081 Organization Hacks for Your Bookkeeping
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We're exploring organizational hacks for your bookkeeping by drawing parallels to home organization tips. If you're skilled at organizing other aspects of your life, you can use those same techniques to keep your business finances in top shape.
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00:00:00
Hey, everybody. Welcome to money. Through ease, this is your host, Regan Bashara. And today I want to share with you my organization hacks for your bookkeeping. Now, I googled the top organizational tips for homeowners specifically to see if we can relate some of those processes. Some of those tips.
00:00:20
Back to your bookkeeping. Now I did a video on TikTok about the comparison between like physical organization of your home and digital organization of your finances and your business bookkeeping.
00:00:32
And it went off very well. People were like, oh, you know, this makes a lot of sense, like, this comparison. So I thought that I would do a few episodes about this concept. So today's episode is going to be about the tips that I saw for home organization and how they relate back to your bookkeeping and your financial organization. And then you'll want to make sure.
00:00:52
And TuneIn for next week's episode, because that is going to be what I don't think will work for either home organization or your bookkeeping. So make sure you're subscribed.
00:01:03
Go ahead and leave me a 5 star review. No less than that, please. I don't want to hear it. Just kidding. It's fine. Believe me, a rating or review on Spotify or Apple Podcast. If you like this episode, please share it with somebody else who is a small business owner who struggles with their finances too. Now, First things first, this episode is sponsored by the Bookkeeping Foundation kit.
00:01:22
This is my essential toolkit of videos, questions, samples, and resources to help you set up a bookkeeping system and stay on top of it for your small business.
00:01:33
The Bookkeeping Foundation kit is $77, and you can purchase it by clicking the link in the show notes. As a bonus, I'm also offering 30 days free inside my private virtual community. That way you can have support for me and my other clients as you work through the material. I have hours of live content and tutorials already in the group.
00:01:53
I go live twice a month for more Q&A and financial organization tips.
00:01:58
I also host Co working sessions on zoom that are exclusively available to members of the community. These are kind of like a study hall, so you can work silently alongside me on or off camera, or you can even bring questions and get support from me on the call. So that 30 days free trial for the community is included whenever you purchase the bookkeeping.
00:02:19
Foundation kit. Now let's get into the topic of this episode, which is me taking home organization tips and teaching you how to use them for your financial organization, AKA your business bookkeeping.
00:02:30
So I only found one article from a major magazine source that had actual tips on how to organize your home instead of just a list of products that you can buy in order to organize your home. So that article was from better homes and gardens. It was published in 2023 by Mary Cornetta, and I find that is extremely helpful for folks who might be good at organization.
00:02:53
In other areas of their life.
00:02:55
And still find it difficult to organize and track their finances. So if we make this comparison and we draw this line between home organization and business financial organization, they're one in the same and it might help you to look at other areas of your life where you are organized and kind of copy and paste your system over. So let's go 1 by 1.
00:03:15
In these tips from better homes and gardens article in 2023, the first tip that I want to talk about is to do a little bit.
00:03:23
And now we all know what it feels like when you have company coming over or especially your in laws and you have got to hustle and clean and organize your home and get it sick and span and ready for people and company to be coming over and you end up feeling burnt out. You end up completely exhausted and not able to sit down and even.
00:03:43
Enjoy yourself and enjoy the company that comes over that you cleaned. For so doing a little bit at a time is going to make sure that your home stays more organized consistently right. If you do a little bit at a time.
00:03:56
Time. Then you can accomplish a lot over a period of time, and the same is true of your bookkeeping. I have a lot of people come to me that have, like a big financial project. I call it a backlog accounting project or a catch up accounting project and that is where we have many months or even sometimes several years of bookkeeping to accomplish.
00:04:16
Maybe someone needs to go ahead and get their tax return done. Either way, they gotta get their **** together. So doing a little bit at a time is not what they did, right? They procrastinated and avoided it. They were making money, but they were not keeping track of it. And that is what bookkeeping is. It's tracking how you make and spend your money.
