
Ask HN: Accounting for Self-Employed/Contractors - _mgr
For those of you working for yourself in a self-employed&#x2F;contracting capacity how are you managing your accounts?<p>Are you using something like Xero or an alternative? Do you have a completely seperate set of bank accounts or do you just have a side account off your main personal banking account?<p>Any suggestions you may have on managing the communications side of things would be interesting as well. Do you keep a seperate email address or even mobile number for &quot;business&quot; communications keeping everything seperate from your personal communication accounts?<p>I am located in New Zealand for what it&#x27;s worth but I think a lot of this could be universal.<p>Thank you in advance.
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pavornyoh
How is this different from
[http://www.freshbooks.com](http://www.freshbooks.com) ?

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_mgr
How is what different?

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fbashir
Xero is a full fledged accounting system where as freshbook is more like a
billing system with few accounting things mixed in.

I personally use xero for my small business. It allows me to see a complete
picture of my financials for my business. my bills that I have to pay,
invoices that are coming in. expenses etc and at the end of the year I
generate reports that my accountant uses to do his business.

Xero also links to lot of online systems, I have it linked to insightly for
CRM.

As for the bank accounts I am personally in favour of having separate
accounts. My company has its own bank account that is used for all business
stuff and I draw a monthly salary which I deposit in my personal account.
Where I am from we have no taxes etc. So it might be a bit more complicated
than your situation.

Other comparable systems to xero are freeagent, kashoo, quickbooks and less
accounting.

Let me know if you have any questions and I will be happy to help.

