Many new small business owners find themselves wearing several hats, including bookkeeping. It may not be the most exciting aspect of the business, but it’s something that needs to be done. It can be challenging and stressful, especially with so many numbers and deadlines.
Fortunately, there are also ways to make it fun. Good bookkeeping software can streamline the process and make it more interesting and more efficient.
Here are three ways to make bookkeeping more fun:
1) Understand What Bookkeeping Is
As most know, running a successful business is about having positive cash flow. If the “books” are a mess, there’s no way to see cash flow, or the financial position of the business.
Once a bookkeeper understands this, they can begin to focus on it, and even see patterns to make an educated prediction if the business is in a positive or negative position. When they can’t see or understand the business’ cash flow, it’s like managing a business account in the dark.
Online accounting software vendor Xero offers a small business guide on bookkeeping that states:
“The key to staying on top of cash flow is to reconcile as often as possible — ideally every day. A bank reconciliation is when you organize all the payments that have gone through your bank account. You should know exactly what money has or hasn’t been paid or received. When you know what’s coming, you can take action before things get messy.”
2) Technology
One of the top things that can make bookkeeping boring for some is the software that’s being used. There’s little that’s fun about Microsoft Excel.
For starters, Excel isn’t very automatic. It’s also not very attractive looking. And it’s limited when it comes to bookkeeping functionality.
Many small business owners start out on Excel and reach a tipping point. It’s not a long-term solution for doing large tasks and can easily screw up your business’ finances because, surprise, surprise, spreadsheets are easily filled with mistakes.
Having dedicated accounting software is significantly better for business.
It allows your business to have unlimited users tap into your business’ financials, can be accessed from anywhere with an Internet connection — if it’s connected in the cloud — and it’s super protective of data. It’s very rare that accounting software will ever lose important financial updates, because software understands what businesses go through each day and are programed to auto-save.
Accounting software also looks significantly better, making the inputting of numbers and information more fun and enjoyable.
3. Encourage and Stay Positive
This is obvious. As the leader of a small business, if you have a bookkeeper, you need to keep that person enthused about their job and motivated. Give them tasks above balancing the books that are important to the company’s success.
For instance, daily financial reports drawn up in a transparent, but easy-to-consume manner, are great resources for all members of the business. It’s important to keep all relevant parties informed on how the business is doing and a bookkeeper can provide that kind of information.
Keep your bookkeepers educated and up-to-date on what’s going on in that sector of the industry and potentially send them to trade shows to learn more.
Bookkeeping isn’t an easy task, but it can be fun. That, however, rests in the hands of you, the business owner.
Hi Pauline, can you recommend an accounting software that is easy-to-use? Using excel is really fine with me but I want something more user-friendly and with more options to make reports more interesting and appealing.
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I like what you said about giving them tasks that help them get more involved in the company. That way they can feel and know that there job is important. This gives the company more unity and makes for a better work environment. Thanks for sharing.
I have always had problems with my bookkeeping and staying on top of it, mostly because I find it to be really difficult and sometimes boring. It would be really great if this year I could start working more on my finances and keeping everything current. All of these sound like great ways to make it more fun and to make it easier. I would love to start looking into these options, especially in finding new technology. This might help make it easier for me to get the bookkeeping done and have it more organized. Thanks for the great tips!
I liked your third piece of advice to encourage and stay positive. For anything staying positive and encouraging someone to do well at their job will make anything easier. I especially liked your advice, however, at the end of the first paragraph to give them additional tasks above bookkeeping. Making sure that your bookkeeper knows that they are valued and important to the company will always motivate them to want to do their best and make sure that the company is succeeding in all areas.
Thanks for the tips on how to keep bookkeeping fun. I like the tip you gave about accounting software being accessible from anywhere with an internet connection. This feature would help on business trips.
I have always had a difficult time with bookkeeping for my business. It would be really nice if I could make it more enjoyable, because then I would probably actually do it on occasion! It would definitely be good for me to learn more about it, since right now I definitely have limited knowledge about it. It might be good for me to hire a few bookkeepers that can help me out and teach me more about it, because then I am sure it would be much more efficient.
Pauline, my husband and I started our own business a little while ago and the bookkeeping is proving to be a bit tedious for us. The tip about getting better technology seems like a good idea. I will have to show this to my husband and see what he thinks.
As a bookkeeper with experience in the field I found this post to have several great tips, but I’d like to add a point. There does come a time when it is prudent for you to outsource this task – if you struggle to keep your records up-to-date and accurate it will cause your business to suffer financially in the future. Don’t feel bad about this need – it’s much more common then you may believe! As a business owner you have more pressing matters that will help your business grow; find a professional to help take care of this area for you – you’ll never regret it!
A good management software is indeed a very good tool in management skills in companies.
Great sharing ideas, Pauline. Your 3 steps to make bookkeeping fun is definitely interesting for me, but can you give me some tips to avoid when managing bookkeeping? So that everyone can be aware of the possible unexpected errors. Moreover, thank you!
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Making a comparison between readily available computer programs and dedicated accounting/business management software is useful. Using dedicated software has benefits for organization and efficiency.
Bookkeeping can definitely be a dull, monotonous task for many, or it’s at least seen that way. I think that mobile apps can be a big help, particularly for your small, local business. I use apps to snap receipts and keep track of payments etc..
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Here, in this context I am fully agree with your point that a business should use latest technology to do bookkeeping in a more efficient and accurate manner, which helps to save both money and time of a business owner by which he can focus more on revenue generated activities and I think this is the ultimate fun. Apart from this, reconciling the bank account is very essential which gives an idea about real time cash flow and bookkeeping keeping software must be connected to bank account for both quicker and accurate online invoicing. Thank you for such useful thought.
Aside from the financial help you can benefit. It will also help in good management in your company to boost it.
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Great article, bookkeeping is often touted as a boring, monotonous task. It makes a change for someone to give some insights into how to brighten it up a bit. I would add, although not quite about making it “fun” but about feeling “valued”. Bookkeeping is more than just note taking and filing, bookkeeping can identify financial trends and opportunities to save/make money. Tasks such as looking into ways that money can be saved or invoices could be paid faster is a way to give a tangible goal and something to work towards 🙂
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