One of the decisions that Sam had to make was how to keep the books for his new sports bar. He already had our CPA firm to prepare his tax returns and financial statements, but he was not sure how to handle the day-to-day bookkeeping chores such as tracking his income, his expenses, and payroll. There were a few different options Sam had to choose from, so he came to me with his questions.

Sam’s first option was to use a software program for his check writing and for tracking his income, expenses, accounts payable, and accounts receivable. I explained to him that using a software program would keep things neat and orderly, but with the line of business Sam was in, he would have to make sure that all his cash expenses were properly put into the software program, along with the checks that were written and the deposits that were made.

The other option for Sam was to track all his income and expenses on paper each month.

He also had the option of hiring someone to take care of this task for him, doing it himself, or outsourcing the task to our firm. Outsourcing is a great idea for a company, but with the type of business Sam was running, it would be difficult to keep everything on real time.

After we discussed the nuts and bolts details of how these options would work, Sam decided to purchase software to track his financial transactions. Sam was comfortable with handling it on his own at this point in time, but he knew that he always had the option to hire someone to handle it later if the need would arise.

Now that the bookkeeping had been decided, it was on to other issues.

TO BE CONTINUED…