2016 was a year filled with a lot surprises and unexpected events – both good and bad. Business-wise, I had a great year filled with fabulous clients. I joined the Board of the Minnesota Chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers as the Professional Development Director. I worked a lot of hours including a number of 7-day weeks and multiple client days. At times this was exhausting, and at times it was exhilarating.
What I did not do, however, was keep up with my accounting. I am embarrassed to say that I had to contact a company this week about being charged for something twice . . . last summer! I also realized that a few PayPal purchases charged my business account instead of my personal account. This isn’t a huge disaster, but was certainly a hassle when I finally did reconcile my business records with my bank records.
Who do I have to blame for this? Me, of course. I procrastinate working on accounting because I just really don’t like it. As someone who loves organization, I am not feeling very good about my messy accounting. While I know it is correct financially, it isn’t pretty! To avoid a repeat of this, I established these goals:
Enter receipts every week.
Reconcile bank statements the first week of the proceeding month.
Write one blog post every month.
Make an average of 2 Facebook posts per week.
Every week I plan to have one day set aside for administrative tasks. In addition to basic tasks that I need to keep up with, I plan to dedicate part of the administration day to the following:
1st week – Reconcile accounting with bank statement from the previous month.
2nd week – Write and post blog.
3rd week – Write and schedule Facebook posts.
4th week - Reset. Empty inbox, process any piles of things in office, deliver any accumulated donations.
Posting it here meets two goals –
Accountability. Now that it is posted here for all my clients to see, I better keep on top of things! Especially the blog and Facebook since they are public!
Posting this means I have my January blog post completed!
(Note that the above photo of Rufus and Bailey doesn't really have anything to do with my New Year Resolutions, but I needed to put something and who can pass up an image of labs?)