Were you laboring on Labor Day?

For me, Labor Day typically marks the end of summer and that means it’s time to focus on my business a little more. It also means that kids are back to school and adjusting to new schedules, and the roads get a little more congested. As small business owners, we’ve got plenty on our plates and perhaps working on Labor Day is normal for you, so in this week’s newsletter, I want to talk about outsourcing whatever we can to free ourselves up as much as we can.

Some of you might not know this, but aside from creating the content for these weekly newsletters, I actually outsource the design, graphics, emailing and maintenance of our contact list to a third party. I also outsource the SEO for our website, drafting employee agreements, social media posts, mowing my lawn, cleaning the house, heck I even outsource the transportation for my daughter to get home from school. Wherever I can, with exception for some family matters or work matters I know fall squarely on me, I am trying to delegate.

The point I am trying to make is that as small or medium sized entrepreneurs (“SME”) we need time to focus on areas of our business that are either going to make us more money or save us more time. There are many tasks that we tend to take on ourselves, thinking that we are saving money by doing it ourselves, but in reality, it’s taking us away from other tasks. Now some of those tasks are not easy and we may tend to push them off, as we know they are going to be difficult, but they need to be addressed and in the end we will feel accomplished. Some of them just can’t be delegated however, like washing my 80lb bulldog, trust me I’ve tried!

Here’s an example of a task I delegated: I used to think that paying the bills of my company was a task that I should only handle. It only took only about an hour or two every month, and as an accountant, I felt it was also a control measure to ensure that I was the only one handling payments. About a year ago, I passed this task along to an employee. Now all I do is approve the payments, which takes about 5 minutes a month. I literally saved like 2 hours every month of non-income producing work off my plate. Now this may not seem like much, but over the course of a year, it’s a full 24 hours. That’s a whole day I can now spend either working on growing my company, or perhaps taking care of some mental health.

Outsourcing involves trust in someone, and for some of the tasks we perform, those are hard to let go of. Training may take even more time at first, but in the long run, gaining time wherever we can to focus on meaningful tasks that will make an impact on our business will lead to gains every time in my opinion.

I hope this letter has at a minimum caused you to start thinking about some of the things you do and what can be delegated. If you’d like to schedule a time to talk about this more, please feel free to reach out.

Outsourcing Accounting Firm Solution

Why Interactive Accountants? It’s really all in our name actually. We INTERACT with our clients on a monthly or quarterly basis to ensure that their financial and tax matters are always up to date. Your team of dedicated accounting professionals are always engaged with you and constantly are keeping things up to date. At least every quarter you will have a meeting with your managers and get the run down on your financials as well as where you stand on taxes. You will be advised on any changes in tax law and as your business grows, your team grows with you. Are one stop shop mentality provides the ecommerce entrepreneur with one accounting firm that can get the job done, no matter the tax or accounting concern.

If you are a Small Business Owner, you need a CPA firm that truly understands what you’re working with, and that firm is Interactive Accountants. So give us a call or schedule a free consultation with our owner Matthew Shiebler, CPA. He’s been practicing accounting for over 25 years now and is a business owner, just like you!