Home offices must have warmth, natural sunlight, and humble charm!

Running a business is financially expensive, and as I have found can be extremely costly in terms of equipment, utilities, repairs, and unanticipated expenses. The Internal Revenue Service uses a regular method to determine the actual expenses of the home office. When owning your own business you want to regularly use part of your home exclusively for conducting business. An addition was built on my regular home that is encased by four walls and two doors, one which leads outside of the office.

Creating a space that inspires creativity with plenty of reading material for in-person meetings with clients and their families, which often times includes children, results in the need to create an environment of warmth and compassion. A dedicated space is critical to separate work life from home life. Work starts/ends at the door as it is not healthy to cross-mix those elements in one’s life. The benefit of a home office is that the hours can optimally be set to accommodate family schedules in order to be able to attend a child’s soccer game.

The elements of an office space should include a working area, client meeting area, and storage for all those paper files that accumulate quite quickly!

Generally, deductions for a home office are based on the square footage percentage of your home devoted to business use. So, if you use a whole room or part of a room for conducting your business, you need to figure out the percentage of your home devoted to business use. The home office deduction is available for business owners and not so much for employees.