The journey toward building your six figure music business begins with tracking every dollar you earn. It's not glamorous, but it's essential. Financial management is the silent engine of a successful music career. You can understand, optimise and grow. 

As Peter Drucker famously said, "What gets measured gets managed." This becomes particularly crucial for musicians juggling multiple, often irregular revenue streams. Whether you're earning from performances, teaching, songwriting, or just getting started, every revenue stream matters in your music career. If you are just getting started, I can confirm that earning your first dollar from music is a wonderful feeling.

Track Your Finances

Tracking finances isn’t just about paying bills, it’s about making informed decisions that grow your career. At this stage you want to get a clear handle on where you are financially, what’s working, what’s not and get into a flow of continually tracking your music related income and expenses.

Action Items:

Record Your Income

1. Navigate to the Finances dashboard in your Musician OS.
2. Click the + Add button in the left sidebar, then select New Income.
3. Fill in the essential details:
   
   • Business Name: Enter the source of income (e.g., Spotify, venue name, merchandise sale)
   • Income Category: Select or create a category (e.g., Streaming, Live Performance, Merchandise)
   • Receiving Account: Specify which account received the funds
   • Date Received: When you received the payment
   • Amount: How much you received
     
4. Save the entry to update your financial tracking.
   

Log Your Expenses

1. From the Finances dashboard, click + Add in the sidebar, then select New Expense.
2. Complete the required fields:
   
   • Business Name: Enter the vendor or recipient (e.g., Guitar Center, Facebook Ads)
   • Expense Category: Categorize the expense (e.g., Equipment, Marketing, Studio Time)
   • Sending Account: Which account the money came from
   • Date Paid: When the expense occurred
   • Amount: The cost
     
3. Save the entry to update your financial tracking.

Set Up a Regular Review Schedule

1. Create a recurring task in your Tasks component to review your finances weekly.
2. Use this time to:
   
   • Add any missing income or expenses
   • Categorize uncategorised entries
   • Check for unusual patterns or opportunities to reduce costs
   • Update your financial forecasts based on current trends
     
     

Manage Your Recurring Subscriptions

Musician OS tracks subscriptions separately from one-time expenses, allowing you to monitor your recurring costs more effectively. These recurring payments can significantly impact your budget but are often overlooked in standard expense tracking.

1. Navigate to the Subscriptions section in your Finances component.
2. Click the New button at the top right to add a new subscription.
3. Fill in the details of your subscription:
   
   • Service: Enter the name of the subscription (e.g., Spotify Premium, DistroKid, Adobe Creative Cloud)
   • Category: Categorise the subscription (e.g., Music Distribution, Software, Cloud Storage)
   • Monthly Cost: Enter the recurring monthly fee
   • Next Renewal: Add the next billing date to stay ahead of payments
   • Subscribed: When you first signed up (useful for analysing long-term costs)
   • Yearly Cost: Annual equivalent (helpful for comparing monthly vs. annual plans)
   • Billing: Specify billing cycle or payment method
     
4. Use the Active Subscriptions view to monitor your current ongoing commitments.
5. Review the total monthly and yearly subscription costs to understand their impact on your budget.

Additional features like setting budgets, forecasting future earnings, tracking royalty payments, generating financial reports, and analysing profit margins will be explored in the Manage Your Music Business chapter. 

For now, focus on consistently logging your financial data. This will provide the clarity and insights necessary to make informed decisions when we dive deeper into strategic financial planning.