Real Estate Investing and Book Keeping — Oxymoron?

Being a small business owner isn’t easy.  There are a lot of hats to wear.  You have to burn the candles at both ends until you’re able to cut the candle and half and hand off the flame to someone else to burn for a while.

Many times one of the first things outsources is book keeping and taxes.  I’ll be real with you – I should have outsourced this a  long time ago.  All I ever do is pull at my hair every time  even the thought of taxes comes to me.  I’m serious – taxes make me shudder.  I stress out over them when at the end of the day our tax system is ridiculous [tax code over 65,000 pages and counting, but that’s a separate topic]

Ok, so the truth comes out — I’m just now getting my books finalized for my 2011 taxes — that’s right —- 2011.

Not kidding, here’s a pic of the home office closet – and the stacks of piles leading up to it haha.

So I’m finally getting ready to suck it up and stay current on my books rather than catch up a year later.  Although I can argue that my time is better spent looking for deals, I can also argue that it’s cheaper to maintain my books than to repair my books – the same way oil changes and regular maintenance on your vehicle is less expensive than replacing a blown gasket.

Plus, I’ve come to the conclusion that if I put the time in now, I will save time later.  There is nothing more frustrating than looking at a transaction that happened 16 months ago and trying to find paperwork to confirm how that transaction went down.  Talk about a waste of time.

Plus I’ll actually be able to look at useful reports to see exactly where my money is going, where it’s coming from, etc. – this will help with cash flow as well as see what gives me the best ROI.

So, I’ve had 2 consultations with a book keeper from Pakistan that I plan to hire (for $5/hr. I might add).  He is a CPA in his country and a heck of a lot smarter in QuickBooks Pro 2012

than I am!  And while I can’t stand Quickbooks (I think Intuit has a ridiculous hold on the marketplace and is clunkier than its competitors) it’s still the top accounting software for small businesses and what you’ve got to have.  Quickbooks Pro is most likely all that you need for your business.

I mean look at this guy!  Doesn’t he look smart?  His English is potentially better than mine.  You’re the man Joji!

How did I find Joji?  Well, oDesk of course!

And while skype was not behaving and breaking up for us, he showed me a really new cool tool that I had never heard of – Viber – Free calls and texts with anyone – yes, this means international as well – and all from your cell phone.  We had a perfectly crystal clear conversation at no cost — noon my time, 10pm his.

Ok, have to get get some taxes done now (shudder) – the deadline (the late one) is fast approaching!

#realestateinvesting