Every dollar of business expense you forget to track is a dollar you pay tax on unnecessarily. And craft vendors, lovely big-hearted people that they are, forget a lot of them. Not the obvious ones. Everyone remembers the fabric store receipt. It is the sneaky ones that slip through: the mileage, the market-day parking, the portion of the phone bill, the samples you gave away.
The business expenses craft vendors forget to track quietly add up to hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars a year. Let us shine a light on all of them.
The Obvious Ones (You Are Probably Already Tracking These)
Quick check that the basics are covered: raw materials, tools and equipment, packaging supplies, market booth fees, website and online shop fees, and advertising costs. If these are in your tracker, great. They are the foundation. Everything below is the bonus round, and the bonus round is where the real money hides.
12 Business Expenses Craft Vendors Forget to Track
1. Mileage and vehicle costs
This is the big one. Every business kilometre counts: driving to markets, to suppliers, to the post office with orders, to meet a stockist. The CRA lets you deduct a per-kilometre amount, and a single market season can easily mean thousands of kilometres. Keep a logbook with the date, destination, purpose, and distance. Vendors who start tracking mileage mid-year routinely find their largest forgotten deduction.
2. Market-day parking and tolls
The parking garage near the venue, the toll highway that got you there before setup. Small amounts, every single market, all year. Photograph the receipts or note them in your mileage log the same day.
3. Meals on market days
When you are working a market all day, the lunch you buy because you cannot leave your booth can be partially deductible as a business meal. Keep the receipts and note which market day they belong to. (The rules have limits, so this one is worth confirming with an accountant, but do not ignore it entirely.)
4. Your home studio space
If you make your products at home, a portion of your housing costs may be deductible: rent or mortgage interest, utilities, home insurance, maintenance. The CRA looks at the percentage of your home used for business. A dedicated craft room counts more clearly than the kitchen table, but even a workspace corner can qualify. Measure the space, do the math once, and apply the percentage all year.
5. Phone and internet
You take product photos on your phone, answer customer messages, run your online shop, and post to social media. The business-use portion of your phone bill and home internet is deductible. Estimate honestly: if half your phone use is business, deduct half. Keep one bill a year as documentation of the total.
6. Packaging and shipping supplies
Beyond the pretty branded boxes, there is the packing tape, the bubble wrap, the printer ink for shipping labels, the scale you bought to weigh parcels. Shipping supply costs are fully deductible, and online sellers are often shocked at the annual total once they actually add it up.
7. Samples, gifts, and giveaways
The free candle you gave the boutique owner, the product you donated to the charity raffle, the samples in your market goodie bags. These cost you real materials and real time. Track what you give away with the same care as what you sell. Donations to registered charities may have additional tax implications worth asking an accountant about.
8. Education and skill building
The online course that taught you product photography, the workshop on social media marketing, the craft technique class, the business books. If it improves skills you use in the business, it is generally deductible. Your learning budget is a business investment, so treat it like one in your books.
9. Bank and payment processing fees
Monthly account fees, e-transfer fees, and the percentage your card reader takes on every sale. These nibble away silently all year. Your bank statements already list them, so tally them monthly instead of discovering the total in April.
10. Photography and marketing props
The backdrops, the little dishes and linens that make your product photos look gorgeous, the Canva subscription, the props you bought specifically for market display. If you bought it to sell your work, it is a business expense, even if it never appears in a finished product.
11. Application and jury fees
Some markets charge to apply, especially juried ones. Whether or not you get in, the fee was a business expense. Keep the confirmation emails as receipts.
12. Subscriptions and software
Your domain renewal, email marketing tool, accounting app, stock photo subscription, the music service you play at your booth. Small monthly charges are the easiest expenses to forget because no single one feels significant. List them once, then check the list quarterly.
Put It All in One Tracker
Knowing the expenses is step one. Capturing them is step two. Here is a simple category table you can copy straight into your expense spreadsheet:
| Category | What goes here | How to capture it |
|---|---|---|
| Materials | Supplies that become products | Store receipts, photographed |
| Packaging and shipping | Boxes, tape, labels, postage | Store and online receipts |
| Market costs | Booth fees, applications, parking, tolls | Confirmations, receipts, logbook |
| Travel | Mileage, market-day meals | Mileage log, meal receipts |
| Home studio | % of rent, utilities, insurance | Annual calculation, bills on file |
| Phone and internet | Business-use portion | Monthly bills, usage estimate |
| Tools and equipment | Tools, repairs, replacements | Receipts |
| Marketing | Props, ads, business cards, signage | Receipts, subscription confirmations |
| Education | Courses, workshops, books | Receipts, enrollment confirmations |
| Professional fees | Accountant, legal, memberships | Invoices |
| Bank and processing | Account fees, card reader percentages | Bank and processor statements |
| Samples and gifts | Giveaways, donations | Log with date and recipient |
Review this table during your weekly money date. Anything you spent that week should fit in a row. If it does not, you have found a new category, which means you have found money.
The 10-Minute Monthly Expense Sweep
Once a month, spend ten minutes hunting for escapees. Scroll your bank and credit card statements line by line and ask of each charge: was this for the business? Check your camera roll for receipt photos you never logged. Glance at your mileage log for gaps. This one habit catches the expenses that slip past even careful vendors, and ten minutes a month is a tiny price for hundreds of dollars in legitimate deductions.
A Quick Note on Proof
Deductions only work if you can prove them. The CRA does not need a filing cabinet, but it does need records: receipts, logbooks, and a reasonable method for things like home office percentages. Photograph everything, keep digital copies organized by month, and hold onto records for six years. Boring? Absolutely. Valuable? Enormously.
Keep More of Every Market Day
Tracking expenses means keeping more of what you earn, and earning more starts with great markets. Art & Souls Events hosts free-admission markets across the Ottawa area where vendors keep every dollar they make at their booth. Lower costs, higher profit, better records. Check our upcoming market dates and book your spot.