Hello all, I looked around to see if this topic has come up, but couldn't find anything. I am a designer not an accountant, so I was seeing what other people do to keep track of profit/loss on items they put up on their shops? I know shapeways gives me an invoice for items sold. I just use excel to input time spent vs. items sold to see how much I make per item. I am looking to see how people input their time in the design phase and a cost against an item. Do you keep track on time spent vs item sold? if so using excel, or another program? Love to see other people ideas on how they keep track. William
If you plot design-time versus profit in any of the plastics it'll only make you cry! I design stuff for my hobbies, and there's no way ANY of them will ever pay me back at the commercial hourly rate for my time. Instead, I assume I'm investing the time for my hobbies, and if sales profits cover the cost of my own purchased prints then I'm a winner...
My sentiment exactly. Hundreds of hours spent fixing the holes in a model, and net $13 of markup from that model over a period of the last 3 years. I'm not in this "for the money". The drawing itself is relaxation for me. However, I'm also not going to turn down any donations that any patron would like to contribute.. <grin> Now, on the other side, I've had a couple of models that took 20 minutes to build and netted me over $100 of markup. It's not an even tradeoff.. I have yet to break $1.50 average markup per item sold. But I'm not going to stop drawing.
It's true that by using a service like Shapeways that time is probably your primary "expense." You're not purchasing or operating 3D printers. But how do you value the time component? Do you count an hour of time as minimum wage or the less than minimum wage that a normal start-up entrepreneur might experience? On the off hand chance anyone is running a real business they would really need to get their sales volumes cranked up to also cover all the other expenses related to general office equipment and the rental of business space if you aren't working out of your garage. But working out of your garage might also earn you some business deductions so there's that, but I don't think you can deduct time (or labor) as a business expense. For most hobbyist types it's likely that 99% find this a losing proposition when it comes to getting a return on investment, and that's not even counting time. The costs for prototypes probably exceed royalties for most individual models or for hobbyist stores taken in their totality. Add to those costs internet access every month and the costs of buying a computer or the share or costs attributable to the hobby, and you're even further behind. However, it would be an interesting thing to keep track of if you are just starting out. Had I kept track I could generate a cost of playing around and compare that to how much closer I would be to a Corvette had I instead spent evenings working at a McDonalds. I'm not going to stop "DRAWing" either over the long run.
3D modeling is my hobby, but I would like to make a little money at it as well. When I look at some of the top sellers/designers, I wounder if they are breaking even or not. Right now I am doing this as a hobby and content on making content vs making money.
It's quite a bit off-topic, but just to mention.. the IRS does not recognize your own labor / ingenuity as an expense. Any money I make from Shapeways is all considered to be Income, and my labor "cost" can't be deducted from it.
I think thats a good point. Maybe I should just focus on what I spent on prototypes - items sold for a profit/loss to make it simple.