Time Spent Cleaning

[SilverSabre25]

Do you count the spent cleaning up FROM daycare (so in the evening after a daycare day) or the time spent cleaning up FOR daycare (so, like Sunday night)? Or both?

I have a three year old so the playroom doesn't stay clean on the weekends--I wouldn't necessarily clean it up every night if it weren't for daycare, so I'm wondering if when I clean it up tonight (Sunday) if that time technically counts since I'm doing it BECAUSE I have daycare tomorrow. Same with the kitchen--I'm not cleaning up daycare dishes, but I'm cleaning up because there's daycare tomorrow. Does this question even make any sense?

[Abigail]

If you spend time cleaning up before and after children are in care, count this time as business time. If you are doing general house cleaning, count only the time that is associated with the mess created by your business.

I would not count the time spent doing your own dishes or laundry for example. That is not daycare related. If you cleaned up once after daycare closed on Friday, then I would not count what you are doing now. Your son made the mess, not the daycare. Yes it needs to be cleaned up before you open, but your son needs to learn to pick up too it is part of being in the family. You should count your regular cleaning of vacuuming and washing the floors because you need to do that for daycare.

[Abigail]

I just came across this:
Hours spent cleaning--
These hours can include times spent by someone other than yourself doing business activities. Your husband or your own child may spend time cleaning your home or you may hire a cleaning person to come into your home. When determining your cleaning hours, only count time spent cleaning up messes caused by your business. If you clean your bathrooms and kitchen on the weekend, only count part of the time because some of the mess was created by your family.

This came from http://www.nafcc.org/documents/busin...Percentage.pdf

[TomCopeland]

Cleaning time

Providers spend a lot of time cleaning their home for their business. As a general rule you can count time spent on cleaning because of your business. So, time spent cleaning your home before the children arrive and after they leave can be considered business cleaning. You want to be reasonable about this. So, never count all the time you spend cleaning as business cleaning. Think of it this way - if you weren't in business how much time would you spend cleaning your home? This is personal cleaning.

To make sure the IRS doesn't think that you are claiming all your cleaning time as business cleaning, keep records for 2 months of all the personal cleaning time you do. If your own children are in your day care, don't count 100% of the time you clean your bathroom and kitchen at the end of the day. Maybe count 75% or so of the time as business depending on your circumstances.

[Cat Herder]

If our daycare space is not used by any of the family and is solely "business use" can all the cleaning time count?

Mine is about 3.5 hours everyday when counting laundry, vaccuming, mopping and washing toys.... Too much to document?

[DanceMom]

My tax guy says I'm allowed to count in my hours either 30 or 60 minutes of cleaning before and after daycare.

[SilverSabre25]

Providers spend a lot of time cleaning their home for their business. As a general rule you can count time spent on cleaning because of your business. So, time spent cleaning your home before the children arrive and after they leave can be considered business cleaning. You want to be reasonable about this. So, never count all the time you spend cleaning as business cleaning. Think of it this way - if you weren't in business how much time would you spend cleaning your home? This is personal cleaning.

To make sure the IRS doesn't think that you are claiming all your cleaning time as business cleaning, keep records for 2 months of all the personal cleaning time you do. If your own children are in your day care, don't count 100% of the time you clean your bathroom and kitchen at the end of the day. Maybe count 75% or so of the time as business depending on your circumstances.

So, for two months document ALL the cleaning I do, personal or business? I can then use that result (however much time I spend on average cleaning for the business) all the time, right? Or do I have to keep really careful records all the time?

And another question, so since my 3 yo DD is in care too, when I'm cleaning up the playroom/kitchen/whatever, do I count say, 80% of that time, if I had 5 kids that day and she is one of them?

[legomom922]

If our daycare space is not used by any of the family and is solely "business use" can all the cleaning time count?

Mine is about 3.5 hours everyday when counting laundry, vaccuming, mopping and washing toys.... Too much to document?

Do you clean after hrs 3.5 hrs everyday? That seems like a ton of time! I dont think the IRS would allow you that one.

If you do any of it during daycare hrs, you cant count it.

[legomom922]

My tax guy says I'm allowed to count in my hours either 30 or 60 minutes of cleaning before and after daycare.

I would think that is reasonable. Thats about what I claim, is about a total of 1 hr per day between am and pm. generally, I do most of the clean up at teh end of the day, so am I only use about 15 min. I wash toys 1x a wk, unless they are infant toys and have them in their mouth all the time.

[legomom922]

So, for two months document ALL the cleaning I do, personal or business? I can then use that result (however much time I spend on average cleaning for the business) all the time, right? Or do I have to keep really careful records all the time?

And another question, so since my 3 yo DD is in care too, when I'm cleaning up the playroom/kitchen/whatever, do I count say, 80% of that time, if I had 5 kids that day and she is one of them?

I dont think it matters how many kids there are, it all boils down to how much time you have cleaned between personnal & business. If you cleaned a total of 4 hs over the wekend to get ready for mon am, and 3 hrs of it was personnal and 1 hr business, then I would use about 25% for business. If you cleaned a playroom after daycare kids left, and then your DD messed it up again, I dont think you could count it because your dd made the mess.

[Cat Herder]

Do you clean after hrs 3.5 hrs everyday? That seems like a ton of time! I dont think the IRS would allow you that one.

If you do any of it during daycare hrs, you cant count it.

No.... Total time everyday to include before hours, after hours and nap time. I have to spend a couple hours taking apart all the floor mats and washing them individually...ugh. Spit up/drool collects in the joints, it is so gross (I have 3 infants right now, it is not always quite so bad).

I will take out the nap time hours, then. Thanks!! (this will be the first year I include cleaning time, we will see how it goes. I will still let my accountant decide, she is MUCH better at this stuff :

[TomCopeland]

Time Spent Cleaning

If you clean a room that is used 100% for your business then you can count all of the time spent cleaning the room as part of your time-space percentage calculation.

DanceMom - Your tax preparer is wrong. There is no limit to how many hours you can claim on business activities such as cleaning. Of course, you need to have records showing that you did this work. I once helped a provider who was audited and claimed that she worked 22 hours a week after the children were gone on various business activities (cleaning, cooking, etc.). She won because she had records showing that she did the work.

SilverSaver25 - Yes, do two months of carefully record keeping of all cleaning (business and personal). If you can say that these two months are representative of the rest of the year, use the average for these two months for the entire year. Yes, count 80% of the cleaning time when you are cleaning areas that were used by 5 business children and one of your own. That is reasonable.