@Phil, Good advice! Do you have any suggestions as to how to make an educated decision when choosing accountants? (I chose mine from a friend’s recommendation.)

@ JR, Keep up the good work!

@Lisa, I’m with David about boxes. If you have a box for each project you can keep samples and research for each project in one place, and on a “researching dancing panda bears” morning, you can spread out your info for that project and put it away for your “feature article on gardens in New Jersey” afternoon.
Label, label, label.

I also suggest having a “one shot client” file box that you keep in the back of your closet. Set up a schedule for going through the box and tossing the ones you think you’ll never need/use again. You can do this once a year? Once every three years? Every time you find the box when you’re trying to find those green shoes you almost never wear? Take a page from food packagers and put a use by date on the box.

Filing can be done electronically, I think the main point is that there be some semblance of order. I usually spend the first hour of the day with this and other organizing chores. Bookkeeping typically goes to the weekend.

Also, a caveat on hiring accountants: Gain at least a passing understanding of what they’re doing. Some will do things their way, rather than what is best for the business. And though they might have CPA designations (I write for a couple of CPA pubs), they make mistakes, too — H&R Block got its own taxes wrong a couple of years ago. It’s still your name at the bottom of the tax return, so you are ultimately responsible (right on instructions of 1040) if tax filings are in error.

Great article; very clear and precise, and it actually made me feel like maybe finances aren’t as hard as I make them out to be. Your piece-of-paper test is a great marker for a working system.

Lisa,

I don’t know if this helps, but I have a series of boxes in my workspace that I use, one for each project. Sometimes I let things get out of control and there are papers everywhere, but the fact that they have someplace to go makes cleaning up the space less oppressive. (I’m not into regular, boring in/out boxes which don’t have enough space anyway — I use multi-colored milk crates which never seem to get past half full, and I use folders within them to sub-divide.)

This is different then the boxes I keep tucked away in a closet and almost never open except to put away other stuff. The ones in my workspace are lidless, clearly marked, and right in front of me. Like I said, I still end up with stuff all over the place when work gets hectic, but it’s never completely out of control.

I find that I have contracts, in folders, all over the place… because most of my stuff is filed by client, but some clients are one-shot and others are long term… and what’s the point of keeping a contract in paper that you have on disk, anyway?? Or should I save them for a while? If so, where? In a box marked “contracts from random one-shot clients?”

I have research materials in piles around me, because the amount and type of material I need varies from day/day, week/week. If I put them into boxes or on shelves, they “disappear” on me (under new materials).

I have samples in a file, but then I have samples that are books (too big) and boxed curricula (way too big). Those are on shelves – but then I forget I have them!

Re taxes: we hire an accountant and pay the big bucks.

Cheers,

Lisa