Talk about mixed messages.

Yesterday we got really intimate and today I'm telling you we need to separate!

I'm talking about separating your business and your personal funds. 

Completely.  Totally.  Always.

Are you catching my drift yet?

Spoiler alert: today's homework might require a field trip. 

DAY 2: KEEP IT SEPARATE

SEPARATING YOUR BUSINESS AND PERSONAL FUNDS NEEDS TO BE A PRIORITY.

I'm not yelling at you.

Ok… I sort of am.

Because I'm super serious.  If you don't do this *ONE* step, nothing else is going to be enough to make up for the disorganization it'll cause to mix your business and personal funds in the same bank accounts. 

It’s a total no brainer.

If you pay for personal expenses from your business account and/or pay for business expenses from your personal bank account or credit cards, then you get to figure out what you made and spent the hard way: Download and print all 12 statements at the end of the year for EVERY ACCOUNT

• Bust out a highlighter or two
• Dust off your calculator, and
• Start creating spreadsheets by hand or worse - writing it down on a sheet of paper. 

As my toddler would say… "YUCKY!"

🗣I'll say it again for those of you in the back: The single most important step in keeping things organized is to keep your business and personal expenses separate - always.

YOUR DAY 2 HOMEWORK:

Part 1: How to start good habits immediately to stop the chaos in its tracks:

👉If you haven't already - go to the bank and open a separate checking account just for business.  I'm serious.  Do it today if possible.  If not, do it this week.

👉If you already have a separate business checking account, but you sometimes pay personal expenses from it or you sometimes use personal accounts to make business purchases, your homework is easy.  Fix this habit!  Just stop doing it!  Easy peasy.  ❤

Part 2: What to do to clean up the mess you're sitting on:

📒 If you haven’t already gotten your challenge workbook, get it by clicking here and use the three sheets marked "Day 2" to help you with this exercise.

1. Print all statements from January 1 – today where you’ve been depositing sales or making business purchases.
2. Highlight all of the business activity.
3. Use the Challenge Workbook to record your sales in the page for Business Sales (print as many as you need)
4. Use the Challenge Workbook to record your purchases using the Business Expenses sheets. You’ll need one page per category (telephone, office supplies, business development, utilities, software, etc). Print as many pages as you need.
5. Use the sheet called Simple Profit & Loss to enter the total sales, and a total for each expense category. Takes sales minus total expenses to give you either your profit (if sales are greater than expenses) or loss (if sales are less than expenses).

** I created free printable worksheets you can use to work this out in the challenge workbook, but if you want to save a bunch of time and headache, you should really consider getting my Small Biz Starter Kit which I'll have on promotion for challenge participants all week so you can snag it for just $17 (usually $47). The income and expense spreadsheet alone will be worth your money in the time it'll save. It has built in formulas that will sum everything up for you and automatically give you totals by category and includes a video demo.  The kit has a lot more than that, too, and you can find out more about it and purchase it by clicking the button below.

TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE $17 STARTER KIT

YOUR ACTION STEPS TODAY:

1. Complete the relevant pages in the workbook
   
   
2. Hop on over to THE FACEBOOK GROUP and comment on today's post to let us know if you already have a business only bank account or if you need to get one. Use the hashtag #O2ODay2
   
   
3. Catch the replay from the Facebook live below where I go over exactly how to use your business only bank account, including what to do if your business isn't profiting yet and how to pay yourself.  I also go over an example of exactly how to use the free workbook to clean up the mess if you've been commingling and demo the Starter Kit spreadsheet to see how this will save you tons of time.