit: $2,500.
That “big” month wasn’t actually your best one.
This is why the spreadsheet matters. It cuts through the story you tell yourself.
Don’t forget the sneaky costs
This is where most soloists come unstuck. You track the obvious stuff and forget the drip-feed expenses chewing through your margins.
Things like:
Subscriptions you barely use
Payment fees (Stripe, PayPal, etc.)
Your phone and internet
Coworking space or coffee shop spend
Courses you bought and never finished
Travel, parking, random bits and pieces
It adds up fast.
A copywriter was convinced she was doing great at around $5k a month. Once she actually listed everything, her real costs were closer to $3k. That left $2k before tax. Not quite the champagne moment she thought.
Pay yourself properly
Your profit isn’t just what’s left after expenses. It also needs to cover you. If you’re paying yourself scraps and calling the rest profit, the spreadsheet will expose it pretty quickly. Try adding a line for your wages as a fixed cost.
For example:
Revenue: $6,000
Costs: $2,500
My wage: $3,000
Actual profit: $500
That’s a very different picture.
A tradie running solo might bring in $8k for the month and feel solid. But once you factor in tools, fuel, insurance and a proper wage, the leftover can be surprisingly thin.
Track it monthly, not when you panic. You don’t need to check this daily. You do need to check it regularly.
Once a month is enough.
Sit down, update the numbers, and look at what’s changed. Not just the total, but the pattern.
Are your costs creeping up? Is revenue lumpy? Are you working more but keeping less? Patterns tell you where to act.
A photographer realised all her profit came from just two types of shoots. The rest looked good on Instagram but barely broke even. Guess what she stopped promoting.
A spreadsheet means decisions
A spreadsheet is about clarity. Getting clear on what’s coming in and going out. Once you’ve got the numbers, you can actually do something with them. Raise your prices if your margins are thin. Cut services that don’t stack up. Drop expenses that aren’t pulling their weight or even double down on what’s profitable.
A social media manager ditched low-cost monthly packages after seeing how little they delivered. Switched to higher-value projects and halved her client load. Same revenue, better profit, less stress.
That’s the power of knowing your numbers.
The main thing is to keep it simple. Don’t overcomplicate this. You don’t need fancy software. You don’t need a finance degree. A basic spreadsheet in Excel or Google Sheets will do the job just fine. What matters is that you actually use it. Once you’ve got a clear picture of your profit, everything else gets easier. Pricing, planning, even saying no to the wrong work. And if the numbers aren’t where you want them? At least you’re not guessing anymore.
Source: Flying Solo May 2026
This article is reproduced with the permission of Flying Solo – Australia’s micro business community. Find out more and join over 100K others https://www.flyingsolo.com.au/join.
Important: This provides general information and hasn’t taken your circumstances into account. It’s important to consider your particular circumstances before deciding what’s right for you. Any information provided by the author detailed above is separate and external to our business and our Licensee. Neither our business, nor our Licensee take any responsibility for any action or any service provided by the author. Any links have been provided with permission for information purposes only and will take you to external websites, which are not connected to our company in any way. Note: Our company does not endorse and is not responsible for the accuracy of the contents/information contained within the linked site(s) ac www.flyingsolo.com.au