00:04:33
So not doing a little bit at a time means that it does pile up just like the clutter or the dirt in your home, and then all of a sudden tax time comes around, which is just like company coming over to your house and you gotta get it together and get cleaned up. And that causes burnout, frustration, resentment, all of those. And we don't want any of those emotions whenever we're sitting down to look at our money.
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Because money is often already.
00:04:57
Very emotional for people to deal with.
00:05:00
So doing a little bit at a time is true for your home organization and cleaning and for your bookkeeping. And I tell folks, you know, 15 maybe 30 minutes a week is all you need to really stay on top of things like receipt management and reconciling your accounts. You might need a little bit more time if you send invoices and receive.
00:05:21
Payments from clients.
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But for most business owners, you know, a couple of hours a month is all it takes. You can do it all in one go, or you can split it.
00:05:29
Up to every.
00:05:30
Week, but doing a little bit at a time is going to serve you a lot more than waiting, procrastinating and things getting out of control. The next tip that they had was to make declutter dates now.
00:05:42
If you are in a relationship, or even if you're not, you probably understand the importance of and I'm talking about like an intimate, like romantic partnership with somebody else.
00:05:51
The importance of dating even after you're already in a committed monogamous relationship or maybe not monogamous.
00:06:00
But maybe not monogamous anyways, even if you're married like my husband and I go on dates, well, we try to do that consistently at least because it's dedicated time for us to learn about each other, get to know each other better. You're always getting to know somebody you know. You never truly know anybody that sounds very morbid.
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Anyways, like going on dates with someone, it's just a way to spend dedicated time.
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On your relationship to that.
00:06:27
And the same is true for your home and for your business. So if you're setting up dates with your finances, with your bookkeeping, with your business admin stuff, you are going to build that relationship with your business more than if you just did it whenever you needed to and didn't really want to, right? If you're waiting until tax time.
00:06:48
Get your books together every year. That is not going to build the relationship that you have to your money and your finances and your business.
00:06:55
The way that you would if you were consistently quote UN quote, dating your bookkeeping, so making little declutter dates, making bookkeeping or finance or money dates with yourself, I think is a great idea to think about how you relate to your business finances, because you can call it whatever you want. You know, I like to say that I set an appointment with myself. I have time.
00:07:18
On my calendar dedicated for me to deal with my finances every week and that's business, finances and personal finances.
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I don't necessarily call it a date, but if that helps you feel a little bit more loving or caring or happier or less resentful towards that task, then by all means call it a date, right? The next tip was to prioritize things and the way that I think about this is if you have things in your house.
00:07:46
You use every day or that you need to have access to every day. Those things don't go in the attic.
00:07:52
They are prioritized. They are easily accessible in your home. You make sure that they get done on a daily basis because it's a priority for you. And so if you are not prioritizing your bookkeeping, if you're not prioritizing working on your business finances, sending invoices, paying your bills on time, all those things.
00:08:13
If those things are not a priority for you to do, then chances are you're probably not going to do them.
00:08:19
Even more chance of you avoiding them and procrastinating them, right? Making those things a priority also involves making them accessible, so if you obviously, hopefully everybody who listens to this podcast brushes their teeth every day, you wouldn't put your toothbrush in the attic.
00:08:38
Because you need to brush your teeth every day and I don't know about you, but I'm not going up into my attic this time of year. I live in Louisiana. It's like 110° in my attic right now, so that's not.
00:08:48
Planning. But that means that I'm not going to put my toothbrush up there because I don't want to go up there every day to get my toothbrush to brush my teeth. So because brushing my teeth is a priority, I make that accessible for myself. I prioritize doing it. You know, as soon as I wake up, right before I go to bed.
00:09:07
And if your bookkeeping is a priority, it needs to be accessible to you. You need to have a system that is accessible that maybe is automated, right? And in that way, you're prioritizing not just your bookkeeping, but yourself, like taking care of your business, prioritizing your business.
00:09:23
Is a way to take care of yourself. So I agree with better homes and gardens tip to prioritize the things in your life that you want to work on. Now. We all love a good container system. I don't know anybody that doesn't want to, you know, spend a couple $1000 at the container.
