Introducing Our Etsy & Small Business Planners!

When my mom and I started our Etsy business together two years ago, we were clueless about the types of documents we would need to keep our records organized. In the beginning, we just flew by the seat of our pants…jotting down custom orders on sticky notes and tracking expenses by shoving receipts into a file folder. 

But as our business began to grow, we realized we needed a more efficient system. We needed a planner just for our shops that would help us track expenses and sales, inventory and supplies, business contacts and customer orders, marketing and promotions, etc. My mom joked and asked if I knew anyone that could make something like this for us :)

And so my project began…

Developing a planner that would work for all Etsy and Small Businesses was a challenge, especially because I am a printable junkie and find myself wanting a list or tracker for everything. But in the end, we narrowed it down to the essentials and found good balance in the categories we created for our planner. Here's a little look at what our new Etsy and Small Businesses Planner has to offer:

As always, we are offering two different sizes in this planner with two different cover options to choose from, depending on your business.

Small Business Planner {Size Large}       Etsy Business Planner {Size Large}

Small Business Planner {Size Small}       Etsy Business Planner {Size Small}

How you organize your business planner is up to you and the files in our planner sets are flexible enough that you can arrange them any way you like. But if you are looking for some guidance in that that department, these are the categories we use with print instructions on how to set up each section:

CALENDAR:

In our calendar section, we include our Monthly Goals & Tasks page, which is placed before each month with a Notes Page.

This is where we write in tasks for the month, like updating our website, shop and blog, and also plan out any promotions or giveaways we want to offer. There is also a large section for listing new product ideas, as well as a "Top Three Goals" section to keep us motivated. We use the Notes page to jot down quick ideas, tasks, ToDo's, reminders, etc.

Following the Monthly Goals & Tasks section is our 2-page monthly spread.

There is the option to include weekly pages after each individual month, but we like to clump our weeklies together at the end of the Calendar section. We only keep about 1-2 months of weeklies in the planner at a time, to keep from the binder getting too bulky.

We use our weekly pages to track our ToDos, People to Call/E-mail, Places to Go and Social Media. But if those headings do not work for you, we also include a blank copy of this weekly so that you can fill in your own headings.

TO PRINT CALENDARS:

PLEASE NOTE: We recommend printing all of our planner pages "Borderless" so that the colors bleed to the edges. You can find this setting by clicking on the "Print Setup" button in Adobe:

 Or the "Paper Size" drop-down menu in Mac Preview:

For our Large Planners, you have the flexibility to print your pages in any order you would like. We like our month to begin with the Monthly Goals & Tasks Page with a Notes page {as shown above}, which then flips to our first Monthly calendar. That will then flip to next month's Goals & Tasks page, which will then flip to the Monthly calendar. Repeat for as many months as you want to carry in your planner.

For our Small planner, we have this same order already set up for you. Because of the complexity of printing two planner pages on one sheet of paper AND have them work for front-to-back printing, they have to be in a very specific order. We take the guess work out for you and have designed a page that has the Monthly Goals & Tasks with Notes on one page so that you can simply run it on the back of each Monthly calendar. Here is a visual to help better explain this process:

For our Large Planners, you can choose to print the one-page Weekly of your choice front-to-back as many times as you like, or you can print your Weekly Page with a Notes page {which is what we have pictured above}.

For our Small planner, we have designed the pages to give you both options for printing weeklies as well. You can select the Weekly Page with Notes so that you have a two-page spread {example below} or you can print just the double Weekly page back-to-back as many times as you would like.

PRODUCTS:

The next section in our planner is where we keep all of the trackers, notes and materials pertaining to our products. One of the most useful tools we use is the Product Cost Worksheet.

This worksheet will help you determine the cost of each item you sell by breaking down all of the materials, labor, fees it will cost you, in addition to the profit you hope to make.

This section also includes our Product Listing Tracker and our Supply Inventory Tracker.

TO PRINT THESE PAGES:

Again, select "Borderless" printing and simply run each of the pages front-to-back with itself for as many copies as you would like to keep in your planner. These instructions are the same for Large and Small.


