Why is the net self-employment income shown by turbo tax much higher than my gross income?

[vcorrente]

I have income from regular employers (t4 slips) and also got a lump sum payment from a business who paid me under contract.  This lump sum was for a specific job which I was given 6 months to complete and it was reported on a T4A in box 48.  I have added this form into Turbo Tax and completed the business expenses section (even though I don't officially have a business).  I only deducted home office expenses, which was 6 months worth of home expenses and applied to the home office which was 10% of our house.

For whatever reason, it is showing my net self-employment income on my summary as nearly double my gross payment (1.73 times to be specific).  It also shows my pensionable as this same amount.  Why is this?  It seems to have a massive negative affect on my tax return, despite a relatively low payment for this contract.

[vcorrente]

I am hoping someone can help explain this, but I think I may have figured out the problem, I am just not sure if I am doing this correctly or not.  I was using the easy step method and it asked for a date range.  So I entered the 6 month range, which was the time that I had to complete the work.  When I went to the forms section and looked at the T2125 form, this date range was for the fiscal year.  When I change the fiscal year to January 1st 2020 to December 31st 2020, then the net income reports correctly.  

So even though the work was only done over a six month period, is it okay to report the "business" fiscal year as January 1st 2020 to December 31st 2020?  Also when I deducted the home office expenses, I only did it for the 6 month period.  This does make a big difference in the tax return (one way I get a refund, one way I pay), so I want to get it correct.

[Lightjug]

Same thing happened to me.  My wife signed a retail contract to restock displays.  She did it for a certain period so that's what I put in.  Like you, it boosted it considerably.  I changed the date to Jan 1-Dec 31 and it showed the proper amount.  Thanks for the suggestion.