Useful Tools, Tips & Tricks: Keeping Your Accounts in Order

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Let’s Get into Our Tips & Tricks!

Welcome back friends! This is Part 2 of a 2 Part series. Part 1 was dedicated to 3 Very Important Reasons to Separate Your Finances. I definitely recommend reading that in combination with this post, as they will play off of each other to give you a better idea of the overall subject of keeping your accounts in order and what spreadsheets are my favorites to use.

Related: Why Having the Right Tools is Crucial for Running Your Business

Useful Tools to Help Keep Your Accounts in Order

There are several tools out there these days, that can help drastically in the organization category of your finances and numbers. I like to use just one or two, and they have worked quite well for me, so far at least. I’ve changed back and forth a handful of times, but have come to the conclusion that I really am digging Google Sheets.

I was the kind of person that “liked to do things old school,” meaning: I take wayyy too much time writing all of my numbers out by hand with pen and paper! This worked in the beginning, but it was getting to be way too time consuming and way too hand crampy after my sales starting moving upwards.

Now that I have a lot more packages going out per day, I don’t have as much time to allot for keeping up with my charts by hand. This would take me literally hours now each day. Okay maybe an hour, but still. Don’t waste your time on something that you can automate. Spend your precious moments of the day on the parts of your business that really matter, and that absolutely need your undivided attention.

• Related: How to Decide if You’re Ready to Start Outsourcing
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What Don’t I Just Use Excel?

Well, I’ll tell you why! Listen, when you have typed out countless months and sheets of sales (you know, since you were wayyy behind in the first place cause you didn’t want to write all of those out by hand), and then you go back into that the next day, just for it to be ERASED!!! It really leaves you in a bind. This happened to me.

That’s right, a common dumb mistake. I left the autosave turned on of course, (this is on Excel when I was using it in the past, after switching from hand writing). Unfortunately, the autosave…well it didn’t save! There was a glitch, and so when I exited my tab that day, after spending hours upon hours updating my charts, it was all gone. I was devastated!

After that mishap, I decided to move onto bigger and better spreadsheets. I’ve used Excel my whole life, through college, high school, and junior high, so I do have a soft spot for it, which is why I chose to use it in the first place. But when I discovered Google Sheets, I couldn’t resist trying it out.

I really like Google Sheets better in the sense, that I never have to really worry about “pushing” the autosave or save button, as it takes care of that already for you as you type! This is a great bonus, although I catch myself eyeing it up now and then to be extra sure that I won’t make that same mistake of losing all of my work again.

Tips for Using Google Sheets

A key factor that I really do love about Google Sheets, is that I can use it on the go. Not saying that you can’t technically use Excel on the go, but I really like that I can just add my Google Drive icon to my home page on my phone, and then I can tap on it to add whatever I need to. I don’t use this “on the go” thing for updating my sales charts, but I really like it for keeping up with my expenses.

I used to keep a handwritten expense sheet as well, (I know, I know!), but I often forgot where I’d misplaced my receipts for that day, or what subscription I missed in my email, you name it. So, now, when I see an expense charged to my account through email, or text, I simply open that drive icon and pop it in.

This is also helpful for sourcing trips, I am especially grateful and excited to use it in the upcoming yard sale season! I was always jotting down how many items and how much was spent at each sale, usually on a little gas station receipt or whatever I could find in my car at the time. Obviously, these got lost quite easily, and once again I was stuck guesstimating what my numbers were, due to my lack of organization.

What Kind of Spreadsheets Do I Keep?

I keep a plethora of spreadsheets nowadays. I try to be as thorough as possible, so that I have the least amount of work to do at the end of the year when tax season is around the corner. Staying organized and up to date with everything you do in your business really is vital to helping it run smoothly.

Here is a list of the spreadsheets that I currently have created:

• Expenses
• Daily Sales Tracker (I keep a separate one for each platform, so that I am never confusing their percentages)
• Yearly Totals
• Consignment Tracker (For consigning I do for a relative)

How Often Do I Keep Track of These?

I try my best to keep track of every spreadsheet daily. This of course isn’t always the case, but I do my best to follow through. I would say the one to keep up with most definitely on the daily, would have to be my expenses. This is extremely important, as it is rather easy to miss something. Anytime I place an Amazon order for more supplies, or a subscription emails me about a charge, I immediately open my drive and jot it down.

The rest of the spreadsheets I like to at least to my best to keep up with weekly. I usually do so during the middle of the week, but this is just what works for my personal schedule. (If you want to try using these spreadsheets more often, and Monday works better for you, that’s completely fine, too!) The spreadsheets for the sales and consignment can always be caught up with if you are a little behind. Just be sure to stay up to date within 3 months (this applies only to eBay), as after 3 months, your sales will drop off of their website.

I keep up with my yearly totals by the month at minimum. This makes it easy to separate your expenses or sales by category, and of course also by month. This way, at the end of the year, you will easily be able to decipher what your best and worst sales month was, and if you exceeded your expenses anytime over the year as well. It can help you see where you need to improve certain platforms, and where or when you need to keep your costs down a little lower.

Related: 8 Things You Need to Do to Decrease Your Expenses While Increasing Your Profits

Summary

Stay organized! Keep your accounts in order by keeping track on a regular basis of EVERYTHING you do. This can be tricky at first to get a flow going, but I promise the further you go, the easier it will become. You just have to keep learning and stay consistent, and trust me, you’ll be thanking yourself at the end of it all!

Thank You!

A giant thanks to everyone that has supported me this far into my journey! I greatly appreciate you returning to read my posts hope that you will continue to drop by in the future.

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Happy selling friends!

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Please feel free to drop any comments below that you would like to add! I am always open to advice, suggestions, or even hearing related stories of your own! I stay as active as possible in the comment section, therefore I will reply to any questions asap.

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