VA Week: 9 Days From Now, Someone Else Could Be Doing All Your Bookkeeping
Posted in Outsourcing & Delegating, Surveys / Contests
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(Do you look forward this screen for the last time?)
By keeping books, I don’t mean a librarian. I’m talking about entering income and expenses into Quickbooks for you on a weekly basis, so that:
1. It gets done. Consistently. I used to be the guy who would go months without recording their bank transactions, and then race against the clock like a crack fiend before tax time to get it all entered in.
2. You can track what you’re spending on what and make decisions accordingly. This is especially helpful when looking back at the different ways I have advertised and seeing what my return on investment has been.
3. You don’t have to spend the time yourself doing it. I’m finally getting around to outsourcing my books to someone else. I put it off for too long because it only took 1 hour per week, which is only 3% of my working hours.
But think about this–If I can identify 10 more things to outsource that take an hour or so per week to do, then I’ve just reduced my workweek by 30%! What would you do with an extra 9 hours per week? Just like little expenses like lattes and mochas add up to hundreds of dollars, little expenditures of time add up into hours and hours over time.
So Here’s What I’m Doing…
Step 1 — Create a Project on Guru.com and Elance.com
I’m announcing to the world that I need a freelancer to do the following for me, and I’m willing to pay $8-11 per hour:
- Entering income and expenses into Quickbooks
- Reconciling bank accounts monthly
- Getting sales reports from our shopping cart to enter in Quickbooks
- Modifying chart of accounts, when needed
- Creating and sending 5-10 memorized reports, monthly
- Following up on accounts receivable–not many, about 3-6 at any time
- Paying accounts payable with online billpay
- Adjust our Savings account breakdown
- Prepare a buget and comparison report, monthly
I came up with this dollar amount because I did a search and saw plenty of people on there who looked like they knew what they were doing, who only charged $10-15/hr, and some companies in India that charged $7-8/hr.
I posted this yesterday afternoon and I already have 11 responses. I’ll let it go a few more days before deciding, because the more people you have to choose from, the greater the chance of finding gold.
Step 2 — Initial Training via Screen Capture Videos
I did my books myself yesterday and made a note along the way of everything I would have to explain to someone who is not familiar with my company. It was a short list of 8-10 things.
Fortunately, bookkeeping is the kind of task where it’s basically the same thing for every business, but with a few differences and preferences for ever company.
So I’m going to make 8-10 short videos where I record my screen and explain how I categorize certain expenses, my different bank accounts and what they’re all for, etc. Talking and showing it will let me get it done much faster than writing it. I expect this to take about an hour, and I’ll do it next week.
You can record screenshots and your voice by using Camtasia’s recording software, or a free software is at Jing.com, and is very easy to use.
Step 3 — Review their work
For the first month or two, I will go back and review everything they entered into Quickbooks each week to see if it’s the way I would do it (or better). If this takes me 30 minutes or so to do, I’ve already cut my time in half.
There will undoubtedly be things to correct or questions I forgot to answer that come up along the way, and I’ll take care of it then and maybe record a few more short videos to use next time.
When I’m satisfied that they’re doing it right, I’ll just request reports every week and not go back and examine every single transaction. They will also be calling people to collect money for me, so I imagine that cash flow will improve.
And, if I spend my newfound hour per week doing something productive, I could probably find a few more private lenders this year (1 hour/week = 1 prospect to lunch/week).
Despite all this, I still recommend taking a one-day class at your local community college on how to use Quickbooks. Your financial reports are, after all, your report card now that you’ve graduated into the new school of adulthood, and it will pay to understand the process.
But you don’t have to be the one DOING the work. Have any of you had experience doing this? Let me know, as I might be missing something that will help me out, or our readers.
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And I’ve also put together a special discount all this week for those who want to finally get my course, “The Assistant Who Pays Their Own Salary,” and get someone else to find you deals and run your business for you!
