I’ve been self-employed for a little over three years now. In that time, I’ve practically had to give myself a crash course in business finances. The reality is I was an English Lit major with absolutely zero experience in running my own business and managing the finances, so I learned as I went along.
While I’ve learned how to manage business finances in my own business, and while I’ve learned how to read reports on my accounting software, I’ve also realized that sometimes I’m a little too involved. For example, I would waste a lot of time obsessing over numbers instead of actually working.
What I’ve come to learn is there’s a balance when it comes to managing business finances. You need to be involved and know what’s going on, but you can’t be so involved that you’re controlling and taking time away from actually making money. Here are some of the ways I’ve learned to strike that balance in my own business.
Hire an accountant.
Hiring an accountant is perhaps one of the best things I’ve ever done for my business finances. They are able to pick up where I leave off in terms of financial knowledge. Additionally, they take all the reconciling and bookkeeping off my hands so I can focus on earning money.
Here’s an example of how hiring an accountant keeps me in check with business finances while also giving me enough space to not obsess over money. During the past couple of months, I’ve been busy traveling and filling my pipeline with new clients. Even if I wanted to do accounting on my own, I don’t have time because of all the client work I have.
Because I hired an accountant to help with my business finances, this isn’t a problem. I can log into our accounting software at any point in the month to get a snapshot of what’s going on in the business. He takes care of all the reconciling of payments, and I just log in to pull a report to see what’s happening.
Work on my money mindset.
A little bit of stress when it comes to your business finances can be a good thing. It keeps you in check. However, a lot of stress, like spending hours agonizing over how much you’re earning, only gets in the way.
I was in the second category for about a year and it wasn’t until I started actively working on my money mindset that I started to see my income increase. In my case, it literally looked like putting the spreadsheets away and trusting that I had the ability to earn whatever kind of money I wanted.
Fast forward about a year and I’m earning more money than ever. Not only am I earning more, but I’m earning money without having to hustle as hard as I used to.
Final Thoughts
While I’m aware of what’s going on with my business finances, I’m no longer obsessing over it. This has allowed me to get back to work and earn more money.
