Why You Need to Schedule A Year End Bookkeeping Review

As the year wraps up, I encourage all solopreneurs to engage in a little financial self-care, by reviewing your 2019 books! There are several reasons to review your books at this time of year, and they would benefit from the eye of an expert. If you don’t already have a bookkeeper and feel like you could benefit from some oversight, schedule a review with someone. The financial insight will go a long way for your business. Here are my top two reasons for reviewing your books now.

Tax Prep

First of all, straightening out your 2019 books to prep for tax season simply makes sense. Hiring an expert to help you do this can ensure that your books are accurate. That extra bit of readiness will feel so good come tax season, I promise! It will save you some stress and last minute rushing come tax time. Think of it as a holiday gift to yourself!

Where Did You Make Your Money?

My second reason for scheduling a bookkeeping review with a professional is so that someone with a trained eye can go over your books and help you discern where, when, and from what you made the most money. This kind of insight is invaluable to any small business, especially if your goal is growth. Your financial records hold this info. Work with someone willing to help you find it! For more about finding and working with a bookkeeper, check out “How to Get the Most Value From Your Bookkeeper”. The insights you gain from a good bookkeeping review could help shape your plan for your business in 2020. All the more reason to review them now!

Going over your books with a professional will save you a lot of stress and provide you with knowledge needed to run a successful business. Please consider scheduling a year-end review – you’ll thank yourself later! If you’d like to work with me, check out my Bookkeeping Services and schedule a free Financial Self Care Consultation.

Here’s to tying up your financial loose ends!

☮

Angela

By |2022-01-12T11:01:03-08:00December 4th, 2019|Categories: Bookkeeping Business, Financial Clarity, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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Why You Need a Bookkeeper From the Beginning

I recently had the chance to hear from some other women about the hardest financial lessons they’ve learned through running their businesses. One of the women I spoke to listed not hiring a bookkeeper from the start as her number one mistake.  

The Mistake

When she started her business, this woman decided not to hire a bookkeeper right away. She had a vague plan to address it eventually – she knew she could either do it herself, or hire someone when her income was higher. However, when it came time for taxes, she had a big mess on her hands. She had to hire a professional to clean it up on a short timeline in order to pay taxes, and that emergency help was costly. She also missed out on having a complete understanding of her business that year, because she couldn’t look at her numbers clearly. Because of this, she missed all sorts of important analytics, like what sold best, when it sold, etc.

The Solution

After this fiasco, the best thing to do is to hire a professional to come in regularly. Even if it’s once a month or once every two weeks, knowing someone else is coming in can keep you accountable to your books. A good bookkeeper also finds and shares any financial insights they catch. This is an invaluable but often understated aspect of bookkeeping services. Understanding where your profit comes from, where your operating expenses go, and any other money-related patterns in your business can help you make better business decisions in the long run. If you’re interested in more on this topic, I recommend my articles “How to Get the Most Value From Your Bookkeeper“ and “Know What Your Numbers Are Telling You.”

Why You Need a Bookkeeper From the StartFinally, once you hire a professional, instead of just taking your best guess yourself, you may find you’re more relaxed about the state of your business. The value of feeling at peace with money is not to be understated.

I hope you found this helpful! I’m doing a series on financial lessons learned from business in honor of Financial Planning month, so stay tuned. And if you enjoy these thoughts, I wrote a lot more about planning and financial lessons in this month’s newsletter. Read it here and subscribe if you wish – you can unsubscribe any time.

☮

Angela

Image Source: Steve Johnson

By |2021-05-24T10:38:56-07:00October 8th, 2019|Categories: Bookkeeping Business, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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Why DIY Business Owners Can Still Use a Bookkeeping Partner

Why DIY Businesses Can Still Use a Bookkeeper: At Peace With Money

Recently, several people have reached out to me who prefer to do their bookkeeping on their own, but want to have a second set of eyes on their numbers. I can’t tell you how pleased I’ve been to receive these requests. I think consulting someone else about your books is a great idea, even if you typically keep your records yourself. There are two main reasons why I think occasionally working with a professional bookkeeper, even if you’re a whiz on your own, can greatly benefit your business.

Accountability

Having someone who regularly looks at your books, even if it’s only once every month or so, motivates you to stay on top of them. Regularly scheduled reviews can help you maintain consistency and accuracy in your record keeping, which can streamline your business even further. It’s easy to fall behind on your books if no one’s watching. Having someone else look at them every now and then encourages you to keep up.

