Freelance Designers & Developers

Tax season doesn't have to be a nightmare

Adobe, Figma, Notion, coffee shops, client hardware: Lums tracks every deductible expense automatically so April is just another month.

Your financial reality

Every freelancer dreads tax season. But it's avoidable.

The real problem isn't April. It's the 11 months before it when nothing gets tracked.

"Where did it all go?"

Client invoices, SaaS subscriptions, equipment purchases, café wifi days: everything blends into one messy account by year end.

"What can I actually write off?"

Is the second monitor deductible? The standing desk? The coffee shop? Without context, you're guessing and likely leaving money on the table.

"Tax season is killing me every year."

Reconstructing 12 months of transactions from bank statements every March is a full-weekend ordeal. It doesn't have to be.

"I don't have time for this."

You're managing 3–6 clients, sending invoices, hitting deadlines. Financial admin shouldn't be a part-time job on top of everything else.

How to use Lums

Make tax prep a 10-minute task

Here's how Alex, with 4 clients, Adobe Creative Cloud, Figma, Notion, and a standing desk, turned tax season into a non-event.

  1. Create a tax-deductible tag

Give every deductible expense a single label that makes them instantly filterable at any time of year.
Ask Lums:"Create a tag called 'tax-deductible' in green."

  1. Build rules for known deductible merchants

Set it up once. Every Adobe, Figma, Notion, and coffee shop charge gets tagged automatically from now on.
Ask Lums:"Create rules to automatically tag 'tax-deductible' for: Adobe Creative Cloud, Figma, Notion, Slack, Apple hardware, Amazon hardware, and all coffee shop transactions."

  1. Do a one-time cleanup of the past year

Ask Lums to surface potential business expenses from the last 12 months. Review and tag in one session and you're done forever.
Ask Lums:"Show me all transactions from the last 12 months that might be business expenses: software, equipment, and coffee shops. I'll tell you which ones to tag."

  1. Tag reimbursable client expenses separately

Some expenses belong to clients. Track what you're owed so nothing falls through the cracks.
Ask Lums:"Create a tag called 'reimbursable' and apply it to these transactions from last month."

  1. Pull your deduction summary at year end

One query. Everything tagged. Your accountant gets a clean list, not a pile of bank statements.
Ask Lums:"Show me all transactions tagged 'tax-deductible' for 2025. What's the total? Break it down by category."

Questions every freelance designer should be asking

  • "Show me all transactions tagged 'tax-deductible' for 2025. What's the total?"
  • "How much did I spend on software subscriptions in 2025?"
  • "How much did I spend on home office and equipment?"
  • "What's the total amount tagged 'reimbursable' that I haven't recovered yet?"
  • "Create a rule: whenever the merchant contains 'Adobe', automatically add the tags 'business-expense' and 'tax-deductible'."
  • "Show me all income from the last 6 months grouped by client."
  • "What's my average monthly income this year?"
  • "Compare my total income vs. total spending over the last 6 months."

Ask your money anything

Connect your bank, start asking questions. No setup, no dashboards, just answers backed by your actual data.

Lums is a financial assistant, not a financial advisor.