Two Miles Daily, Issue 060: Five Bookkeeping Myths I Hear All the Time

None of these mean you're doing anything wrong. They're just assumptions I hear a lot, and each one can quietly cost you time or money.

Myth 1: "My tax preparer handles my books."
Many tax preparers work from the books you give them, often once a year at tax time. If the books are messy, someone has to clean them up first, and that can take time and cost more. Bookkeeping is the year-round part. Tax prep is what happens with the result.

Myth 2: "QuickBooks is connected to my bank, so my books are done."
Bank feeds pull transactions in, and QuickBooks suggests categories based on your past entries. But it can't know that the $2,300 supply house charge was for the Miller job, that a customer's deposit is for work you haven't done yet, or that a transfer to savings isn't an expense. Someone still has to check, categorize and reconcile. Otherwise the reports can look finished and still be wrong.

Myth 3: "I'll catch up at tax time."
You can. But catching up twelve months in March or April is harder than keeping up monthly, and you've spent the whole year making decisions about pricing, hiring and equipment without current numbers.

Myth 4: "My business is too small for real bookkeeping."
Small businesses can have less cushion for error, so regular habits matter. Real bookkeeping doesn't have to be complicated. It just has to be done regularly.

Myth 5: "Using my personal card for business is fine as long as I remember."
Memory fades fast. Mixing personal and business spending makes it harder to see what the business actually earned, and harder to back up your expenses if questions ever come up. A separate business account and card is one of the easiest fixes there is.

If one of these sounded a little familiar, you're in good company. Lots of the businesses I talk to have at least one. The fix is often smaller than people expect: a separate business card, a monthly reconciliation and a quick look at the numbers (often about 20 minutes for a small business).

If you'd like help getting your books organized, send me a message through the Contact page. I'm happy to tell you which of these, if any, is worth fixing first.

— Rachel, Two Miles LLC