It’s a privilege to be out of the office for work. However, the number of expenses when working from home can begin to add up if you aren’t careful since you are responsible for costs.

Keep Your Equipment in Working Order

When you work from home as a freelancer or even as an employee, there will be certain equipment you need. These include laptops, computers, and printers or scanners. And at any time, these can fail. Yet you can avoid going full Office Space on an unruly printer or older PC by maintaining your equipment. Companies like Boomerang TCR (https://boomerangtcrqld.com.au/) can maintain printers and office equipment for longer life.

See What You Can Claim

Depending on where you live, you might be able to get money back for work-from-home expenses. As a sole trader in the UK, you can deduct the cost of anything you use for work. Some of these are software licences, the cost of new computers, and the cost of keeping the computers running. But it can take a lot of work to keep track of each one of these. If you want, you can choose to have a flat rate taken out of your tax bill at the end of the year.

Expenses when Working from Home Includes Energy

You might not notice it in the summer, but energy costs go up a lot in the winter. And because you work from home, your heating costs are almost twice as much as if you worked all day in an office. But, like other tax-deductible costs, you can claim for gas and electricity on your tax returns. This can be hard to figure out because you have to be exact. But if you have a smart metre or ask your energy provider, you can get a history of how much energy you’ve used.

Use Free or Trial Software

Software packages are often the most expensive thing you can buy for your home office. Microsoft Office 365, for example, can cost almost £100 per year in the UK. And you’ll often need more than one piece of software, like tools for working together and document checkers. But often, you can find open-source programmes that work just as well. One great example is LibreOffice. So, use Google to look for cheaper alternatives to the software you want.

Minimise How Much Paper You Use

Since we are well into the digital age, you probably shouldn’t use paper unless you have to. These days, you can talk about just about anything online. Going digital is often cheaper and faster. Also, paper costs money. It costs money, time and energy. Paper isn’t the best way to communicate in the office in a world that is becoming more eco-friendly. So try good old email for communication, and use the built-in collaboration features of office software for reports.

Summary

It’s surprising how the expenses when working from home can add up. You can reduce these by maintaining equipment, claiming for energy use, and reducing or eradicating the use of paper.

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