How to save time in the office
ByPhotography Business Tip- Make an Equipment List
One helpful step in starting a photography business, or even if you have been in business forever, is to write down some details of your major purchases. An equipment list will become a valuable time saver. If you start your list as you buy equipment, you will not need to spend much time on it. I have a simple Excel spread sheet I just add to as I buy larger ticket items like cameras, lenses, and backgrounds.
Having a detailed list of your equipment purchases will be helpful for many reasons. It will be a big time saver if you need to find out any information about a purchase.
Some equipment purchases can be depreciated so for accounting purposes you will want a list of those yearly purchases.
My equipment list was a big time saver for me when I had a camera break down. The first question was, was the equipment still under warranty? Well, I couldn’t remember exactly when I bought the camera. I was not sure which vendor or supplier I bought it from either. I could spend a few hours going through every file folder of receipts from the time I think I bought it or pay staff to dig for it. But I was most relieved to be able to refer to my equipment purchase list and know in one minute all of the information I needed. Then I knew who to call for repair assistance. And it was under warranty!
If you ever want to sell a piece of equipment you will have a start on deciding how much you want to sell it for.
If anything is stolen or you have a fire, you will need to know the total value of all of your equipment including backgrounds and major props. The insurance company may want serial numbers and maybe even copies of receipts. By having the list of dates you purchased items on, going to the file cabinet to retrieve them will be so much faster.
Here are the key columns of information I have on my equipment list spreadsheet.
- Date of purchase
- Make and Model
- Price I paid
- Vendor I purchased it from
- Serial number
- Any repair notes and the date of the repair
By having all of these pieces of information readily available will prove to be helpful and time saving in the future. If you have not started your equipment list, today would be a great day to begin.
Photography expert Barb Gordon, Master Photographer, weekly publishes Barb Gordon Photo Coach’s Shooting For Success, a free ezine. If you’re ready to take your photography to the next level, get your FREE reports “Make Photography More than a Hobby” and “15 Ways to Make More Money with your Photography” now at http://www.BarbGordonPhotoCoach.com
