Record keeping?

[HelgaG]

I’m the wife of a punter, and I’ve been helping keep track of my husband’s betting activity. I have a bookkeeping/accounting background, and he’s been betting for 20+ years. I keep detailed records so he can analyse his bets: I break them down into categories like horses, football, and tennis, and track ROI for each bet and category. I then produce a profit & loss statement and a balance sheet each month. We don't currently submit accounts or tax returns but I want to make sure that if we ever need to, there would be very little work for an accountant to do.

I’m curious if anyone else does something similar - keeping detailed records of betting activity? Do you use an accountant for this, or do you track it yourselves? And if you do keep records, what kind of information do you find most useful to include?

I’ve sometimes wondered if other people keep this level of detail or if I’m going overboard. My husband thinks most people don't bother with the profit and loss and balance sheet side of things, so I’d love to hear how others approach the record-keeping side of things.

[jamesedwards]

I’m the wife of a punter, and I’ve been helping keep track of my husband’s betting activity. I have a bookkeeping/accounting background, and he’s been betting for 20+ years. I keep detailed records so he can analyse his bets: I break them down into categories like horses, football, and tennis, and track ROI for each bet and category. I then produce a profit & loss statement and a balance sheet each month. We don't currently submit accounts or tax returns but I want to make sure that if we ever need to, there would be very little work for an accountant to do.

I’m curious if anyone else does something similar - keeping detailed records of betting activity? Do you use an accountant for this, or do you track it yourselves? And if you do keep records, what kind of information do you find most useful to include?

I’ve sometimes wondered if other people keep this level of detail or if I’m going overboard. My husband thinks most people don't bother with the profit and loss and balance sheet side of things, so I’d love to hear how others approach the record-keeping side of things.

Sounds right up the street of the average successful trader on here. Many of us are very data driven. Speaking for myself, it's not so much for any potential accounting issue, but more so I can interrogate historical data and work out ways to improve my future profitability.

I mostly play in-running horse races and I record my P&L in a spreadsheet race by race as I trade. I break the P&L down into separate profit streams where possible so I can track performance of each individually. Manual back, manual lays, pre-off trades, automated TPD trades, photo finishes, stewards enquiries etc. It's amazing to see how much the profit stream mix changes and develops over time.

Data is always available from Betfair, the last three months can be downloaded by the user and customer services can send a record of every single transaction back to account opening if requested.

[sionascaig]

I’ve sometimes wondered if other people keep this level of detail or if I’m going overboard. My husband thinks most people don't bother with the profit and loss and balance sheet side of things, so I’d love to hear how others approach the record-keeping side of things.

Downloading the BF "Bet History" once a month and processing in excel works well for me.

My pet peeve is that the P&L is gross and needs a commission adjustment to get right.

If anyone has found an easy way to get this info (commission or net profit at the bet level), I'd be interested.

[HelgaG]

I’m the wife of a punter, and I’ve been helping keep track of my husband’s betting activity. I have a bookkeeping/accounting background, and he’s been betting for 20+ years. I keep detailed records so he can analyse his bets: I break them down into categories like horses, football, and tennis, and track ROI for each bet and category. I then produce a profit & loss statement and a balance sheet each month. We don't currently submit accounts or tax returns but I want to make sure that if we ever need to, there would be very little work for an accountant to do.

I’m curious if anyone else does something similar - keeping detailed records of betting activity? Do you use an accountant for this, or do you track it yourselves? And if you do keep records, what kind of information do you find most useful to include?

I’ve sometimes wondered if other people keep this level of detail or if I’m going overboard. My husband thinks most people don't bother with the profit and loss and balance sheet side of things, so I’d love to hear how others approach the record-keeping side of things.

Sounds right up the street of the average successful trader on here. Many of us are very data driven. Speaking for myself, it's not so much for any potential accounting issue, but more so I can interrogate historical data and work out ways to improve my future profitability.

