Summer is the season of vacations, cookouts, and swimming pools. For many businesses, it is also the season of bookkeeping. Although it seems counter-productive to spend the traditional season of ease and relaxation tending to one of the most stressful aspects of running a business, it’s actually a golden opportunity to get ahead and diagnose the health of your business.
Free Time Isn’t Free
If you run a business, big or small, then you know time is money. While it’s important to take breaks and enjoy a vacation from time to time, it’s dangerous to consider the entirety of summer an invitation to do less work or produce at a slower pace. By indulging in such behavior, you are actually throwing away a golden opportunity. If you take advantage of the season’s unique opportunities, you can ease the burden of bookkeeping for the rest of year, get an accurate picture of your business’s financial progress, and even set the stage to save money next tax season.
Are you still sure you want to leave early today?
Making the Most of Seasonal Help
Depending on the type of product you offer, summer can your busiest or your slowest season. Regardless, summer is a peak season for temporary hires. Unlike Christmas, the other peak for temporary hires, summer has less to do with extra demand and more to do with extra labor. Although seasonal attractions, such as pools and amusement parks, often hit peak sales during the same stretch of time, a year-round business that does not depend on highly seasonal factors, like weather and school breaks, can capitalize on the extra available labor. Whether you are looking for unskilled labor in the form of high school and undergrad students on summer vacation, or you require the professional training of grad school students and teachers on summer break, the number of potential employees spikes from May to August.
Individual employee productivity takes a dive during the summer thanks to the lure of sunny weather and distant beaches. However, the seasonal labor boom not only balances the lost hours, but actually creates opportunities to accomplish tasks a business owner is often too busy to manage. It’s a great time to check over the current tax year’s records and prepare for the remaining months. This will save you stress and effort when it comes time to file those taxes. Digging into the books also gives you a chance to compare the current financial year against the previous year. How is your business doing? Have profits grown? Are you not doing as well as you were at this time last year? This in-depth checkup allows you to see the bones of your business and diagnose any chronic illnesses.
Even those business owners who see their peak sales during the summer can use the season to their benefit. Keeping up with bookkeeping while the vast majority of revenue is produced, saves many, many hours in the months to come.
Summer School
Just as teachers often take the summer months to continue their education, you can take yourself to summer school by investing in Quickbooks training. Usually recognized as the best accounting software, Quickbooks offers a huge variety of products for businesses of every size and age. Take advantage of the opportunity to master programs like Quickbooks Pro, Quickbooks Premier, and Quickbooks Enterprise. These will save time and money in the long run, making life a lot simpler for the foreseeable future. Quickbooks programs and training are simple investments pay you back in a big way.
If you prefer not to go back to school, summer is still a great season to think ahead and look for tax services. If your business has grown to a point where you need to hand off the books entirely, it might be time to check out full bookkeeping services. Like other businesses, accounting and bookkeeping teams often take advantage of the summer labor market. Summer interns give seasoned employees extra time to work with potential customers. It’s a great time to plan ahead and get your books in order with the help of a professional.
Although the weather is lovely and the heat makes everyone in the northern hemisphere crave a nap, summer is the perfect time to focus on bookkeeping. If the sun is just too inviting, you can always take a laptop outside to sunbathe as you examine your business’s finances. Summer is a time to learn, adapt, and push your business an extra step forward. Extra labor allows you to focus on what’s important, and there are plenty of professionals available to help you improve your bookkeeping skills. Who knows? After comparing last summer’s books with their year’s numbers, you may discover that your business has grown to the point where it cannot only afford but truly needs professional bookkeepers. Then you will have to find new ways to reinvest that extra time.
Thank you for sharing. It is really interesting.