Wednesday, November 16, 2011

I Don't Have Enough Time....

I'm a huge proponent of doing your bookkeeping every day. It's much too easy (much too easy) to forget things after a few days, a week, and definitely a month. The biggest reason people give me for not doing their bookkeeping daily is that it takes too much time and they just don't have the time. So I kept a log for last week to see exactly how much time my bookkeeping took.

I've been doing my bookkeeping for 11 years so I don't have to look up or calculate things as often as I did when I got started (though I still need to compute the mileage every time). You'll find that once you do the same entry (or same kind of entry) a few times, it goes by much much quicker.

Here's the tally. The clock starts when I click the Quiken icon on my desktop and stops when I close it.

11/14:  3 entries -- mileage, bus fare, meal.  1 minute 12 seconds

11/16:  5 entries -- client payment, tip, room rental fee, laundry, and mileage. 2 minutes

11/17:  3 entries -- client payment, room rental fee, and mileage (plus automatic backup of Quiken files). 54 seconds

11/18:  3 entries -- webhosting bill, class fee, and mileage.  45 seconds

If I were entering more client payments (sigh) it would take a few seconds more. So double or even triple my times. You are still not talking about a huge time sink.

If you simply don't want to do your bookkeeping daily, that's fine. But I will probably call you on it if you tell me you "don't have time". 

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