Anyone who is a small business owner knows they have to wear multiple hats. As a result, it can be easy to forget to put on the right hat occasionally. As a small business owner myself, here are some steps you can take to get organized to prevent you from dropping the ball somewhere.
Organize Your Workflow
As a business owner, your workflow is paramount. You need to have processes in place for the various tasks that arise, whether you handle them yourself or delegate them to others, to ensure optimal completion and accountability. Your workflow should also include processes for how to handle unanticipated issues, such as a new client opportunity or a potential reprint of the wedding book you just produced.
At Phippen Tax & Financial Services, we use Asana to organize our workflow to ensure we stay current with the myriad matters we deal with each day. We divide our work into “projects” within Asana that are thematic areas for our work (such as tax tasks, appointments, and content creation). Each task gets slotted into at least one project, contains a due date, and notes the responsible individual(s). Sometimes there are several subtasks within a task. We set many of our tasks to automatically recur, like quarterly payroll reports.
Organizing your workflow frees up your brain space to focus on the substance of your company. For instance, whenever I form a new entity, I input all the important deadlines related to that company into Asana right away so that I can keep proper track of the process. Later, rather than trying to remember all the entities for whom I file quarterly payroll reports or when a particular annual report or license renewal is due, I simply peruse my task list for the day and check them off as I complete them.
You owe it to your clients and customers to make sure that you do not miss deadlines. Using a process management tool—whether Asana or another option—allows you to say on top of it all. The key is to find a tool that makes sense to you and that you can build into your daily routine.
As James Clear explains in Atomic Habits, the best way to develop a new habit is to stack it with an existing habit so it happens organically and with minimal effort. With this in mind, I set my Google Chrome home page to be my Asana home page. This forces me to look at my task list at the beginning of each day, and throughout the day, without needing to remember to check it.
Organize your schedule
Organizing your schedule is a corollary to organizing your workflow, but it deserves its own section. You need to know when you work, not just how or on what you work.
As I have mentioned before, as a small business owner every day is Saturday, but every day is also Monday. A typical week will see me working Monday through Friday, supporting the DC Revolution Rugby Club on Saturday, and going to a baseball game on Sunday. But in the early part of the year, tax season comes before rugby and baseball get underway. I am unavailable on Friday mornings, though, because that is when I usually do my weekly long runs. (Most runners do their long runs on Saturday or Sunday, but I shifted mine to Friday a few years back because it makes Saturday rugby days much easier!)
You need to drill down a bit more than just which days you will work. When will you work each day? Do the needs of your work essentially dictate your working hours or are you largely free to choose? If the latter, ask yourself whether your work is more project-based or more people-facing. Also, consider whether you are an early riser or a night owl, when you have the best energy, and any family or other responsibilities you have. (Do you have small children that need to get ready for school? Are you caring for an aging parent?) There will necessarily be some balance between when you want to work and when you need to work, but figure out a daily ebb and flow that capitalizes on your most productive times and gives you the freedom for periodic deep work.
Build your daily routine the same way you build a monthly budget. In building a budget, you first track your spending for a certain period of time, and then use that information to plan accordingly. In building your daily routine, track how you spend your time for a month, and use that to schedule yourself. Allocating your time will help you make the most of it.
As with a workflow process manager, you need a calendar to manage how you spend your time. There are many options out there. You can build a calendar for yourself within Asana (like me), use Google Calendar for all your scheduling, use the calendar function within your e-mail client (such as Microsoft Outlook), or go old-school with a physical planner. Just pick one that works for you.
Of course, be sure to schedule plenty of days off! Let life dictate work, not the other way around. Additionally, if you notice that you start to feel burnt out or have low energy after a certain amount of time without an extra day off, schedule days at regular intervals to do something joyful and restore your energy.
Organize your contacts
This one might be the easiest on the list. No matter your industry, you will have at least a handful, and perhaps several, important contacts (such as clients and recurring vendors or service providers). You need to organize these contacts and have a process for updating them.
You could use a physical rolodex with tabs for different types of contacts (vendors, existing clients, potential clients, etc.). However, this has several limitations, primarily lack of portability and searchability. An electronic database moves easily with you, while a physical rolodex takes up space and can get lost or destroyed.