00:09:43
Door or ordering containers off of Amazon to put all your little knickknacks and makeup and.
00:09:49
Little trinkets and all that inside. We love opening up a drawer that has all these different compartments, where everything is in its place and it it all has a container to sit in, right? So sorting things into containers makes a lot of sense for home organization. And also going along with the next step, which is to label like it's your job.
00:10:10
Having a label on things is super important so you don't have to go digging around for things that you need. If things are labeled appropriately and a reference system that you understand, you'll be able to find something pretty quickly just by reading the labels on the containers. And this is also very true for your bookkeeping, for your finances.
00:10:28
Think about could the containers that you love ordering from Amazon as the folders that you keep your receipts in on your computer or in a filing cabinet. Having a container for things to live in that is also labeled appropriately is huge, and if you've downloaded my free guide chaos to calm you already have my system for sorting.
00:10:49
Financial paperwork and labeling because that guide walks you through my system for file name.
00:10:56
And how I do it and why I do it the way I do and it makes it so easy for me to find something if I need to reference a piece of paper or a receipt, some sort of document, etc. So sorting things into containers and labeling like it's your job couldn't love that more and I think it also goes so well with what we do in bookkeeping like that is just a one to one correlation there.
00:11:20
Now one of the last tips that I saw that I want to talk about is habit stacking, and I've talked a little bit about this before. In some places I usually bring it up when I'm doing like a webinar or giving a talk to a group of business owners about.
00:11:35
Bookkeeping, financial organization. And that is the concept of habit stacking. Now this is taking something that you already do on a routine basis and then attaching or putting another habit that you want to do regularly onto the thing that you already do consistently. So here's my example for this.
00:11:55
Now I've already.
00:11:56
Used the teeth brushing example so if there's something that you need to do every day twice a day, maybe you know, go ahead and stack that onto brushing your teeth, right? But for business owners, I like to use this example. I have two things that are completely unrelated in my life that I do together and the fact that they are stacked or attached together.
00:12:17
Means that I get both of them done. Number one is I have pets obviously.
00:12:23
Y'all know about?
00:12:24
Them you see them if you follow me on social media, I post pictures and videos of them being cute and ridiculous.
00:12:30
But I have pets and they obviously need to be given sleep prevention, sleep intake prevention and heartworms and all that good stuff, right? So the dogs get their flea meds on the 1st of the month. I usually give it to them between the 1st and the 5th because I allow myself a little bit of grace, a little freedom, but between the 1st and the 5th, make sure.
00:12:49
That I get it done every month.
00:12:50
The other thing that I need to do, and maybe these two things are related because the air filter gets crazy dirty whenever you have pets.
00:12:59
Is that I change my air filter at the beginning of the month, so I do the flea meds and the air filter at the same time and stacking those two habits that I need to do consistently, stacking them with each other, or attaching them one to the other make sure that both of them get done because.
00:13:19
If I'm like, oh, I haven't changed the air filter, then I'm like, oh, wait, that must mean I'm not. I have not given the dogs their flea meds. Right. Habit stacking is something that I want to encourage you to explore. And this is thinking about what you already do on a consistent basis that you're like, I just have no trouble brushing my teeth. Ever.
00:13:38
Morning. Most of us have no problem putting on deodorant every day, right? Finding something like that in your life that you already do on a habitual basis, like without even having to think about it. Finding that and then attaching something else that you want to do to that task, and that will take some time to, like, get you up to the point where those two things.
00:14:01
Are linked.
00:14:03
Or tasks chained, but that is going to be useful for you in your business as well. If you've already got something that you do in your business daily, weekly, monthly and you are somebody who can't seem to ever remember to reconcile your bank account, find the monthly thing that you do in your business and stack the habit.
00:14:23
Of reconciling your bank account onto.
00:14:26
That habit, so habit stacking is a hack that I love personally, and I think that people who are neurodivergent will probably agree with me that they have that somewhere in their life too. If they are able to chain tasks or to have it stack, they are more likely to get those things done and to stay consistent with it.
00:14:46
And then the final tip that I want to share is something that I love to talk about when I'm giving presentations to small business owners.
