Start A Home Steno Service
(Page 4 of 5)
November/December 1971
By Suzette Haden Elgin
If you need more help in setting a fee, check into the going rate for public stenography services in your area. The contacts you make with the stenos may even increase your business. In my case, at least, I found that such services were delighted to have someone to whom they could refer customers for an occasional "after hours" job.
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As careful as you'll probably be about establishing your rates, be even more careful about keeping records. . . for two reasons.
First, since you'll be self-employed, you'll be able to trim your taxes by deducting all business expenses and a portion of your rent and utility bills from your income. To do so, however, you'll have to have records that support your claimed income and expenses.
Don't try to get by with such makeshift strategy as jotted notes on the backs of envelopes, either. Get yourself an ordinary business ledger and keep detailed records of everything you spend, the hours you put in, the money you earn and anything else that strikes you as pertinent. Invest a dollar in one of those tax preparation guides that you find on newstands and pay attention to the things that they regard as pertinent also (you may be surprised). Make a point of getting a receipt for the stamps you buy at the post office, keeping sales slips for stationery and supplies . . . and always, always put down the date you spend or receive monies, however small. Far better, when tax time comes, to have too many records than too few.
The second—and equally important—reason for keeping records involves your client. If he calls in one heck of a hurry and says, "Here's five addresses. J ust send all of them the same letter I sent Joe Murphy Furniture Manufacturing last Friday," then you need to know where to find your carbon of that letter to Murphy. If your client wants you to read him back a letter he sent somebody three months ago, you'll, have to be able to find that one fast, too.
When I ran my steno service, I made myself two carbons (in addition to the carbon for my client) of everything and used a double filing system for work done. One of my copies went into an alphabetical file in the usual way and the other was kept in a daily file. That way, I had two methods of locating anything I needed.
If a customer said, "I know I sent a letter about rug samples to somebody on the third Friday in July, but I can't remember who," I pulled the daily file for that Friday and hunted through everything I did for the day. If he remembered that the letter went go Acme Rugs but had no idea when it was sent, I thumbed through the Acme Rug file. Such a double system will save you untold time and grief in the long run and will certainly add to the "total convenience` image that you want to project.
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