I mostly play in-running horse races and I record my P&L in a spreadsheet race by race as I trade. I break the P&L down into separate profit streams where possible so I can track performance of each individually. Manual back, manual lays, pre-off trades, automated TPD trades, photo finishes, stewards enquiries etc. It's amazing to see how much the profit stream mix changes and develops over time.

Data is always available from Betfair, the last three months can be downloaded by the user and customer services can send a record of every single transaction back to account opening if requested.

That’s interesting how you split everything into that much detail. I think my approach is a lot more basic in comparison. I mostly just use the standard profit and loss report from the Betfair exchange and build my records around that. My husband then takes what I produce and digs into it in more detail although I’m not entirely sure what he does once he’s analysing things.

I’ve probably just gotten comfortable with that one report and haven’t really explored what else is available. Are there other reports or tools, either on Betfair itself or through Bet Angel that you’ve found particularly useful? And do you find the whole record-keeping and breakdown process quite time-consuming, or is it just part of the routine now?

[jamesedwards]

I’m the wife of a punter, and I’ve been helping keep track of my husband’s betting activity. I have a bookkeeping/accounting background, and he’s been betting for 20+ years. I keep detailed records so he can analyse his bets: I break them down into categories like horses, football, and tennis, and track ROI for each bet and category. I then produce a profit & loss statement and a balance sheet each month. We don't currently submit accounts or tax returns but I want to make sure that if we ever need to, there would be very little work for an accountant to do.

I’m curious if anyone else does something similar - keeping detailed records of betting activity? Do you use an accountant for this, or do you track it yourselves? And if you do keep records, what kind of information do you find most useful to include?

I’ve sometimes wondered if other people keep this level of detail or if I’m going overboard. My husband thinks most people don't bother with the profit and loss and balance sheet side of things, so I’d love to hear how others approach the record-keeping side of things.

Sounds right up the street of the average successful trader on here. Many of us are very data driven. Speaking for myself, it's not so much for any potential accounting issue, but more so I can interrogate historical data and work out ways to improve my future profitability.

I mostly play in-running horse races and I record my P&L in a spreadsheet race by race as I trade. I break the P&L down into separate profit streams where possible so I can track performance of each individually. Manual back, manual lays, pre-off trades, automated TPD trades, photo finishes, stewards enquiries etc. It's amazing to see how much the profit stream mix changes and develops over time.

Data is always available from Betfair, the last three months can be downloaded by the user and customer services can send a record of every single transaction back to account opening if requested.

That’s interesting how you split everything into that much detail. I think my approach is a lot more basic in comparison. I mostly just use the standard profit and loss report from the Betfair exchange and build my records around that. My husband then takes what I produce and digs into it in more detail although I’m not entirely sure what he does once he’s analysing things.

I’ve probably just gotten comfortable with that one report and haven’t really explored what else is available. Are there other reports or tools, either on Betfair itself or through Bet Angel that you’ve found particularly useful? And do you find the whole record-keeping and breakdown process quite time-consuming, or is it just part of the routine now?

I'm sitting and trading manually through the day so I just update the tracker after every race as part of my process.

The Betfair P&L page is the best you'll get easily. You can get more granular level of detail ad hoc from Betfair CS but it will take effort and time.

[HelgaG]

I’ve sometimes wondered if other people keep this level of detail or if I’m going overboard. My husband thinks most people don't bother with the profit and loss and balance sheet side of things, so I’d love to hear how others approach the record-keeping side of things.

Downloading the BF "Bet History" once a month and processing in excel works well for me.

My pet peeve is that the P&L is gross and needs a commission adjustment to get right.

If anyone has found an easy way to get this info (commission or net profit at the bet level), I'd be interested.

I use the betting history too but I tend to start with the p&l because I like that it gives me separate spreadsheets for each sport as I like to keep these on different tabs. The p&l gives me the net amount and I get the gross from betting history. I do then check I've got the commission right from the account statement. There's probably an easier way of doing this but I'm just used to it now.

Sorry, I don't have a quick fix for you. The way I do it wouldn't be ideal monthly, I do this every day or every other day so that it's not overwhelming.