Owning and operating a small business can bring you a great deal of job satisfaction and financial security. However, you do have to contend with the business side of things, including accounts payable, accounts receivable, billing and payroll (if you have others working for orwith you). Managing small business accounting can be treacherous, especially if math was never your strong suit or balancing a checkbook is difficult enough. Here are some challenges you may face with this part of your business and how to fix each of them.

Logging Every Entry Every Time

The root word of "business" is "busy." That said, you already know how busy things get for your business and when you have some down time. Still, a challenge for most small business owners is entering every sale and every purchase into their books every time and right when those things occur.

By entering these items immediately, you are keeping your books current and accurate, but it is not always easy to do. You may find that you either have to delegate tasks outside of the accounting realm to others so that you can focus on the books or delegate the accounting tasks to someone else while you work outside of the office.

Avoiding Accounting & Setting the Books to Auto-Calculate

Accounting software of the best kind auto-calculates everything for you. Gone are the days of spreadsheets where you have to create the function and the equation and hit enter for every line. If you avoid accounting for your business because you are concerned that you simply cannot spend hours hunting, pecking, and forming equations, buy advanced accounting software for small business use and then set your books to auto-calculate for every entry. No hours wasted, and business continues as usual.

Avoiding Massive Errors on Your Taxes

The final challenge for most small business owners with regards to their accounting needs comes at tax time. Navigating the forms for small business taxes can be quite daunting. However, if you have invested in good accounting software, you can import all necessary data from your software into an online tax preparation and filing system. Most of this auto-populates for you and then you do not have to read or understand what the tax form questions are requesting. If it becomes too discouraging, you can always consult or hire a small business accountant just for the purpose of completing and filing your taxes.

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