3 ways to organize your finances: oh my gosh

Yes, Oh my gosh because this post was hard for me to write.

And it has morphed into a whole lot more than just three ways to organize your finances.

Tons of ways.

Ugh. I have put this piece of my #livefocused January organization off for way too long.

See how little I wanted to do it?

I didn’t even take my own advice and do the piece I least wanted to first–instead, I started the month all crazy and excited about organizing things, did my first two like whuuut, all quick and early in the game.

And then I sat on this one–the financial one–for days and weeks and now here we are: the last day of the month. So here I am.

You know what I’m doing?

Organizing my finances.

I’ve got three ways for you, friends. Take what you need and run with it.

Here’s the skinny. . .

3 Ways to Organize Your Finances:

Notice I didn’t say your family’s finances–this isn’t about a whole family financial overhaul. I’m not a numbers person, and I’m not great with organizing bills.

This is more about how any small business owner can more easily handle the chaos of bills, expenses, and income.

It’s super-simple. Easy-peasy, right? Wrong.

I’ve owned my own business for four years now, creating an LLC for my little bloggy-blog and all the fun stuff associate with it–two years into my blogging game. And each year I get better at handling the expenses. But it’s not at all perfect.

It’s really not at all pretty.

And my husband is shaking his head now, ‘tsking’ away at me, saying, Ame, come on. You have to get better at this.

Really, Brent, I’m trying.

It’s not my forte. I’m an ideas person, a writer, a dreamer, and a doer, but not a money organizer.

I am getting better, though, that I know for sure.

Essentially, I’ve got three ways for you, friends. Three little things that may help you organize your financials in a way much more attractive and pride-inducing than handing your tax person a big plastic bag of receipts and printouts in the spring.

We can do this, friends. We can do this.

1. Wave.

Wave apps is a platform that provides free and easy accounting, invoicing, and more.

I have used it for about three years, and each year it gets better and better, easier and more user-friendly.

I’ve connected my business bank accounts and business credit card, and all I have to do is click a little button to show how I want the expenses or income sorted, and I’m done. Very easy. Verrrrry easy.

Except for the last few years, I haven’t done a great job with keeping up. And this year, I fell really, really far behind so I did a boatload of catching up today. I’m close to owning it. Phew.

I looked into a half a dozen other finance organizing tools, and for my purposes, I found this to work best. It’s free. Free.

Free is good when you’re a small business. At least in my book.

2. The ole excel spreadsheet.

I literally taught myself how to use Excel properly so that I could make a year-long document outlining my expense and income.

You can download my sheet here: http://bit.ly/financeSHEET

This sheet I like because it’s really simple. It worked wonders when I was doing a lot less, since it all had to be entered manually. It’s a great spreadsheet, though, and it can be used for just about any bookkeeping.

Just adjust the tabs and labels to suit your needs.

3. My friend Kelly’s Centsible Life Printables and resources

Kelly Whalen totally rocks. She’s not only an incredibly amazing and smart business owner; she’s also super savvy financially.

She knows a ton, and I often refer to her site for any financial questions I may have.

Check out her site for a ton of awesome, including:

Kelly really has both bases covered: small business owner and family financial consultant. Her stuff is awesome, and no matter what you need, I bet it’s there.

It’s not easy, friends. But when we are living focused, we’re really stepping back and doing what we can to take ownership of our life, our time, and our little world. We’re focusing on living more intentionally, and in order to do so, we need to make sure our lives are a little more organized.

So tell me, what do you use to organize your finances for your small business or home? What works for you?

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