Should I open a separate bank account for my small shop?

If you can, yes — it is the single biggest improvement you can make. But many small sellers cannot, because business accounts require registration they do not have yet. If that is you, a separate account is not the only answer: tagging every transaction as shop or personal in one app gets you most of the same clarity.

Is buying stock an expense?

Not in the way groceries are. Money spent on stock is not gone — it has turned into goods you still own and will sell. It becomes a real cost only when the item sells. This is why a budget app that treats a large stock purchase as ordinary spending will tell you that you had a catastrophic month when you actually just restocked.

How do I know my real profit if I sell on a marketplace?

Record the sale at its full price and the marketplace fee as a separate cost, rather than only recording the payout that lands in your account. The payout is already net of commission, shipping subsidies and promotions. If you only track payouts you will never see how much the platform is actually taking.

How much should I pay myself?

Decide a fixed amount and move it on a fixed day, treating it as a transfer from shop to personal rather than as shop profit disappearing. Taking money whenever you need it is the most common reason small sellers cannot tell whether the business works.

When your shop money and your own money are the same wallet

If you sell at a market, resell online, or make things to sell, your stock and your groceries come out of the same account. Almost every money app assumes that never happens.

Last updated August 2026

Here is what it looks like in practice. You buy stock for 39,000. A budget app sees one enormous purchase and tells you that you have had a disastrous month. It might even warn you that you are about to run out of money.

But you haven't lost 39,000. You have converted 39,000 into goods sitting in boxes, which you will sell for more than that. Nothing bad happened. The app simply has no concept of what you just did.

Meanwhile the opposite problem is also running. Money from sales lands in your personal account, so it looks like personal income. Your personal finances look wonderful. Your business looks like it is haemorrhaging. Neither picture is true, and you cannot answer the only question that matters: is this actually working?

Why full accounting software isn't the answer either

The standard advice is to get proper accounting software. For a small seller that usually fails for three reasons:

It costs more than you're making. Monthly fees aimed at established businesses.
It assumes you're registered. Many small sellers aren't yet, and can't open a business bank account, which most accounting tools quietly expect.
It ignores your life. It tracks the business perfectly and tells you nothing about whether you can pay your own rent — which, when the two wallets are one wallet, is the actual question.

So you end up with a spreadsheet, or with nothing.

A method that works without any of that

You don't need separate accounts to get clarity. You need every transaction to carry a label, and you need to treat four specific things correctly. That's it.

1. Tag everything as shop or personal, from the start

Every entry gets one of two labels. Not a category — a side. Groceries, personal. Stock, shop. Market stall fee, shop. Your phone bill, split if you use it for both, or pick whichever is more true.

This one habit does most of the work. As soon as every row has a side, you can ask "how did the shop do?" and "how did I do?" separately, from a single list you were going to type anyway.

2. Treat stock as stock, not as spending

This is the one that trips up every budget app. Money spent on stock has not left your life — it has changed shape. It becomes a real cost at the moment the item sells, not at the moment you buy it.

Practically: keep stock purchases separate from your everyday spending, and judge them against what they eventually sell for, not against this month's budget. If you don't, every restock month will look like a crisis and every quiet month will look like a triumph.

3. Record the sale, not the payout

If you sell on a marketplace, the money that arrives is already net of commission, shipping subsidies, promotion costs and sometimes a payment fee. If you only record the payout, you will never see how much the platform takes — and that number is usually much bigger than sellers expect.

Record the full sale price as income, and each fee as its own cost. It's slightly more work once, and then you can actually see it. Plenty of sellers discover their real margin is half what they assumed.

4. Pay yourself on a schedule, not on impulse

Taking money out whenever you need some is the single most common reason a small seller cannot tell whether the business works. The shop and the household blur into one pot and neither has a number.

Pick an amount. Pick a day. Move it, and record it as a transfer from shop to personal — not as the shop spending money and not as personal income appearing from nowhere. Then the shop's profit is whatever is left after that, and it means something.

What you can finally see once you do this

Question	Before	After
Is the shop profitable?	No idea	Sales minus cost of what sold, minus shop costs
Which product actually earns?	Gut feeling	Profit per item, not just sales
What is the platform taking?	Invisible	A number you can act on
Can I pay rent this month?	Hope	Personal money, separately, honestly
Can I afford to restock?	Guess	Cash on hand versus what's already committed

One warning worth having in advance. The first month you do this properly, the numbers are often worse than you hoped — especially the marketplace fees and the real margin per item. That is not a reason to stop. You cannot fix a number you cannot see, and most sellers who push through that first uncomfortable month find one or two changes that pay for themselves immediately.

The trap of investment months

One more thing, because it catches people badly and almost no software handles it.

Sometimes you spend a large amount to start something — a machine, a first big order, equipment. That month will look catastrophic in any tracker. It isn't a bad month; it's an investment month, and it should be judged over the following year, not against that month's income.

The practical rule: keep one-off setup purchases separate from ongoing shop costs. When you look back to decide whether the business works, ask "does it cover its ongoing costs and pay me?" first, and "has it earned back the setup money yet?" as a second, slower question. Mixing them makes a healthy new business look like a failing one.

Purrsave does this without a spreadsheet

Every transaction carries a side — personal or shop — and you can switch between "just me", "just the shop", or everything together with one tap. Stock, products and real profit are tracked properly, marketplace fees included. Paying yourself is a transfer, not a mystery.

No bank connection, any currency, works offline, no ads and no third-party trackers. Personal money is free forever; the seller tools are a small monthly amount, and you can track up to 15 products before you'd ever need to pay.

Open Purrsave — free to start

Common questions

Should I open a separate bank account?

If you can, yes — it makes everything easier and is worth doing the moment you're able. But not being able to isn't a blocker. Tagging every transaction gives you most of the same clarity, and you can move to separate accounts later without losing your history.

I only sell a few things a month. Is this overkill?

The tagging habit is not overkill at any size — it costs nothing extra once it's a habit. Detailed per-product profit probably is overkill until you're selling regularly. Start with the labels and the transfer discipline; add product tracking when you have enough products for the question to matter.

What about tax?

Rules differ enormously by country and this isn't tax advice. But every version of the answer starts with the same thing: knowing which money was business and which was personal. Doing the above puts you far ahead of where most small sellers are when they eventually need to answer that question.

What if I'm not sure a purchase is shop or personal?

Pick one and be consistent. A slightly wrong label applied consistently is enormously more useful than no label. You can always fix it later; you cannot recover information you never recorded.