Bean counting

I am finally caught up on my accounting for both businesses after spending one entire evening last week and most of the day Sunday working on it. I haven't had formal training in accounting, but I did hire a tutor. With a finance degree and several accounting classes under his belt, my husband would seem to be the logical accountant, but since his idea of balancing a checkbook is to round the checks to the nearest dollar, I decided to take on the task.


I started by purchasing QuickBooks Pro and then entering the data in a way that made since in my engineering mind. I then met with a bookkeeper, an expert in QB, and had several sessions until I was comfortable enough to continue by myself. I met with her several times a year the first year to make sure I was on the right track. Now I have her review the books at the beginning of each year before I hand them over to the tax advisor to prepare our taxes.


It started off taking me 7 or 8 hours to complete one month. This past week, I did four months in a about 5 hours. Not too bad, but not something I enjoy. I do enjoy the feeling of satisfaction after I finish however and it gives me a much better understanding of where we stand. Neither business is where we'd like it to be this year, but now we can start working a plan to get them both back on track.