Making Sure Financials are 'On the Fly' ... Just Like You!

One of the biggest challenges business owners face is the ability to cram all their to-do's into their busy schedule in an organized way. As a business owner, I'm all too familiar with the often-attempted 'plan' for the week, the day, even the next few hours, and how off-course that plan can get. Trust me, even though I'm the Accountant for my own businesses, I'm not prioritizing any portion of my time in a day to sit there and tidy the books. In fact, it's one of the last things I'll ever be adding to my to-do list.

So how does it get done you ask? Well I'll be the first to admit that I'm not perfect, but no small business owner is. Having said that, I do know how to make it work on-the-fly when I'm in my healthy rhythm, and a lot of it comes down to having an automated, cloud-based system with useful tech and integrations. But it's almost just as important to have a manageable process, and never hesitate to further tweak and automate that process, where possible, to make things efficient for yourself. This is an area where Carve Financial can certainly assist in terms of creatively finding ways to save you time and get shhhhakin with your day. Oh, and not to be forgotten - making this a team effort goes one heck of a long way. Anyone on your team can play a small part in your financial management and accounting processes, without them even realizing it!

Below I'm going to share some quick, bite sized concepts that I recommend every business owner takes the time to invest in, whether that be in the form of small amounts of time or money. Each investment into your financial management game plan will help you save greater amounts of time and money in the future!

"Think of the organic (unplanned) time and attention your business' financials would receive if you made simple financial management tasks part of those quick, habitual 'routines' you tackle every single day (many times a day) when you whip out your phone or tablet. How many hours of your day did 'social media scrolling' get assigned on your to-do list?!"

First and foremost, you need to be on a cloud-based accounting system, and that system better have bank account integration incorporated. It is a must these days - a business owner, or even an administrative employee, cannot be bothered to log transactions manually with the capabilities that exist out there. The integration of your bank account allows you to see every dollar going in and out of your business and rapidly sift through the automatically created transactions to assign correct income or expense accounts to those transactions.

Second, the accounting system you've chosen has to have their technology game on point... or at least one that is well underway and with a vision. Let me ask you this - are you taking pictures of your receipts, uploading your invoices via email or via drag and drop, and getting your expense reporting fields automatically populated? Are you able to quickly slap together and send a customized invoice, from your (parked) car, to a client who called you while you were driving to your potential new-hire coffee interview? If not, you need to re-think the accounting software/system you're using to ensure it works with your life. Being able to chip away at your accounting before it ever turns into a multi-hour project is not only great for your business ownership capabilities, but this is how you avoid ever having that sense of panic that you haven't done the necessary 'work' to upkeep your books for a few months. Think of the organic (unplanned) time and attention your business' financials would receive if you made simple financial management tasks part of those quick, habitual 'routines' you tackle every single day (many times a day) when you whip out your phone or tablet. How many hours of your day did 'social media scrolling' get assigned on your to-do list?!

Lastly, payroll is (or should be) treated as one of the most important parts of your business, not only because paying your people the right amount (on time) is critical to them and their lives, but also because this is definitely the most common touch-point you have with the CRA. Why leave the taxes and remittances up to human error? Put your trust in an accounting system/software offering that takes care of all of this for you. They have the tech developers and tax gurus that have put plenty of thought into making this a breeze for business owners, so why wouldn't you take advantage. No more leaving payments to your employees up to a calendar reminder (aka annoying phone notification), or dealing with e-transfer passwords which made your operation seem less legitimate. This is a basic add-on that typically costs an insignificant amount of money, and only requires a simple set of steps whenever you hire new people to your staff and need to get them up and running.

Carve Financial is not only here to support you in getting setup on the (free) cloud-based accounting system of choice for small business owners, but we are here to help you through the implementation of a full gamut of accounting and financial management processes. This is not coming from a textbook or passed along from one of those big firms who does this for businesses of all sizes. This would be customized for you, because every small business is extremely different in how they operate, and it's rarely simple. This is a tried and tested custom methodology, as I myself see how one business' needs differ from the other. It's not just about adding your business number, address, etc. into a system - it's about determining where your pain-points are from a bookkeeping standpoint, identifying your analysis and reporting needs, and building a process that is geared towards exactly that, thus ensuring you are integrated as best as possible... like payment processing - want your customers to pay you directly through your system once they receive that invoice in their inbox? That can be done. Don't wait, get yourself started with us and take on a new mindset of performing your small business financials on the fly!