The thing that gets ignored the most in small businesses is the finances.
You have so many other things to do in your business, that keeping up with your finances is nowhere near the top of your mind.
Plus the money stuff is something that just makes you feel “ugh, how can I avoid this for longer?”
It’s not your zone of genius, it’s not easy for you and it’s not something you really want to do.
So you avoid it.
All that really matters is that money is flowing into the bank account.
But even if money is flowing into the bank account, just checking to see if money is in the account before you pay a bill or make a purchase doesn’t suffice when you actually own a business.
What if you were to create a workflow that tells you exactly what to do with your business finances each week?
Then once you have this workflow, you put it on your calendar as an appointment with yourself. You can’t cancel or reschedule this appointment.
Let’s create a workflow for your business now.
Step 1: Create a Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for your business for accounting and bookkeeping.
The SOP will help you know all of the places that you need to check in with for your business accounting and bookkeeping.
Need an SOP example, check out this post or get a template in the Bookkeeping Toolkit.
With an SOP in place, you’ll always know what things need to be done in your business accounting and bookkeeping without questioning if you forgot something.
Plus you’ll have a way of sharing everything about your accounting and bookkeeping if you were to ever hire out the position to someone else.
Step 2: Make sure all of your accounting and bookkeeping stuff is in the same place.
If you keep a folder in your inbox or your Google Drive or somewhere on your computer, always know where it is. And always put your stuff in this folder.
If you keep a file on your desk of the paper that needs to be taken care of, keep only your financial documents in there. Store anything else that may end up in this box or folder somewhere else.
This step is super easy if you already have your SOP in place.
Step 3: Do the work.
Do your bookkeeping. Reconcile your bank account. Work on your profit plan and see how it aligns with your marketing plan.
Send invoices. Pay bills.
Set a regular calendar date with yourself.
After you’ve got everything in place with this workflow, you just need to set a calendar date with yourself.
Actually put it in the calendar.
You can’t cancel or reschedule this appointment.
You can’t schedule something else during this time.
Since you have a workflow in place, this work should take less than 1 hour a week to do. And the most often you do it, the quicker you’ll get at this job too.
Why weekly?
Why should you do this weekly?
You should do it weekly because it helps keep things fresh in your mind.
Do you know how often you forget what an expense is? Especially when it shows up on your bank statement as POS XXRUEI. Who knows what that actually is when it comes to doing the bookkeeping?
When you do this weekly, the purchases are more fresh in your mind and you’ll remember what that purchase was.
Plus like I said, the more often you do this weekly process, the quicker you’ll get. And after a month or two, this process will usually take you 15-30 minutes a week.
The money stuff is important
The money stuff is the most important part of your business. If you don’t keep up with it and keep it in order, your business will go broke and you won’t have a business anymore.
Stop ignoring the money stuff.
Just because it’s not your zone of genius, it gives you hives and stresses you out, that is no reason to ignore it.
If you really can’t do it for yourself, then hire someone else to do it for you.
Creating a weekly workflow
You can easily create a weekly workflow for your business finances.
The more you know your business money and have things in order, the better your business will do.
Build a strong relationship with your money and your money will show you that same relationship in return.
And the more you work on this workflow, the easier things will be and you’ll get much quicker at doing this weekly part of your business.