By keeping important contact information securely stored in an electronic database, you can quickly access it wherever you happen to be on any given day and even contact multiple folks simultaneously as appropriate. You can also make important notes like key dates to sync with your calendar.
Many folks simply use their contacts list on a mobile phone, but that is harder to organize by type of contact and communicate in groups.
Google Contacts can work well, particularly if you assign labels based on the contact type.
If you have a large enough client base, you may want to implement customer relationship management (CRM) software to facilitate organization and communications.
Do not get stuck having to search through a pile of business cards or comb through old e-mails for contact information. Keep it organized and readily available.
Organize your physical and electronic files
Contact information is not the only type of data you need to be able to organize. Types of business records will vary by industry, but there is always a need to organize electronic (and sometimes physical) files, or even storage and flow of physical goods.
Do not be like one person I know who simply saves new files to his desktop, and then just looks around the screen whenever he needs to find a particular document. Instead, come up with a filing system that makes sense so you can quickly access information whenever the need arises.
Folks are amazed when they ask me for a copy of a W-2 they sent me four years ago and I can quickly produce it. All it takes is a sensible filing system. For instance, I have separate sets of folders for Quickbooks files I maintain, other software, client matters, and family matters. Under client matters, I have separate folders for each client, each of which contains separate folders for different issues—such payroll and sales tax—that are further divided by year.
I store all my files electronically. If I receive a physical document (such as a copy of an IRS letter or someone who prefers to mail me their W-2), it is immediately scanned and filed, and the physical copy shredded or returned.
Whatever filing system you choose (or design), be sure you can navigate through it efficiently. Every document should have a place, but only one place, so you know exactly where to find it.
If you store goods for shipping, like Xa does with her Etsy shop, the same principle applies: each object with a place, and every object in its place. When you sell items online, using SKUs or other coded labels can facilitate the organization process so you can quickly identify the physical product tied to your online advertisement.
One final note concerning information organization: Be sure all information is securely stored and backed up regularly to prevent loss of data (whether from natural disaster or criminal activity). Destruction of my computer, for example, would be a personal inconvenience but would not impact client service or data integrity.
Organize your finances
Naturally, every business owner needs a system to organize your finances. You absolutely must maintain a clear picture of your finances so that you know where you stand at all times. That $10k in your business bank account is deceptive if you have an $8k sales tax payment due next week.
Organizing your finances not only keeps you abreast of your financial condition, but saves you hassle when it comes tax time!
The first tip I share with business owners is to maintain business accounts separate from personal accounts. If your business is organized as a separate legal entity, this is an absolute must, but even if you are just a freelancer or sole proprietor it is very helpful.
The next tip, and the one I focus on here, is to figure out how you will keep track of your income, expenses, assets, and liabilities, and then how you will share that data with your tax professional. You need to know not only how much you spend overall, but also how much you spend on each type of expense.
For businesses with a high level of activity, accounting software such as Quickbooks Online is ideal. (Yes, there are others out there as well, but this is the best I have come across.) You can download transaction activity from your bank and credit card accounts. You can also provide your tax pro with separate access so they can assist you with bookkeeping and/or prepare your taxes without the hassle of sending files back and forth.
For most businesses, the “Essentials” option without payroll will be sufficient.
Many businesses, though, have a very low level of activity. I work with several folks that have only a handful of deposits and expenses for their business each month. For them, it does not make sense to spend $60/month on accounting software. A simple spreadsheet will be enough.
Phippen Tax offers a Bookkeeping Template for Small Businesses, complete with instructions, in an Excel format that includes checking, savings, and credit card accounts; expenses paid personally; drop-down options for income, expense, and asset categories; and options for user-defined categories. Purchase yours today!
Regardless of your financial tracking system, be sure you know how you spend and receive money and that you can easily share it with your tax pro.
There are as many ways to organize your small business as there are small businesses. If you are unsure where to get started, reach out to me for help! Once you get organized, your business will run more smoothly, and you will free up time that you previously spent on ancillary tasks for time spent on what drives you.
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