My Favourite Bookkeeping Tools
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008Last month, I wrote a blog post about doing the bookkeeping for Habitsoft, Inc (creator of Clarity Accounting) using our own small business accounting software. It has been a scary thought for me since I wasn’t the accounting brain behind Clarity Accounting. My business partner has been doing all the bookkeeping for our company ever since we first started. However, I was determined to try because I really believe I am very similar to 80% of business owners who dread bookkeeping. Doing this will help me gain a better understanding of those we serve.
Our fiscal year started in October 1st, 2008 and I began to do the preparations for being the best bookkeeper the planet has ever seen. I went to the local office supply store and got myself a huge accordion file with 21 pockets (the usual size is 13 pockets).
I labelled the different pockets of the accordion file with different expense and income categories as well as separate pockets where I keep our bank and credit card statements. I also added an envelope in each pocket for smaller receipts so that everything can be neatly kept.
Then, I felt I couldn’t do ANY bookkeeping until I got myself a Stapleless Stapler.
If you have never seen one of those, you are missing out! They come in all shapes and sizes and ideally used to staple credit card receipts and purchase receipts together. I always wished I can just get one receipt for everything, but the reality in my part of the world is that I often get two receipts when I purchase things with my business credit card or debit / charge card.
The way the stapleless stapler works is that it makes a whole through two pieces of light weight paper and clip it together without ever using a single staple. I had so much fun with stapling my receipts that my bookkeeping was done in no time at all 
I also got a car mileage log book that I keep in my car. I think that really is the best place to track car mileages because it is easier for one to record how many miles or kilometres driven for business while still sitting in the car. I don’t think we will ever add a mileage tracking feature on Clarity Accounting for that very same reason. While it may be nice to do EVERYTHING online, there are certain things that are better done “offline”. Of course, there might be a possibility of doing a blackberry / iphone integration that will allow one to track mileages “online” from anywhere…
Now the challenge will be keeping up with my bookkeeping on a semi monthly basis. Bookkeeping is one of those tasks that if one ever falls behind, it is such a headache to get back in the game. I think this works for most things in life.
I feel somewhat guilty for not boasting about our small business accounting software as one of my favourite bookkeeping tools. I figure this should be something that is obvious. Once upon a time, I tried other forms of self-employment and got Quickbooks to keep track of my income and expenses, I probably set up everything wrong and ended up abandoning it all together within 2 months. Long enough that I could no longer return it to the store. That’s why I think a subscription model for accounting software is great, you can cancel at any time.
