3 reasons why I don’t offer to train you on bookkeeping.
It’s not that I think you can’t do it. It’s not that I think you’re not smart enough to understand it. I do whole heartedly believe that you need to keep your bookkeeping up to date, have accurate numbers and understand them. I just don’t think you should be doing them yourself……. And here’s why:
Reason 1
Bookkeeping is not your business. It’s not your “thing”. In order to grow your business you need to be doing your thing (selling your service, making your do-hickies, coaching whomever you coach or whatever else your thing happens to be).
I’ll say it again. For you to grow your business, you need to do your thing. Your thing makes you money. Bookkeeping does not make you money.
Understanding your numbers and making better decisions because you understand your numbers will most certainly help you to make more money. You should know and understand your numbers for effective and efficient strategic planning…… which in turn makes more money. BUT taking the time to actually do the day to day transactions of bookkeeping will not make you money.
Starting out you may think that time spent doing bookkeeping is wise and necessary. If you do think that way you are certainly on the right path. If you actually take the time to do your bookkeeping (probably in an excel spreadsheet – ask me why you shouldn’t use an excel spreadsheet!) I applaud you. You, my dear friend, realize the value in those numbers; the knowledge and power those numbers have.
However, here is why doing your own bookkeeping does not make you money. We have already established that doing bookkeeping is not your thing. Which in turn means you’re not efficient at it or don’t really enjoy it or are simply better at other things. If bookkeeping was your thing there is a very strong chance you would be a bookkeeper (and you wouldn’t have kept reading for this long!).
When you are not efficient or don’t enjoy doing a thing, it takes longer to do. When bookkeeping is your thing and you do it all the time you get very efficient at it and it takes a shorter time to do.
The time spent doing bookkeeping would be much better spent doing money making tasks. Which may or may not be “revenue” generating tasks. (Revenue generating tasks being something that you can actually sell or bill for.) It could be business development or client acquisition (think networking, seminars etc.) These things will help you grow your business. It is very difficult to send someone to a networking event in your place to build your relationships for you. It is very easy to have someone do your bookkeeping tasks for you.
If the time you would have spent on your bookkeeping efforts gets you just one more client or one more sale there is a good chance you have covered the cost of your bookkeeper and grown your business at the same time.
Think of it this way.
- Time spent growing your business has resulted in a sale which could (should) be leveraged into more sales (repeat sales to the same client/referral from your new client to another client etc.) OR
- Time spent doing own bookkeeping has resulted into 3 times as long doing bookkeeping because I didn’t enter my entry correctly first time around and now I have to reverse that entry and reenter my entry and then double check my entry to make sure I’ve entered my entry correctly. Do I even know how to check if my entry is a correct entry?………. And at this point we give up. Or even worse, lie awake all night worrying about it.
A bookkeeper on the other hand is efficient and effective at bookkeeping because that is a bookkeeper’s thing, to do bookkeeping. This ladies and gentlemen is why I don’t offer to train you on how to use bookkeeping software.
Now, go do your thing. You’re good at it!