Accuracy Check

Your financial records are something you don’t want to mess up. Mistakes can be terribly inconvenient at best, and very costly at worst. Plus, if you are working to learn the skill of bookkeeping, it’s great to have an expert on hand to review your work. That extra pair of eyes can help keep your records orderly.

My Story

When I was running Dolce Beada, I knew how to do my bookkeeping, but I still had someone come in once a month to make sure I stayed on top of all the entries. Having someone look at my records regularly kept me in the habit of recording my numbers and keeping my books from getting messy. I also really benefited from a monthly numbers-check, just to make sure I was doing it right. 

Some business owners may feel that they are not ready to hire a bookkeeper, so they prefer to keep their own records. If this is you, you can still benefit from having a bookkeeper review what you’ve done. Or perhaps you need some training on how to set up and maintain your bookkeeping – an expert can offer this too.  Many solopreneurs also benefit from Profit First Financial Coaching in order to set a revenue goal for their business, fully understand how much they are spending both personally and in their business, and prepare to pay themselves and all taxes as they come due. All of these business concerns require some financial work, and an expert who can coach you through that work can be an invaluable resource. 

If you’re interested and want to learn more about the Profit First and financial services I offer, check out my services page, and book a call with me!

☮

Angela

Image Source: Ashkan Forouzani

By |2019-03-09T00:08:20-08:00March 8th, 2019|Categories: Bookkeeping Business, Cash Flow, Financial Clarity, Profit First, Small Business, solopreneurs, Taxes|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments
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Schedule Your Year End Bookkeeping Review

As the year wraps up, I want to encourage all solopreneurs to engage in a little financial self-care, by reviewing your 2018 books! There are several reasons to review your books at this time of year, and they would benefit from the eye of an expert. If you don’t already have a bookkeeper and feel like you could benefit from some oversight, schedule a review with someone! The financial insight will go a long way for your business. Here are my top two reasons for reviewing your books now.

Tax Prep

First of all, straightening out your 2018 books to prep for tax season simply makes sense. Hiring an expert to help you do this can ensure that your books are accurate. That extra bit of readiness will feel so good come tax season, I promise! It will save you some stress and last minute rushing come tax time. Think of it as a holiday gift to yourself!

Where Did You Make Your Money?

My second reason for scheduling a bookkeeping review with a professional is so that someone with a trained eye can go over your books and help you discern where, when, and from what you made the most money. This kind of insight is invaluable to any small business, especially if your goal is growth. Your Why You Should Schedule Your Bookkeeping Review Now: At Peace With Moneyfinancial records hold this info. Work with someone willing to help you find it! For more about finding and working with a bookkeeper, check out my post “How to Get the Most Value From Your Bookkeeper”. The insights you gain from a good bookkeeping review could help shape your plan for your business in 2019 – all the more reason to review them now.

Going over your books with a professional will save you a lot of stress and provide you with knowledge needed to run a successful business. Please consider scheduling a year-end review – you’ll thank yourself later! I offer bookkeeping services along with Profit First strategic advising. If you’re looking for someone to work with, don’t hesitate to schedule a curiosity call with me.

Here’s to tying up your financial loose ends!

☮

Angela

Image Sources: rawpixel,  Ella Jardim

 

By |2018-11-27T05:46:59-08:00November 27th, 2018|Categories: Bookkeeping Business, Financial Clarity, Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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How to Get The Most Value From Your Bookkeeper

How to Get the Most Value Out of Your Bookkeeper: At Peace With Money

As a business owner, every time that you outsource a task for your business, you want to make sure you are getting the highest value out of that task. Particularly if you are hiring a professional for services, such as a CPA or bookkeeper, they should not only provide the service you need to keep your financial records up to date. They should also be able to provide you with insight or advice into your business finances. They regularly see all the financial facts of your business right in front of them. If they aren’t interpreting and discussing with you the trends they see in your business,  or they aren’t talking about or making suggestions to support the health of your business , they are actually doing you a disservice. Financial professionals can easily access that information. Making sure you hire someone who is willing to talk to you about those things and provide information that will provide you with much greater value from this professional service. If you are able to apply these financial insights, your business will benefit greatly in the long run.

This point also illuminates the value of hiring a professional in the first place. Hiring someone who knows what they’re doing to both keep your books in order and analyze financial trends is important. Paying a professional a higher wage for a better quality work, rather than hiring someone who doesn’t do the job well, will greatly benefit you and your business. Someone who can provide you with valuable information about expenses, cash flow, profit margins, and other financial inner workings of your business can prove invaluable in the long term. Think of hiring a talented professional as an investment in your business’s financial wellbeing.

