Articles Tagged with bookkeeping

The Paperwork Avalanche

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Working with small businesses, the one refrain I hear over and over from my clients is “How do I stay organized? I have paperwork everywhere!”

This is a challenge for all of us. As your business grows, there are more demands placed on your time, and without a solid system for staying

Avalanche of Paperwork
Avalanche of Paperwork

organized it’s easy to let the receipts, invoices and statements pile up.

These are some suggestions I have for keeping your bookkeeping paperwork in order:

Go to your local office supply store (or the dollar store can be an excellent place to get storage solutions) and pick up some nice decorative boxes or folders that you will use just for your business paperwork. These folders should be placed strategically in the places where your paperwork tends to get deposited.

If you drive for your business, even if it’s just around the city, you may find that your car becomes your office, lunch room and filing cabinet. Put one of the folders you purchased in your car, maybe between your front seat and your console, or under the passenger seat, or in the glove compartment or the compartment on your door. Every time you get into the car, put your receipts into the folder. This is great if you have just filled up with gas, or gone on a business lunch. Once a month you will clear out this folder. Don’t worry about sorting out the business and personal expenses – there will be time for that later. It is better to save a receipt you don’t need than to accidentally throw out something you may need later.

For many of us, the front door of our house is another place we accumulate paperwork. For others, it may be our study, or perhaps the kitchen counter. Wherever you see receipts starting to accumulate, this is where you need another folder. When you get home at the end of the day, empty your pockets, wallet and purse/briefcase into the folder. This applies to the mail also – when you get your bank statements put them in the folder. When you get bills, pay them (always a good idea!) and then put them into the folder.

Once a week (or once a month if that’s better for your schedule) take the folders into the office and empty them onto your desk. Sort through them and remove the personal expense, but be careful. Some items on your personal receipts may still be business write-offs. For example, if your office is in your home you may be able to write off a percentage of your cleaning supplies, so keep those receipts and circle the business portion. Put all the business papers into the master office folder.

The main folder is what you are going to give your bookkeeper every month, so you may want to get an accordion folder with alphabetical slots so you can give it to him/her organized. Some bookkeepers are fine with one folder with everything mixed up. Personally, I do not ask my clients to organize the paperwork, as I know that I will be going through every piece of paper myself and consider organizing and filing the papers after to be part of the service I provide.

Following these steps should help you to stay clear of the paperwork avalanche that can trap small business owners so you are free to work on your business.

Starting the New Year Off Right

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One thing I love the most about the New Year is that it’s a chance to start over and get things right this time.

This is how you should look at your small business bookkeeping.  Who cares if last year you got so your have a chance to do things differently.

new year pic

 

Here are some hints and tips to start the New Year off right:

Create a good filing system.  Take the time to file away the old and make way for the new, and organize your filing in a way that is easy to do and easy to understand.

Dedicate a space for your paperwork.  The dollar store is an excellent resource for buying folders, basket, decorative boxes and other wonderful paper holders.  Every day, empty your pockets, purses, wallets and briefcases of all their receipts and store them in one location.

Stop shuffling paperwork.  Handle each piece of paper once, if possible, and twice if necessary.  Pick up the receipt, post it in your bookkeeping software, and file it away.  I don’t have statistics on how much time is wasted sorting through piles of paperwork and “organizing” it without actually accomplishing anything, but I can imagine it’s massive.

Do you often take employees, clients or business associates for lunches or dinners?  Make sure to note on the back of the receipts who attended the meal and what business was discussed.  This will make your life easier in the case of a visit from the CRA.

Enjoy your bookkeeping time.  Turn on some internet radio, or get the iTunes going.

Make a to-do list of your bookkeeping tasks, and cross things off the list when you finish them.  It’s easy to forget that Record of Employment, or that WSIB return that’s due, but if you write it down when you think of it, you will have a reminder.  Plus, it’s satisfying to cross things off when they’re completed.

Don’t get behind.  Bookkeeping might not be everyone’s favorite task, but it is a lot less daunting to do it one month at a time than to tackle a whole year.

If it’s taking too much time and detracting from your other business obligations, consider hiring an outside bookkeeper.  A good bookkeeper will take all this trouble off your hands and help you use the financial data she compiles to help you manage your business.

Time Management: Stay Healthy, My Friends

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Do you want improved focus and concentration?  Do you want to avoid burnout?  healthyDo you want to get the most out of every waking moment of your day?

