The combination ‘apart from “often seems to be one word. After ‘Not‘no pause. “Not” supplements the semantics ‘counting’, making the meaning negative. Apart from some other false (insignificant in our case) signs.
But when writing the word ‘not counting’, you need to reason like this:
- Let’s try to discard first ‘Not‘. Morphologically ‘counting’ – this is a non -violent (special) form of the verb, that is, the participle. This form comes from the verb ‘count’. At the same time, the verb “not read ‘does not exist.
- Also, there is no special form of ‘unreadable’, since we see that it is used without a particle ‘Not‘.
- Therefore, you can’t write a matter. And written apart – This is the right spelling.
The image clearly shows the corresponding rule: 
You yourself correctly wrote. The only right option is ‘not counting’. For the particle ‘not’ with the participles of the turn, which is the word ‘counting’, is written separately. The same rule acts as in the case of verbs. If you can write the participles without ‘not’, then we write separately. We cannot use it without this particle – it means that it is only together. Example of the sentence: the girl made purchases, completely apart from her expenses.
Good afternoon. It may seem that the word ‘(not) counting’ must be written together, as it sounds good when pronouncing.
But if you understand in detail, you can find out that this word is a participle and always correctly write with a particle ‘not’.
Correct answer: ‘not counting’.