How to Get the Most Value Out of Your Bookkeeper: At Peace With Money

When you are looking to hire a CPA or bookkeeper, inquire whether their services include providing these insights and consultations. If you are already working with a particular professional, ask them if they are willing to start discussing their financial findings with you. If not, maybe it’s time to find someone else – because that valuable financial knowledge of your business is absolutely worth it. If you’d like to speak with me about my financial services, schedule a discover call!

☮

Angela

Image Sources: Sergey Shmidt , Sharon McCutcheon

By |2018-11-08T20:26:38-08:00August 6th, 2018|Categories: Bookkeeping Business, Cash Flow, Small Business|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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Why Selling More Doesn’t Mean Making More

I assume that when you started your business, you wanted to put money in your pocket. Whether your goal for that money is to use it to fully support yourself or your family, or to fund a particular life goal, your business is meant to supply you with money.  As such, making money by selling product is often the business owner’s most common focus. Enter, the hustle timeline.

The Hustle Timeline

When we first start a business we have to get out there and hustle to sell something; to get things moving. Eventually we start rolling. But at some point we want to make more money, and we believe that growing our business is the way to make more profit.

So, we hustle some more. We do more gigs, we move more product, we sign on more clients. There is more money coming in, but there still doesn’t seem to be enough. Then we set our sights on a particular goal, the gig, the number, the client that’s big enough to put us over the edge so we can put more in our pocket. But it never really happens. Here we find ourselves trapped in the timeline; always hustling, and never quite reaching our goals.

The Answer

There are only two ways to put more money in your pocket: increase margins or decrease expenses. If we are using the same labor, materials or processes as we increase sales we are increasing our output, but not gaining anything. Perhaps we may have even added to our spending to buy that new printer or new app to handle the increase in sales volume. If we haven’t examined our spending, we aren’t gaining anything. Taking a good look at our margins and our business expenses is an important step to upping the profits of our business. 

Why Selling More Doesn't Mean Making More: At Peace With Money

To examine your expenses and profit margins, ask yourself these questions. Is your product or service priced appropriately, or are you undervaluing it? Comparing your prices industry standards can help you suss out an answer. So can calculating in materials, labor, and other costs. If you’re unsure how to price your product or service, do some research to get other opinions and methods!

Are you delivering your product or service in an efficient manner, or are there places you could cut time and expenses? Look at your processes, and be discerning. Have you reviewed your business expenses lately to see if it’s really all necessary?

Ask yourself these questions and review the inner workings of your business. This is where your profit is hiding. Let’s get it into your pocket.

☮

Angela

Image Sources:  Roman Kraft ,  Nik MacMillan

By |2018-07-02T23:19:12-07:00July 2nd, 2018|Categories: Cash Flow, Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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Business Expenses Are Not Free

Business Expenses Aren't Free: At Peace With Money

There is a common misconception among business owners: thinking that “I will write that off as a business expense” means it’s free. Let’s bust this myth! Our business (and bottom lines) will be all the better for it. 

Why Do We Think This?

The root of this misconception probably stems from our experiences as employees of larger companies. As an employee, business expenses are often “free” in that you get reimbursed for them or your company is covering the expense. However, now that you own your business, the expense is included in your bottom line. Business expenses no longer disappear into the ether of corporate bureaucracy – owning a small business means every expense shows up. 

A New Way to Think About Business Expenses

It’s true that as a business owner, you do get a tax write-off for business expenses. But it is also true that an expense is still an expense; the money still leaves your accounts. It’s important that, as business owners, we rewire our brains to recognize this. Business expenses are not equal to receiving things for free. Free stuff is still the best option!

Business Expense Advice: At Peace With MoneyRecognizing this may mean we need to reexamine our approach with expenses in general. When making a purchase, it’s important to ask yourself, “Is this expense actually adding value to my business? Do I really need this?”. Often we are pressured into spending money on our businesses that we don’t really need to, especially when starting out. Evaluating our priorities and finding financial clarity in our businesses can be a helpful step in the right direction. 

As my final tip, I’d like to present a favorite Profit First strategy of mine. Ask yourself, “Can I wait just one more day to make this purchase?” This simple question can again help you in evaluating your financial priorities, and buy you more time to get your business finances in order. 

 

☮
Angela

Images: rawpixel.com , Brooke Lark

By |2018-05-02T13:40:20-07:00April 30th, 2018|Categories: Bookkeeping Business, Cash Flow, Financial Clarity, Profit First, Small Business, solopreneurs, Taxes|Tags: , , , , , , |0 Comments
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