Lots of good comments above, so I just have a few more thoughts to add.
At the risk of stating the obvious, I'm going to recap some basics. First, you're on the right track to add in something for your time, but technically, that's not a 'cost', which typically refers to money out-of-pocket. Our time is paid for in profit, i.e. the difference between our costs (outgo) and our fees (income). It's just a different way to look at it.
I think the $.12/page for printing (or $24 for 200 pages) sounds like a pretty accurate number for most of us, depending on what kind of equipment you have and where you buy supplies. However, $3/mile for travel seems excessive to me, too (unless you're driving a very expensive sports car or something  ), but even so, the $4.30 doesn't make sense. The IRS calculated that the projected average cost of operating a vehicle in 2018 is $.545 per mile, which would be $27.25 for a RT of 50 miles. (That's also the rate at which we can deduct mileage expense on our Schedule C, if we use that method.) It could be more or less per individual, but let's go with that for illustration purchases.
So just for printing and travel, actual expenses come to $51.25. To that you'd have to add some figure to cover all the other fixed costs, overhead and administrative items not already calculated, plus some estimated taxes. (See lists by schlub/NC and MW/VA above.) I don't know what would be realistic numbers for you for those things, but if you project those costs over a year, divide by 12, then by how many signings you expect to average each month, you'll have some kind of an idea of what those figures should be for you.
Now, if you intend to have this business actually support you (and your family, if applicable), you need to figure out what you need to pay yourself in profit. That figure, again divided by average number of appointments per month, tells you how much you have to have left over, on average, after all business expenses are paid. That figure tells you what you need to charge to run a profitable business.
If you're not setting your fees that way, this process can at least tell you how much you're really making with the fees you're accepting now. For example, just for the sake of easy math, if we go back to the $100 fee example and assume that other overhead and taxes take an additional $20 per assignment, you're now left with less than $30 profit for that 4 hours of work - or just about what minimum wage is (minus any paid benefits a job might offer...)
NSAs who don't take the time to figure this all out in advance may end up at the end of the year finding out that they haven't made any profit at all, once ALL their expenses are calculated. Worse yet, particularly if you (or your spouse, if filing jointly) have other income, your business could be classified as a hobby (e.g. if you make no profit for three years), and all your expenses could be disallowed as deductions. That could lead to a pretty substantial tax bill on top of everything else!
So much for 'just a few thoughts...' Sorry! |
