You Want to Be Trained To Do It Yourself
Learning the ins and outs of your finances.
More often than not I see wives of busy business owners being conscripted to “Do the Books”. These wonderful women haven’t a clue what they have to do and are often great at winging it. Usually, they are stay-at-home mums and want so desperately to help their very stressed husband.
*The Phone Rings*
“Hello, Nifty Bookkeeping, how can I help you?”
“I need you to save my marriage!”
“Umm… Sure!”
This was a phone call I took many, many years ago when I first started Nifty Bookkeeping.
My client had been working for several years on his own and had been working in his trade through the day and at night was sitting up until all hours doing his book work. At the time his wife worked full time, and then, she had a baby. They both wanted her to be a stay home mum, except, my client thought she would have the time to do the book work, too.
Not having a clue of what needed to be done, my client instructed his wife and she did her very best to learn from him, the blind leading the blind. After many confrontations, arguments, tears, fights, and endless frustration, my client called me asking if I could save his marriage.
We assessed the business processes and discussed with his wife what she thought she could handle in the free time between taking care of her new baby, home, and husband. We established that the wages would be a great place to start, so we began training her in the art of Payroll. Adding staff, looking up award rates, allowances, tending to superannuation, WorkCover, emailing payslips, etc.
It didn’t take long before my client’s wife was doing really well with the pays, so we progressed to the management of receivables, entering invoices for customers they had completed work for, requesting payment for the work completed, and keeping the cash flow coming.
While she was taking care of those things, we were in the background taking care of the management of the payables and purchases. Reconciling bank accounts and credit cards. Lodging BAS & IAS Returns and preparing payment summaries.
After a couple of years, and a couple more babies, my client’s wife was ready to take over the management of the payables as well. In the background, we continued to answer lots of questions, usually over the phone, and we would lodge BAS & IAS Returns.
All the while we were the intermediary for my client and his wife.
We kept it calm and away from the storm. Any questions my client had about the books and where it was all at, we were able to answer, if he asked his wife questions, she was able to ask us and get an informative answer.
My client’s wife has now been running and managing the office for over 15 years on her own.
With answers and solutions to questions my client poses. No more storm, no more frustrations other than the normal, run-of-the-mill, “owning a small business” frustrations. And anything that my client’s wife struggles with… well, we’re simply a phone call away.
This process took her as long as it needed to, no pressure to take on more than she could handle.
At Nifty Bookkeeping, we keep client’s options open; we are there for as long as you need us to be, in a capacity that works for you. Everyone has a different way of learning, and it is when you feel confident, we are ready to hand over the reins.