Accounting

Ah accounting. The art of balancing your checkbook and budgets. For most of us, we learned basic math skills beginning in kindergarten and learned what a checkbook was somewhere around 5th or 6th grade. Just think about that for a moment. By the time you reach the age of 30, you’ve known the basic point of how to balance your finances for roughly 25 years. If you‘re not so good at this, it kind of makes you wonder why, doesn‘t it? Well some of us just don’t have brains that wrap easily around the ins and outs of basic accounting. Never fear! There are tons of ways to get around your aversion to those pesky charts of accounts.

Luckily, in this uber convenient age of technology, we have tons of options for keeping everything straight. From web based programs to desktop programs, to certified accounting professionals, there is almost no excuse for not knowing what is going on with your money. Unfortunately, few of the solutions are free, so you’ll first need to make sure you have enough money to pay for a software program or service. I know, seems like a catch 22, but dedicate just a few moments of your time to figuring your operating balance, and you’ll be glad you did.

Once you know how much money you have to work with, get online and do some research. You’ll be shocked at how many programs, services, and professionals out there are available for your accounting needs. One of the best programs is Quickbooks. The name says it well. It is designed for those of us who can’t keep it straight. Either the desktop version or the online version will work well for most businesses. The benefit to the online version is that you can have someone else do it for you from a location other than your office. How great is that?! You can pay for a service to keep your money straight, and then pay someone else to do it for you! In that example, all you really need to know is how much money you have to start with, how much the service costs, and how much the service provider costs. Surely that is easy enough to figure out.

The benefit to a software program for your accounting needs is that you don’t have to deal with paper and pens anymore. And most services even will allow you to auto download your transactions from your bank, so you won’t even have to enter those. Just match up the transactions with the proper account, and voila! You’ve effectively balanced your books. Don’t panic if you aren’t sure what account to post something to. The programs usually come with a list of pre-populated categories, like Food & Entertainment, Utilities, Rent, etc. Simple enough to figure out what category your charges go into, right? Then at the end of the year, you’ll make a few clicks, change a few dates and you can get a snapshot of your income and expenses for the whole year. Just remember to breathe when you see how much you’ve spent!

Accounting doesn’t have to be scary, or nerve racking, or dreaded at all. While it may hurt to see all the things you’ve been spending money on, it can also assist you in determining what not you spend your money on anymore. All those magazine subscriptions for your waiting room? Probably not totally necessary. We all seem to have a smart device of some sort these days. If your customers are desperate enough to see the news while waiting, they’ll jump on their device and get informed; nothing like self help!

Take an afternoon, and just figure out the best method for your business to keep all the balances in check. Then when you’ve finished and you’re effectively crushed over the amount you’ve spent on those magazine subscriptions, call the companies to cancel them! Take that cash and use it to pay for the accounting software.

Carmella Martinez

LowkeyMedia Marketing Team