The answer is simple:  Maintain a healthy lifestyle.  Don’t skip meals because you are too busy.  Get moving, walk the dog, go to the gym, play a sport, meet a friend for a coffee.  Maintain your physical and emotional health as well as the health of your business.

You can’t consistently stay up half the night working and then spend the next day feeling like an extra in a zombie movie.    “So many people spend their health gaining wealth, and then have to spend their wealth to regain their health.”  A.J. Reb Materi.  Don’t fall into this trap.  Stay healthy.

Staying healthy means mentally and emotionally as well as physically.  Reward yourself for a job well done.  A dinner out, a vacation day, a pair of new shoes, all these things will help to rejuvenate your spirit.  Definitely leave time for fun.  We all know the end result of “all work and no play.”

At all costs, avoid Burnout.  Burnout can be a physical or mental problem, but it is caused by overwork or stress.  Your body and mind simply can keep up with what you’re demanding.  “I won’t burnout – I’m invincible,” said every workaholic the moment before they burned out.  Your body will tell you when it has had enough.  When you’re falling asleep at your desk, do you think your boss more likely to think “wow, you’re working long hours” or “wow, you must have partied last night.”  When you make a typo in an important presentation, is anyone really going to consider the fact that you stayed up until 4:00 am to complete it?

Finally, I would like to suggest that we all avoid the martyr complex.  You can be a good spouse, a good worker, a good parent without always putting yourself last.  Consider your choices and treat yourself better.  Fast food vs. A home cooked meal, Driving to the store vs. Walking with the dog, Working late vs. An hour at the gym.  The easier or faster option is rarely the best choice.  It’s faster to drive through the burger joint than start the oven.  It’s easier to speed around in your car than it is to stop and smell the flowers.  It seems to be more productive to focus on work than to focus on well-being.  But consider your choices.  As the saying goes, nobody ever goes to their deathbed saying, “I wish I had spent more time at the office.”

We need to be kind to ourselves.  In the end, what would all this be without you around?

Time Management: Schedule for Success

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How many times have you sat in your office, scanning a news website or (gasp) schedulechecking your Facebook because you have a meeting in 15 minutes and there is no point in starting something new?  A big part of time management is learning to organize your time more effectively.

One helpful tip is to schedule your meetings for first thing in the morning, or for directly after lunch, so that you don’t have gaps in your schedule.  If you start work at 8:30 but have a meeting scheduled for 9:00, you may find that first half hour of the day is less productive than you would like.  Another tip is to schedule your meetings back-to-back if possible. You will find extra blocks of time throughout your day by following this simple rule.  If you do find yourself with pockets of “dead time” throughout the day, learn to use them to your advantage.  You’re walking the dog, but also working through the speech you have to give tomorrow morning.  You’re stuck in traffic so you’re planning your goals for the day.  You’re waiting for a meeting that is starting late, but making notes in your “To Do List.”  Using these moments to regain focus means more “me” time later on.

Scheduling for success also means you must set deadlines for everything.  Think back to the “ABC” method outlined in my blog:  “Time Management:  To Do Lists.”  Deadlines are easy for “A” and “B” tasks.  These tasks are urgent or important, you know you need to get them done, and it’s usually easy to assign a deadline.  What about those annoying, never ending “C” tasks?  Neither urgent nor important, they can go on forever and become a thorn in your side.   What happens when one day you suffer a moment of temporary insanity and volunteer to reorganize the file room?  For the next few weeks you walk into the file room, look at the boxes, plan, draw diagrams, theorize, sigh heavily and go back to your office.  You just don’t know where to start.  You can’t find the motivation.  There’s no urgency, there’s no deadline.

Inertia is NOT our friend.  You can’t get anything done if you don’t Get Started.  Tackle tasks by chipping away methodically.  Determine you’re going to spend 15 minutes per day on this task until it’s done.  Don’t be so overwhelmed by the volume of tasks that you do nothing at all.

You need to start the ball rolling and keep it rolling by managing distractions.  Close the door.  Turn off the ringer.  Hang the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door.  Tell everyone that you are unavailable until a certain time.  I know people like to say their “door is always open,” but sometimes you really need to slam that sucker shut and get to work.

Part 6:  Time Management:  Stay Healthy, My Friends

Time Management: An Entrepreneur’s Perspective

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Overwhelmed?  Scattered?  Frustrated?  Feeling unable to keep up?   Feeling pulled in all directions?  These are all signs that you may not be using your time

Friend or Enemy?
Friend or Enemy?

efficiently.

