More Business Mistakes Made by Writers

March 19th, 2012 → 8:00 am @ Carol

Take a look at four more mistakes that you, as writers, can avoid for your writing business:

5. Working without a budget

You cannot control spending if you do not know where you spent your money. Tell your money where to go before it goes there by having a budget. Failure to plan is planning to fail!

6. Failure to reconcile bank accounts

You should reconcile bank accounts monthly to uncover mistakes in data entry by you or by the bank. Reconciling will also tell you where you spent your cash. Additionally, you need to know what checks are still outstanding so you do not spend money that may not be in the account.

7. Not having a filing system

A place for everything and everything in its place! Keep files for receipts, invoices, tax returns, government correspondence, contracts, and bank statements.

8. Forgetting to backup your data

Your writing efforts are too valuable to lose, and so are your business records, so back up your data regularly. I have my computer system set up to do automatic backups to an external hard drive. It is a great feeling knowing that everything is saved twice.

No budget? No idea how to set up a simple record keeping system? I can help with that! Just drop me an email at Carol@TaxesForWriters and we can discuss how I can help.

Carol Topp, CPA