It's Almost Year End!

Oh no! December 31st is approaching! Rapidly! Are your books in order? Your accounts up to date? Are you realising that you should have been entering your financial info into some sort of software program all year long?
Grab that big brown bag of receipts and get a move on. It may be time to call in a professional bookkeeper to minimize your frustration and maximize the benefits. It will cost you a lot less than having your CPA work through it when he is trying to prepare your tax returns.

Mortgage Crisis

I read a cheery bit by the Associated Press yesterday that predicted the mortgage crisis was going to get worse before it gets better. They were predicting the bottom hitting in 2011 and that roughly half of americans now owe more on their home than it is worth.
It's kind of depressing news. Although I guess not surprising.
It emphasizes the need to keep your finances in order and to know where you stand at all time.

Personal Finances in a Tough Economy

With the rapidly dwindling economy and the scarcity of dollars, my husband and I recently decided to keep better track of our personal finances. We decided the best way to do that was using QuickBooks software.

Step 1: We set up a company for our personal accounts.
Step 2: We entered in our bank accounts including opening balances for our selected start date.
Step 3: We each enter our own bank & cash transactions on a weekly basis.

Now we can see exactly how much we are spending and where we are spending it. This will make it much easier to target those areas we are over spending and begin budgeting our money.

Once we have a couple months of data in we will be able to develop a budget.

The best part is you can use all the fun reports, graphs and pie charts that QuickBooks offers to see where you stand at any point in time.

Women in Business

Women are rapidly leaving the traditional workplace and following their dreams into the small business world.

Here is some advice from Intuit Financial Freedom Foundation targeted towards women.

Intuit's advice:

Go for it – Every day, 1,600 women entrepreneurs in the United States take a leap of faith to start a small business and become their own boss.

Embrace technology – Tap into the multitude of online communities, social networking tools, and free services that help women network, start a business, and manage finances. Advances in technology give women looking for work-life balance the flexibility to work on their time and their own terms, according to the Intuit Future of Small Business Report.

Know your limits – Avoid costly overdraft fees and spend within your means by tracking finances.

Invest in you – Invest in your education and a healthy lifestyle to extend your possibilities and life span.

Organize and prioritize – File receipts in one place to save time and stress at tax time.
Lend a hand – Give back to the community with time or household items. This both helps those in need, and creates valuable tax savings.

Don't feel you have to do it all by yourself either. There are people out there with skills to help you stay on track and grow. Hire a professional freelance bookkeeper so you can focus on growth.

These Tough Times

Every day it seems there is a new batch of doom and gloom in the financial sector. Stock market is falling, banks are failing, investment firms are teetering...... The sky is falling.....

Now is the time to make sure that your own finances are in good order. Do you know where your business stands as far as income to debt ratio? How about your personal finances?

You need to lay things out so that you can budget accordingly to get through this stormy weather.

Get your financial data into a software program. Whether it's just your personal finances or your business too. Only good planning will get you through this.

If you need help, consider a freelance bookkeeper to help you get a handle on things.