Wake Up Call

Tracking our personal expenses in QuickBooks has definately been a wake up call. It's great to know how much you've spent so far each month and where you are spending. It makes it a lot easier to create a budget and to see where you are overspending.

I think everyone should use some type of software or tracking program for their expenses. Some banks offer online tracking of expense types. There is also mint.com, which is a free online service that connects to your online bank accounts and allows you to easily track your spending.

So take charge of your finances. You know you need to.

Keeping Track in Tough Times

We all know the economy is not at it's best right now. Everyone is looking for ways to trim expenses and boost profits. One area you definately don't want to neglect is your accounting. It is your books that will show you whether you are doing well or not, which makes keeping them accurate more important than ever.

That doesn't mean that you need a full time bookkeeper or even a part time one. Depending on the size of your business you may just need someone to come in once or twice a month and crunch the numbers into your software program.

Keeping it up-to-date will enable you to generate meaningful reports that can help you see where you are spending, where you can cut back and what your bottom line is.

A Monthly Financial Review

In order to determine the profitability of your business each month you should look at your income statement, also known as a profit and loss statement. If you are keeping your books with a software program such as QuickBooks, once your data is entered you can just go to the report function and the software will automatically create the report for you.

You should review the report to see where your expenses were and if any of them were out of the ordinary. You will also see how profitable a month you had.

By taking a look at the statements each month you can keep expenses in check and not be surprised at the end of the year.

If you do not have time to enter the data yourself, you should consider hiring a freelance bookkeeper/accountant so that you are able to track where you are at financially all year long.