I never knew how much I could grow my business simply by organizing my business’ finances. I was pretty bad. I would never know how much I was making in my business, or spending, for that matter. I would just work like a machine, and only stop to throw out an invoice to a client for payment.
After a while, I figured that I should at least know how much I was making each week and maybe each month. I tried to keep track with an Excel spreadsheet, but that quickly fell to the wayside, as I found it too time consuming to enter in the information, and then add it all up, and create nice reports that I could look back on to see what I’ve done well and what hasn’t worked out as profitable.
home business advice One day, my friend came to me with software that she started using – Quickbooks. She was all excited about it because she said that it was exactly what she was looking for to invoice clients, keep records of how much she was spending on your business, and how much of a return she was getting.
I figured that I would give it a try. I won’t say I wasn’t hesitant though. She is much more organized than I have ever been, so I figured this would end up the way that many of the Excel spreadsheets and documents I’ve created in the past – a total waste of time.
Surprisingly enough though, it turned out to be a major tool in growing my business to the success it is today.
It took me about three hours one Sunday afternoon to learn everything that the software has to offer. Once I understood it all, I started to create all of the databases I wanted to track my incoming and outgoing funds. I also started invoices for my current clients, so that they would be easily accessible when I needed them.
I figured that Monday would be a fresh start for me in my financial organization of my business. So, early in the morning with coffee in hand, I sat down at my desk and opened Quickbooks, and then started to work.
As I went through my day, I completed assignments, jotted them down in Quickbooks, and continued on.
By the end of the week, I found that I only made $1,378. This was surprising to me because I thought I had made more.
The following week I was determined to make more.So, I started marketing more, and I started working much more efficiently. Invoices didn’t take nearly any time now that I was keeping track of everything as I went along, so it was just a few clicks before the invoices were done and sent.
The next week, I had made my goal of exceeding the week before with $1,465. It wasn’t much, but it was more, and it kept me motivated.
It’s been a year since I started using Quickbooks, and I am at about $2,000 a week now. I am so thankful for the software because without it, I would still be turning my business’ wheels without going anywhere.