Tip number three, set the time aside and make it really happen. If you are going to DIY your cleanup or catch up, a plan without a calendar block is just a wish. Can we put reality to that? So I suggest that you have one focus hour per week or one catch up morning per month. Something that really is blocked and motivates you to see that progress. And I really suggest that you batch your tasks by month when you're doing your bookkeeping. So categorize every single bank account and credit card for the month of January and then reconcile all the accounts for the month of January and then review January and make sure all of those pieces look correct and you don't have outstanding questions. And then move on to February because sometimes you can miss things or errors if you do like all of one bank account and then move on to the next. So I really recommend that you do month to month here. And really just finishing a month is really exciting and can make you feel like you're making progress too. So those little wins matter because even one reconciled month is momentum towards the goal of catching up. And then tip number four is stop the bleeding going forward. While you catch up on the past, don't let this month also become next year's backlog. So try a simple habit where you put some new practices into place. Maybe you're going to start snapping pictures of receipts as you go so it's not as much work. Maybe you're going to use the QuickBooks app to track your mileage. Maybe you're going to do 15 minutes of a finance Friday and categorize your transactions. Maybe all of these small little habits can really end up saving you time over time. So stop the bleeding going forward while you're also trying to catch up. So to recap, first we're going to see how bad it really is. Then we're going to make a plan to either DIY or get support. Then we're going to set up time to actually make progress. And then we're going to stop the bleeding going forward. If you need more help with tips for how to clean up or catch up, make sure you download the free podcast cleanup playlist. It'll walk you through in greater depth, some steps and red flags to look for as you're cleaning up and catching up your bookkeeping. Thank you so much for being here this week. And until next time, happy bookkeeping. Thanks for hanging out with me today on Get Comfy

I don't even know where to start when it comes to bookkeeping. I kind of just started this business as a side hustle, and it's grown. That was one story. And so if any of this sounds familiar, I hear this on almost every discovery call that things like it's been six months, and I'm so confused, or I tried to YouTube it, and I just couldn't quite figure out if this was what was applicable to me or not, or I'm still not sure if my categories are right. And so here's what I want you to catch. None of them waited until they were a complete disaster. They actually got support earlier rather than later. And that decision really impacted their trajectory. They didn't spend years white knuckling it and wasting time and building up shame around their numbers. But they all started the exact same way, a QuickBooks setup and some training on how to actually use it. So they didn't start by handing everything off immediately to a bookkeeper, digging their head in the sand and just afraid and intimidated to look at it completely. They started by getting set up right and learning the basics. Now I'm going to go a little bit deeper into each of their stories, why they came to me in the first place, how we went on a journey together for their bookkeeping, and then where they are today to have a success that they've had. So the coach was actually the one who had a decent accounting background. She just didn't know how to use QuickBooks. And she came to me using a spreadsheet, not really having a great way to invoice her clients and things were just getting clunky. So she knew it was time to graduate to a software, but she wanted it set up right from the beginning and to be properly trained on how to use it. She knew that her basics would get her far enough, but she wanted the training to use it right from the beginning. And then from there, she moved into a membership option where we actually split the work. So she invoices and categorizes her transactions. And then my team and I reconcile and review certain pieces. So she handles some pieces and we handle other pieces. This is available for certain types of clients that this is a really good fit for, where you might not be quite ready for full service bookkeeping, but you want to keep some of the pieces and parts and maybe can't quite afford full service bookkeeping yet.