158: Staying On Top Of Your Bookkeeping Whether You Are Starting A Business Or Side Hustle
158: Staying On Top Of Your Bookkeeping Whether You Are Starting A Business Or Side Hustle, A Solopreneur, Entrepreneur, Mompreneur, Freelancer, Bookkeeper, Virtual Assistant, Business Owner, Or Self-Employed
When you stay on top of your bookkeeping, you’ll feel more confident and relieved knowing you have financial information you can count on to make smart business decisions. When it comes to your business finances and particularly your bookkeeping, I often hear business owners who are feeling overwhelmed and stressed because their bookkeeping has started to pile up, and they feel behind. I know this is the time of the year when most business owners realize they may have fallen behind in their bookkeeping, and they start to look for ways they can catch up before it is too late. These feelings of stress and overwhelm can creep up on you as the end of the year and tax season start to draw near. In today’s episode, I am talking about tips for staying up to date with your bookkeeping. It doesn’t matter if you are staying up to date with your bookkeeping or if you’ve fallen behind; you’ll benefit from the information in this podcast. Now is the time to really look at your financial statements and make sure you end the year exactly how you planned…or at the very least, you can end the year so that you are knowledgeable about your finances, and you can take advantage of any end of the year tax planning. You can certainly be strategic with tax deductions when you plan ahead, but if you wait until after the end of the year, it’s pretty hard to go back and make any changes. Whether you are starting a business or side hustle, you’re a self-employed individual, a solopreneur, entrepreneur, mompreneur, freelancer, small business owner, a remote, virtual, online, or in-house bookkeeper, or a virtual assistant or VA; I want you to know that if you have fallen behind in your bookkeeping, it’s not too late to catch up, but don’t put it off any longer. I’m here to help you stay up to date with your bookkeeping starting today…
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Show Notes:
When you stay on top of your bookkeeping, you’ll feel more confident and relieved knowing you have financial information you can count on to make smart business decisions. When it comes to your business finances and particularly your bookkeeping, I often hear business owners who are feeling overwhelmed and stressed because their bookkeeping has started to pile up, and they feel behind. I know this is the time of the year when most business owners realize they may have fallen behind in their bookkeeping, and they start to look for ways they can catch up before it is too late. These feelings of stress and overwhelm can creep up on you as the end of the year and tax season start to draw near. In today’s episode, I am talking about tips for staying up to date with your bookkeeping. It doesn’t matter if you are staying up to date with your bookkeeping or if you’ve fallen behind; you’ll benefit from the information in this podcast. Now is the time to really look at your financial statements and make sure you end the year exactly how you planned…or at the very least, you can end the year so that you are knowledgeable about your finances, and you can take advantage of any end of the year tax planning. You can certainly be strategic with tax deductions when you plan ahead, but if you wait until after the end of the year, it’s pretty hard to go back and make any changes. Whether you are starting a business or side hustle, you’re a self-employed individual, a solopreneur, entrepreneur, mompreneur, freelancer, small business owner, a remote, virtual, online, or in-house bookkeeper, or a virtual assistant or VA; I want you to know that if you have fallen behind in your bookkeeping, it’s not too late to catch up, but don’t put it off any longer. I’m here to help you stay up to date with your bookkeeping starting today…
Welcome Back…So you’ve decided you want your bookkeeping to be up to date and accurate, but you might be wondering what your options are to ensure this happens. Today, I am covering a few tips for keeping your books up to date and how to have all your financial information ready so that you can be strategic about planning in your business during these last few months. When you are a business owner, or especially a solopreneur, there are many times when you are the only one who is in charge of most or all of the activities in your business, and especially your bookkeeping. When it comes to your bookkeeping, you need to take a look at your options to see what will work best for not only you but for your business as well. As I talk about a few of these options, I want you to think about your time availability, your financial knowledge, your budget, and the work-life balance you want to achieve with your business.
Keeping your bookkeeping up to date is essential for the financial health of your business. Neglecting it can lead to issues down the road, so here are a few things you can do to ensure you are able to stay up-to-date with your bookkeeping.
Let’s start with setting a regular schedule. It’s easy to push your bookkeeping to the back burner when you’re swamped with daily business operations. However, scheduling a dedicated time for bookkeeping is crucial. It could be daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or even monthly. I want you to choose a frequency that best suits your needs, your business size, and the complexity of your business, but don’t put your bookkeeping off for more than a month. I see too often, when clients do this, how hard it is for them to get back on track. Mark the time that you set for your bookkeeping tasks on your calendar and treat them like any other important meeting you have. Being consistent will be key to creating a schedule that you can work with.
Along with having a regular schedule, you’ll want to create processes for doing your bookkeeping. When you are doing your own bookkeeping, you need to understand what is involved in the actual bookkeeping for your business. You will need to set up specific processes so that you can record all of your money coming in and going out of your business. You need to make sure you are staying on track and not falling behind, and you need to make sure your processes for keeping track of your bookkeeping allow you to have the proper end result, such as your financial statements so that you can not only have your tax return prepared at the end of the year, but make smart business decisions. This may sound like a lot, but I know many business owners who do their own bookkeeping, especially with the bookkeeping software we have available to us, and you could easily be one of them. One benefit of doing your own bookkeeping is that you know exactly what each of the transactions is for in your business. More than likely, you are the one initiating these transactions, so when it comes time to capture them in your bookkeeping, you are able to record them with ease with the knowledge you have, or you know where you need to go to get the information you need. Another benefit is the cost savings, but you need to weigh the cost savings with the time commitment.
