Just Enough to be Dangerous

Most micro businesses have never talked to a bookkeeper.  Startups, even fewer.  The fact is, starting your business on the correct financial footing will save you time and money, possibly more than you know.

Are you still working off spreadsheets?

For those of you working off a spreadsheet, there’s an easier way.  Accounting systems are easy to learn and easy to use, once you get into a rhythm and will save your time versus doing everything manually in a spreadsheet.  

It will also save you money!  By automating certain processes and tracking your invoices in an accounting system, you’ll get more of the money you earned.

DIY Bookkeeping

As a business owner, there seems to be no doubt that doing the bookkeeping yourself is the most obvious way to go.  For the entrepreneur, this is over 80% of you!  May I ask though: did you obtain your business license yourself?  Set up your own website?  Print your own business cards?  Build your own store?

Probably not.  Why not?  Because there are people and services out there whose job is to do these things better and quicker than you can!  And that’s okay!

For those of you who are still proudly standing and have done everything for your own business, bravo!  You are the amazing outliers who put the rest of us to shame.

For those of us mere humans, we need support to get these things done.  We need people whose business is doing those things that we can’t (or shouldn’t) do ourselves. 

The saying, “They know just enough to be dangerous” is so very apt here.  Most business owners know just enough to be dangerous when it comes to bookkeeping.  Business finance is not synonymous with personal finance – you aren’t just ‘balancing a checkbook’ anymore.  Business finance is a world of double-entry accounting with financial statements and performance ratios that most business owners have barely even heard of, let alone understand. 

Thoughts to Consider

So I put forth the following questions to startups and/or those microbusinesses out there: 

• Have you looked at your chart of accounts and updated it to match your unique business and its finances?
• Have you accounted for the investment you the owner have made in your business?
• Have you tracked your initial expenses and documented them with the relevant information?
• Do you have a cash flow management system?
• Have you set up your Cost of Goods Sold and/or Sales tracking for a possible tax write-off?
• Are you paying your sales, income, and federal taxes in full and on time?

If you answered every one of these questions with a confident “Yes I did!”, then again, my hat is off to you and you may proceed in being the utterly fabulous savvy business owner you are.

For the rest of you, I have four words: find a bookkeeper now!