00:14:54
And that is like my #1 tip basically is to set a time and to set a timer. So if setting a time is kind of like we talked about going on a date with your money or making an appointment with yourself, like setting the time to sit down and work on this is super important. That helps me stay accountable. It might not work that way for you.
00:15:14
But it's probably the case that you do need to set time to do something and then learn how to stick to it. That is a skill that you need to develop if you're a human. If you're an adult, like just.
00:15:26
Doing the things that you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do them more often than not is probably a good habit to have, right? So set a time to work on your books and then set a timer. Now I use the Pomodoro time keeping system, which is 25 minutes of active work time where notifications.
00:15:47
We're turned off. I don't have distractions. I have 25 minutes where I sit down and work, and then I have a 5 minute.
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Break so it's.
00:15:54
30 minutes for a segment split into 25 and 5:00 so I get a little bitty break every 30 minutes and that helps me.
00:16:04
You know, sit down for longer because if you well, I shouldn't say you. This is me I'm talking about. If I sit down and try to work through something for hours at a time, chances are I am not going to sit there for several hours without getting up to take a break. And if I can schedule in those breaks, it actually makes me more productive.
00:16:23
It means that I get a lot more work done. It means I don't get burned out.
00:16:27
And then I'm able to check in with myself during those breaks and like see how I'm feeling. Am I thirsty? Am I hungry? Should I go get a little bit of a snack? Do I want to step outside for a second and, like, take in some fresh air? Like having those little breaks allows you to step away from the screen and be a human for a couple of minutes so the Pomodoro timer you can just Google.
00:16:48
Pomodoro timer or you can set a timer like on your phone or computer for 25 and five. So if you're already good at organizing another part of your life, maybe it's, you know, one area of your home or your car.
00:17:01
Then I promise that you can apply the same tools to keeping your books up to date for your business, and I want you to ask yourself, and maybe journal about this, or just sit and think about it for a minute. What is my process look like for organizing the bathroom cabinets or my pantry? Maybe you have an absolutely Pinterest worthy pantry.
00:17:21
And what is your process? What does that look like for you to do that sort of organization? I want you to break that process down into its most basic step.
00:17:31
And you also need to pay attention to what you do in your environment to work on organizing this area of your home. So do you listen to podcasts? Obviously, if you're listening to this, you're somebody that listens to podcasts. Maybe you listen to audiobooks. I really enjoy setting up a YouTube video on my phone when I'm doing the dishes.
00:17:50
And I put on my noise cancelling headphones and I propped my phone up. And so I'm kind of like watching a YouTube video at the same time as I'm doing the dishes. That, like, is very encouraging for me to do that chore that isn't like.
00:18:04
My favorite chore, but I want to get it done. Paying attention to what your environment looks like when you're doing that organization of your home or some other area of your life that you do on a consistent basis, what does your environment have to look like? What do you have to set up in order to do that organization? So if you have to work on a project?
00:18:24
Only while the kids are at school and you're not being interrupted every five.
00:18:28
Seconds maybe. That's also the case for your bookkeeping, right? And this is what we call a system. My friends. It's what I teach you in part three of the bookkeeping foundation kit. So after you learn how.
00:18:40
To set up.
00:18:40
Your books you learn how to do the data entry and you reconcile your bank accounts. You learn all of that in the kit. You'll then establish the system that you need to keep coming back.
00:18:50
And doing this work regularly, consistency is key and it's what prevents you from feeling overwhelmed and behind at tax time, a good set of books that's accurate and accessible means that you can actually look at your reports and make good business decisions based on that.
00:19:07
So if you not only want to learn my system for bookkeeping, but also learn how to organize your financial life in general, then you need to start with the bookkeeping foundation kit. And remember that you'll also get 30 days free inside my private community, where me and my clients are ready to help you through the curriculum. So grab your bookkeeping.
00:19:28
Foundation kit at the link in the show notes. Thanks so much for listening and I will see you all next week where we're going to talk about what does not work for home organization, nor for your bookkeeping. Stay tuned and have a great week, everybody.