Turn changing income into clear earning-day targets.

The Groundwork Variable Income Edition is a guided Microsoft Excel workbook built for freelancers, gig workers, entrepreneurs, contractors, commission earners, and anyone whose income changes from day to day.

Enter the responsibilities you need to cover, the money you already have available, the number of days you plan to earn, your expected gross earnings per working hour, and your preferred tax-reserve method.

Groundwork calculates what you need to earn overall, what that means per earning day, approximately how many working hours the plan may require, and how your targets change as real earnings and working time are entered.

WHAT YOU’LL SEE

• Your total responsibilities for the planning period

• The gross amount you need to earn

• Your original and revised daily gross targets

• Gross earnings, tax reserves, and usable earnings

• Earning days used and remaining

• Total time worked

• Whether you are ahead, behind, or on target

• Estimated total working hours for the plan

• Original and revised working hours per earning day

• Your actual net versus gross earnings per working hour

• A responsibility-by-responsibility earning breakdown

• The actual Working Hours Cost of each responsibility

• Clear status messages when your target is met or all planned earning days have been used

WHAT YOU’LL ENTER

• A planning-period name

• Funds already available

• Your planned number of earning days

• Your expected gross earnings per working hour

• Your tax-reserve method and value, if any

• Up to 100 bills, debts, business needs, payroll obligations, savings goals, or other responsibilities

• One combined earnings entry for each earning day

• The total time worked and gross amount earned on each earning day

YOUR DOWNLOAD INCLUDES

• A protected Microsoft Excel workbook with formulas hidden from normal view

• 100 responsibility-entry rows

• 365 earning-day rows

• 13 responsibility categories

• Percentage-of-gross, fixed-per-day, or no-tax-reserve planning

• Original and revised earning-day targets

• Planned and revised working-hour targets

• Automatic gross, tax-reserve, and usable-earnings calculations

• Actual net-versus-gross earnings per working hour

• Automatic Working Hours Cost calculations for each responsibility

• Ahead, behind, on-target, target-met, and all-days-used indicators

• Guided navigation between your plan, earnings log, and results

• Links to share feedback and explore other Groundwork tools

IMPORTANT

Microsoft Excel desktop is required. The workbook was tested in Microsoft Excel for Windows and is not designed for Google Sheets.

Enter one combined row for each earning day. If you earn from multiple sources on the same date, combine those earnings into one row so the earning-day count remains accurate.

You choose your own tax-reserve method and amount. Groundwork does not determine or recommend a tax rate.

Planned working-hour targets use the expected gross hourly rate you enter. Working Hours Cost uses your actual usable earnings per hour after the selected tax reserve.

Within this workbook, “net” reflects gross earnings after the selected tax reserve only. It does not account for every possible tax, fee, expense, deduction, or final tax obligation.

Groundwork is an educational decision-support tool and does not provide financial, legal, tax, accounting, or investment advice.

Digital download. Personal use only. No resale or redistribution.