Next, I want you to think about how you have your records organized, or maybe you are thinking you don’t have any organization or system set up at all. To keep your bookkeeping efficient, you need to maintain an organized system for all your financial records. This includes invoices, receipts, bank statements, and expense reports, to name a few. By utilizing computerized software solutions, you can streamline this process and simplify how you organize your systems. When you invest a little time and effort into a good filing system to ensure all your relevant documents are appropriately labeled and stored, you’ll save a lot of time and even headaches when it comes to tax season, an audit, or simply when you yourself are looking back for something specific in your business.
Lastly, I want to mention outsourcing your bookkeeping. If bookkeeping isn’t a strong skill you have, or you know you just don’t have the time to keep up with it, it may be time for you to consider outsourcing it to a professional accountant or bookkeeper. Outsourcing can free up your time, reduce errors, and ensure compliance with tax regulations. It can be an investment that can save you money in the long run, even though you are paying money to have it done. An outside or virtual bookkeeper will have the skills and knowledge to help you with your bookkeeping, and since they have experience working with multiple clients, their processes are much smoother, which results in faster turnaround times for you. When you hire an outside or virtual bookkeeper, your main task as a business owner is to provide the financial and other information needed to your bookkeeper so that they can, in return, provide you with up-to-date bookkeeping and financial statements. This allows you more time as a business owner to focus on tasks that are important to meeting your business goals and following your strategic plans to grow your business. In most cases, your outside or virtual bookkeeper will also have the bookkeeping software needed to record all your transactions, which will also save you money since you don’t need to purchase it yourself. Keeping the future in mind, as your business grows, your outsourced or virtual bookkeeper will likely have the experience and skills to grow with your business by adding additional services your business needs, such as payroll, when and if you decide to hire additional help with your business. This is simply another option for you to consider, and I want to mention that there are also a lot of business owners who will outsource all or specific parts of their bookkeeping to someone who can help keep them on track.
Now that you know a few of the top tips for staying current on your bookkeeping tasks and understanding why it is so important to stay on top of your bookkeeping, I want you to know that I understand how managing a business and staying up to date with your bookkeeping can be overwhelming and sometimes challenging to find the right balance between everything you are doing in your business and still maintaining a personal life that you are able to enjoy. If you need help managing any of the topics I covered in today’s podcast or being held accountable so that you can be more efficient and reach the goals you set for yourself and your business, feel free to reach out to me. I’d love to help you. You can schedule a free consultation or sign up for a coaching session today. As a Certified Public Accountant and Certified Life Coach, I can help alleviate the stress you may be feeling when it comes to your business, career, or personal life. I’m here to guide you through the financial aspects of your business and help you focus on the steps you need to follow to reach the success you want to achieve in your business and stay committed so that you can continue to keep pushing forward. I’m here to help you with both your business and your personal life so you can relieve the stress, anxiety, or overwhelm you are currently feeling. Having an accountant and certified life coach like me can provide you with valuable insights and ideas to help you simplify your business, which enables you to go back to enjoying your business like you thought you would when you first started it. I work with business owners and accountants to create the actionable steps they need to take to ultimately achieve their goals while getting relief from the stress and overwhelm they feel from the pressure of owning a business, deadlines, and the workload they face every day. If you are struggling with this as well and would like some help developing a solution, help strengthen and maintain your emotional health, increase your well-being, create a more positive, happy, and joyful life, set and achieve your goals, and manage your relationships, I’d love for you to join me in my Balance Life Coaching program so that you can live a more purposeful life. Each week, we meet privately one-on-one, and you get to bring whatever is on your mind on any given week. It could be your highest priority you want to work on, whatever you want more of in your life, or if there is something that is weighing on you heavily that you need coaching on, and we’ll work through it together. Having a certified life coach like me helping you through all of this allows you to feel so seen and cared for, and the results are amazing. Everyone benefits when they work with a certified life coach. After every call, you feel energized, and you know exactly what to do for the week to come, and relief knowing we will meet again the next week to go over anything that comes up after the call. You’ll gain self-awareness while you take each step toward your goals. The investment in this program is an easy yes for you. I’ve set this program up in the most supportive way. If you are ready to join the Balance Life Coaching program, you can go to www.FinancialAdventure.com and click on the work with me button. You’ll see the link to join as well as additional information about the program. Sign up now. There are limited spots available for this program due to the one-on-one aspect, and it does sell out. If the payment link is gone, you can get on my waitlist to join the program when additional spots are available. I help people get results and live a more joyful life. I coach everybody on everything. Everyone has something they want in their lives, and I help them get it. I know this is something you’ve been waiting for. I’ve been asked by many of my listeners to create this exact program. The faster you get access to the program, the quicker you’ll see the possibilities available to you. I also have a risk-free guarantee. I believe so strongly that everyone benefits from coaching that when you sign up today, if for any reason you are not satisfied with your first session, you can send us an email, and we’ll refund you immediately. Are you ready to enjoy your life now? Why would you want to wait? Make this investment for yourself. Take the journey with me…make it happen for yourself. Ask yourself why you need this program in your life right now. Are you ready to make bigger, bolder, stronger life goals? I’m looking forward to meeting with you soon and digging deeper to see where you currently are in your business or career and start creating actionable steps so that you can reach your vision and goals for the future, not only in your business or career but also in your personal life. I’m ready to work with you, see all of your successes, and watch you thrive in your business or career while creating your best work-life balance. I’ll post links to this and other valuable resources for business owners and accountants where you are listening to this podcast.
And, you know I’m going to ask…what’s at least one thing you will take away from this episode that will help your business succeed and grow your bottom line? If you need some accountability, join our PRIVATE Facebook community and post your action item, we’d love to support you.
