My business was growing. I was making good money however I didn’t know, in any given month, how much money I’d made or what my profit was. I could tell you how much I brought in overall, but I also wanted to be on top of my business financially; I wanted to keep my finger on its pulse. I knew for sure it was costing me stress, and I knew that it had to be costing me money.
I had for several years come to the end of the year, not knowing how much money I had, what my profit was, and whether it would make sense for me to pay expenses at the end of the year. For instance, what would be the impact on my taxes if I just spent an extra five grand? Would that put me in a lower tax bracket? That would be so helpful to know; and at that time, I had no idea. And it felt like it was really costing me money by just not knowing.
My difficulty with accounting started when I was in third grade and we were doing some kind of math lesson. Someone said something about it being hard or being complicated. I remember, clearly, the teacher and the student teacher looking at each other, and sharing that, adult-to-adult look in front of the kids. One of them said to the other, “oh, just wait till you grow up and you have to pay taxes and keep track of everything.” My little nine-year old mind student made up in that moment that once I was a grown up, I was going to have to keep track of every single penny that I spent. And I was going to have to account for it at the end of the year for this thing called taxes. I also made up that that was impossible, and then if I didn’t, I would be in a lot of trouble.
These nine-year old thoughts affected my whole adult life; I just resisted accounting so much that I would only do the bare bones by keeping track of all my expenses so that I could deal with it at the end of the year as best I could. There was this place of feeling like a little kid that something impossible is expected of me. I just never want to deal with it. Taking charge of my accounting system, learning about the software, and reading reports…this was a “big thing!” This was me finally conquering my nine-year old self. This is about breakthrough, the breakthrough. It’s a great feeling…I’m really doing it now!
One monetary win from taking control of my accounting system was when I realized that I was being charged every single month for a merchant processing fee that I was not using and had been paying it for over three years. It was around $120 or so a month. So, what’s one hundred and twenty times? Twelve times three years. That’s a few thousand dollars. I was in a contract with them, so I was I was supposed to keep paying it for at least another year and a half; I never would have caught that unless I learned to be comfortable with my numbers. So not only did I see this; I was able to contact them and negotiate with them so that I’m not being charged anymore.
Emotionally I feel like such a grown up; it’s a great feeling, and I also feel a real peace of mind. I know that I can actually now I can log into my books at any given moment. And, I actually know how to look at my numbers, my reports and I can understand them! I love how easy it actually is!