Life is hard.  Sometimes it seems the more you try, the harder it gets.

There are so many demands placed on us by our jobs, our co-workers, our spouses and our children, that sometimes we can feel like a circus juggler constantly at risk of dropping a ball.  In trying to be everything to everyone, we are setting ourselves up for failure.  Add to that the well known fact that stress can take years off your life, and the problem becomes very clear.  There is never enough time, and we need to do something about it.

As a controller for a manufacturing business, I faced this problem daily.  You could describe me as a “pleaser.”  I admit that I can occasionally be unaware of my own limitations and reluctant to say no.  The harder I worked, and the more I excelled at my career, the more responsibility I was given.  I started as the office manager, and within in five years I was the controller, inventory manager, and in charge of customer service.  I just kept taking on more and more, and although I was able to keep up, it took its toll.  Stress, frustration and self-doubt followed, as I struggled to keep up with the demands and eventually had to admit that I had taken on too much.  I was trying to be “everything to everybody” and was wearing myself down.

As I look back on that experience, I am determined not to make the same mistakes.  In my current capacity as a business owner, I am faced with the same challenges, but with even more responsibility.  I have employees with families and children who are dependent on my business for a paycheque.  The buck really does stop with me.  When I first started my business, I thought, “Great, now I will finally be my own boss.”  Ha!  It wasn’t until a year later that I realized that this was an illusion.  I have fifty clients, so I have fifty bosses, and I’m responsible for keeping every one of them happy.  As my business continues to grow, it demands more and more of my time.  Staffs need to be hired, trained, supervised, encouraged, paid. Clients need to be identified, communicated with, provided with excellent customer service.  Marketing needs to be reviewed and addressed.  Administrative tasks seem never-ending, from e-mails to paying bills to trying to stay on top of changes in my industry.  There is so much pressure, and so few hours in the day.  The snowball effect often finds me begging for a Star Trek transporter to zap me to a deserted island.  “Beam me up, Scotty…?”

At this point I should clarify something:    I love owning my own business.  I truly love what I do can’t imagine doing anything else.  I don’t want to come off as whiny or complaining.  What I really need, what I have been working on every day, is a better system to manage my time.  I’ve given up on my true fantasy – finding a mad scientist willing to clone me so I could have an extra “me” to do all the unpleasant stuff, so it’s up to me to find that perfect combination of to-do lists, delegation and yoga, and I’m going to find it.

Wikipedia defines time management as:  “The act or process of planning and exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency or productivity.”  What a mouthful!  Here’s my definition:  “Finding a way to complete all the necessary tasks while maintaining health and sanity.”  That’s what we all want, right?   In my quest for knowledge, I have entered the internet rabbit hole, searching for blogs, medical reports, and any other information that would help me.  I have now emerged, disheveled, over-caffeinated, and ready to tackle this beast called time.

Part 2:  Time Management:  The To Do List

Hello Business Owners!

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Welcome to my first blog.

Water loving labbe
Gratuitous doggie picture

A friend shamed me into starting this blog.  He pointed out to me that I expended a lot of time, energy and money pursuing a University degree and that I don’t use this knowledge for anything practical.

I majored in Creative Writing.   Real life had not yet jaded me.  I enjoyed writing.  My teenaged self was convinced that the only way to lead a happy life was to pursue your passion.  I hadn’t yet learned the value of practicality.  I was going to write the great Canadian novel by the time I was 25 and make tons of money.  Everyone would love it and I would buy a cabin in the woods and write fiction on my porch while squirrels squirreled around at my feet.  Romantic?  Yes.  Likely?  Not really.  After thousands (emphasis on the “S”) of dollars in student loans and three years I will never get back, I came to my senses.

Why accounting?  Why did a teenager who hated trigonometry so much she dropped the class decide on a career with so much MATH?   Accounting, to me, is like a big puzzle with money.  I like puzzles.  I started working in accounting because I was at the right place at the right time, and I pursued it as a career because I really loved it.  It satisfies my need to always keep things in order.  The left side of my brain is content.

This blog will consist of a lot of general small business tips.   I will try to provide you with useful knowledge of a wide range of business topics without boring the socks off of you.  Occasionally there will be pictures, and possible a guest writer here and there.  Thank you for reading.