One of the biggest frustrations with running a business is “running” the business.  All the administrative work that must be done behind the scenes to keep track of the money.  If you started your business on a shoestring or you’ve been in business for a few years, you may HATE bookkeeping.  You can show your

If you’ve read my blog posts for past three weeks, you know we’ve gone over how to collect information for and send out 1099s and why you must do them.  But I’m going to tell you that it can be so easy, you hardly think about it. By now you should have all the W-9s

Over the past few weeks we’ve discussed how to gather your information so you can send and file 1099s and why you must do them.  By now I hope you have everything you need to send out your 1099s, including how much you paid your contractors last year.  Now we just send them out and

The best part of an accounting/bookkeeping system is seeing the money come in.  No matter how much you might dislike bookkeeping, that part is at least a bit enjoyable.   What isn’t fun is gathering the payment information from all the various sources.  Xero has a couple of solutions for that. First, Xero connects seamlessly with

The reason you are in business is to get paid, and hopefully get paid quickly.  Xero makes it very easy to invoice your clients and get paid. Invoices are very easy to create.  It is not necessary to create the client first, though it is helpful.  The invoice screen looks like this: You enter who

Did you know that you don’t have to reconcile your bank account every month?  I don’t mean just leave it for six months and then do it all at once, I mean EVER.  Xero downloads and reconciles transactions for connected bank accounts every day.  Then once a day or every couple of days you (or

If you’ve been following along lately, you’ve discovered that I love Xero.  I switched my personal and professional finances to it.  However, if you are happy with your current bookkeeping software, you have no trouble working with your accountant at tax time, and your bookkeeper (if any) can get access without obstacles, there is no

The answer is no, unless you get audited (if you can’t prove it, you can’t deduct it), loose all your bookkeeping files or some other hazard.  Then you will probably wish you’d had saved every scrap of paper you’d ever received after a transactions, if only to ease your mind.  So now you are thinking

If you go to Xero’s site, they will tell you that Xero is simply beautiful accounting software.  And it is.  It is more than that though.  I have always been of the opinion that to use Quickbooks well, you needed to have a basic understanding of double entry bookkeeping.  I good working knowledge of the