Guide · 5 min read
Project deposits, retainers, SaaS stacks, and pass-through hosting — books that match how designers actually work.
Lumpy income (big project deposits + months of nothing), recurring retainers, pass-through hosting, and a ~$300/mo SaaS stack. Without simple tagging, you can't tell what each client is actually worth.
All client Stripe/PayPal/wire payments to one account. One credit card for every recurring subscription. Auto-pull and categorize monthly.
50% deposit, 25% mid-project, 25% on launch is the classic split. Net-15 for retainers. Tag each payment to client + project.
Bill hosting as a line item with a small mark-up. Books show both the income and the offsetting hosting expense — no inflated 'revenue' number on your tax return.
25–30% of every payment to tax savings. Pay April / June / Sept / Jan. A Solo 401(k) or SEP-IRA can shelter $15–60k a year.
SnapBooks tracks every deposit, retainer, and SaaS charge — and tells you what each client is really worth.
Start freeDeposits and retainers are income the day they hit your account — even if the work isn't done yet (cash basis). If you switch to accrual, you'd defer them as 'unearned revenue'. Most solo designers stay on cash basis.
100%. Software subscriptions you use for client work are fully deductible. Same for Notion, Linear, GitHub, ChatGPT Plus, Cursor, fonts, and stock assets.
Track separately as a pass-through. Either bill it back at cost (reimbursement, not income) or mark up and bill it (income + offsetting expense). The mark-up version is much cleaner come tax time.
Helpful for liability (a buggy site brings down a client's launch = potential lawsuit). Tax-wise, sole prop is fine until net ~$60–80k, then S-Corp election can save thousands on self-employment tax.
Set aside 25–30% of every project payment for tax the moment it lands. Then your 'profit' is what's actually yours — no April surprise.