CUSTOM ORDERS:

Our Orders section is where we keep all of our Custom Order Forms,

As well as our Custom Order & Shipping Trackers. Because my Etsy shop is all digital, I do not use the Shipping Tracker, but my mom relies heavily on it for all of her products. This is the great thing about this system…you can pick and choose what works best for YOUR business :-)

TO PRINT THESE PAGES:

Again, select "Borderless" printing and simply run each of the pages front-to-back with itself for as many copies as you would like to keep in your planner. These instructions are the same for Large and Small.

INVENTORY:

This section is incredibly helpful for keeping track of your supply inventory, as well as keeping an ongoing reminder of when items need to be reordered. Our Supply Inventory sheet does both for you.


FINANCES:

This is the most important section of our planner. Keeping accurate, detailed records of your expenses, mileage and sales is crucial when it comes to tax season and our planner has everything you need.

Our Finances section includes our Mileage Tracker, Monthly & Yearly Expense Tracker {with blank spaces so that you can write in your own categories} and Monthly & Yearly Sales and Profit Trackers {with blank spaces so you can write in your own categories}.

TO PRINT THE FINANCE PAGES:

The first step is always to select "Borderless"and then for the Mileage Tracker, simply print the same page on the front and back as many times as you would like. Some people use a new tracker for each month, others just keep a running total for the year.

For the Monthly and Yearly Trackers, we prefer our Monthlies to follow our Yearly.

For the Large Planner, we recommend printing a Notes page to start the section, and then run the FIRST HALF of a Yearly Tracker on the back. Next, print the SECOND HALF of the Yearly Tracker with the coordinating Monthly Tracker on the back. Then, for the remaining 11 months of the year, simple run the Monthly Tracker back-to-back with itself.

For the Small Planner, we have arranged the pages for you to do the same thing. Please see this visual:

MARKETING:

This is the section where we track our Promotions and Giveaways and we have designed two different forms to help you out. We have a Promotions/Discount Tracker that will help you keep track of coupon/promotional codes, as well as the activation and expiration dates. We also have a very handy Giveaway form that will help you keep track of the blog or website hosting the Giveaway, when it starts and ends, the value of the prize, etc.

TO PRINT THESE PAGES:

Again, select "Borderless" printing and simply run each of the pages front-to-back with itself for as many copies as you would like to keep in your planner. These instructions are the same for Large and Small.

CONTACTS/NOTES/REFERENCE:

These last two sections of our planner serve as the catch-alls for everything else. It's a great place to store notes or project ideas, keep reference pages like our Passwords Tracker or 2014-2015 Yearly Overview. We have also included a great Contacts page in our set that you can us in any section of your planner.

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OTHER PRINTING/ASSEMBLING TIPS AND SUGGESTIONS:

The wonderful thing about purchasing a Printable Planner is that you have the flexibility to make it your own. No more wasted pages you don't use and no more being stuck with a wire bound book that doesn't let you add your own materials. You have the flexibility to carry as much or as little as you want at one time, and reprint pages as you need them.

But with this freedom comes a little extra work on your part. To make the planner as flexible as possible, we keep the pages individual which means it isn't as simple as clicking "Print" on your screen. You will need to spend time determining what you want to print and how many pages you want of each item to get you started. You ARE allowed to use printing services for your planner, but beware that they will need YOU to tell them how you want the planner put together.

But we promise…it is worth the time and effort to have a planner that you truly love and that you will commit to using every day. So before we end this instructional post, we want to offer a few other printing tips to help you out.

* We recommend using 24-28lb paper. It is thick enough to write without bleeding through the pages, but it is thin enough to keep your planner from exploding :-)

* We recommend printing your cover page with heavy duty card stock if possible. This will keep it from wearing throughout the year.

* Many printers have a default setting when switched to "Borderless." It assumes you are printing a photo or image and will typically choose "Photo Paper" as your paper type. This is only a problem because your printer will use 3 times as much ink if it thinks it is printing on photo paper. Be sure to change this setting EVERY TIME you switch to "Borderless" or print a new page.

* IF YOUR FILE FOR THE SMALL PLANNER LOOKS OUT OF ORDER…it's because it is. However, it is in the correct order for two-to-a-page/front-t0-back-printing. The order of your pages will make sense once they have been printed front-to-back AND cut down the middle.

* We have tried to our best to make these instructions as comprehensive as possible, but if you still have other questions, please don't hesitate to contact us at ThePolkaDotPosiePrintables{at}gmail{dot}com.

We hope you love this planner as much as we do!!!!