That’s a double-barrelled and loaded question, isn’t it? 

Obviously, I have an opinion on this.

Your bookkeeping is important and if you’re doing them properly (your books), they are a hugely valuable resource for understanding your business’s profitability. 

That’s important.

Not just because it’s nice to see how much money you’re making, although it is…

BUT also because of the danger of not knowing when you’re NOT making money like you’re supposed to be.

If you can look in your accounting system and understand what’s going on, know it’s up to date and correct and be confident drawing conclusions about what the numbers are telling you, you can get early warnings that something isn’t going how it should be. 

Early warnings are good, they give you time to fix a problem before it costs you too much money and puts you in the s#*t.

If you don’t know there’s a problem, things can get worse and worse over time, and the problems may compound. They get bigger and bigger if you’re losing money or not making much.

What tends to happen is that you start robbing Peter to pay Paul or borrowing from the tax office to pay wages and that, in turn, leads to debt accumulating, and then cash flow problems and that’s no fun at all.

You need to understand your numbers. 

You need to know if every month is profitable and as profitable as expected and, if not, why not?

You need to know if every job is as profitable as it should be, too.

You need to use your numbers to help you find out why there’s a profit problem and where that problem is in your business.

I’ll stop myself from diving into that hole.

That’s why your books are important. 

If someone joins my program and says, “I’m not as profitable as I should be”, or something similar, that’s where we start.

So your accounting system should be a live, up-to-date view of the lifeblood of your business, for you to use regularly to ensure everything is going as it should.

For many people, that’s not the case.

For many people, doing the books is something of an afterthought for compliance, because you have to or you’ll come a cropper with the tax man.

For many people, whether you’re doing them yourself or whether someone else does it for you, they’re not very useful. 

I see people’s books where it’s all over the place and we can’t easily understand what costs are what. 

Things get coded to the wrong place, that kind of thing.

Now, if you’re just doing the bookkeeping for compliance, that doesn’t mean very much BUT once you start wanting to understand your numbers and what money is going where, it does.

Another thing that happens is they’re not up-to-date. 

You or your bookkeeper does everything once a month or something and they’re up-to-date for a few days then they get less and less useful. 

This is really common. 

I rarely see accurate and up-to-date books and I see a lot of them. 

So are yours useful to you?

Are they correct and are they up-to-date? 

(Reconciled weekly is good.) 

(If it says 88 items need reconciling, it’s not useful for you.)

So they should be correct and they should be up-to-date and if I’m your coach, I’ll be pushing you to get that happening.

But who should be the one to do it?

The right answer is, “NOT YOU”.

You’re probably not very good at it. I’m sure you either do okay or you could – it’s not harder than a trade.

I’m not very good at it. 

I’m not patient enough, I find it frustrating and annoying. 

I would rather spend the time on other work.

And I’d rather you did, too.

You’re an expert in your trade, your customers and your staff need your help and guidance; you are probably the primary salesperson in your business and you have a business to run.

You need to know these numbers, not be the one monitoring them and reconciling them.

So, someone else, not you.

A bookkeeper is an obvious candidate.

There are lots of them around – lots of good ones too.

And lots of less good ones, so interview them and check that they understand a bit about business not just about the compliance part of bookkeeping.

My partner Michelle, runs a bookkeeping business for tradies, (for my clients, principally). 

So there’s an option for you.

They’ll set your books up the way I like them so you and I can use them to figure out what’s going on. 

They’ll update them weekly.

They’ll call your debtors for you and speak to you regularly.

So, if that’s something you want to explore, comment ‘Books’ (put it on the chat popup) and I’ll connect you.

There’s a bookkeeper options guide, too.

Because Michelle’s team is not your only option, of course.
Comment ‘Guide’ (put it on the chat popup) if you want that and we’ll send it across.