Someone Asked Me a Question That Got Me Thinking

I got a message recently from a small business owner that got me thinking. She is a sole proprietor; she’s the owner, the operator, the HR, the bookkeeper, the marketing team; she is doing it all. She shared that her profit is basically just enough to keep her family and business afloat, and right now she can’t see herself paying a bookkeeper.

And honestly? Fair. I get it.

Not everyone is ready for a bookkeeper. I know this because I myself have never had one! Before I graduated and started Bryant Bookkeeping Co. I did the bookkeeping for my cleaning firm (which is why I started studying accounting soon after).

Some of you are just starting out, some of you are running a one-man show, and some of you just aren't at the point where it makes financial sense yet to pay someone else to do this. That's not a bad thing. That's just... where you are.

But here's what stuck with me

Just because you're not ready to hire someone doesn't mean you don't deserve to actually see what your business is doing. You still deserve real numbers. You still deserve to know if you made money last month or just felt busy. You still deserve some kind of system, even a simple one, instead of a mental math problem you're solving at 11pm.

So I made something.

It's a free Income & Expense Tracker. And I know what some of you more seasoned business owners will say - it’s simple; you can find these trackers almost everywhere nowadays. But for people like the aforementioned business owner, this tracker could be the best thing they didn’t know they needed to find today. So go ahead and share this blog post; maybe you can reach a small business owner who needs this in their life right now.

And to my fellow small business owners who aren’t ready to pay a bookkeeper: This tracker has one tab where you log what comes in and what goes out, and another tab that automatically does the math for you by month. No formulas to learn, no spreadsheet knowledge and magic required on your end. You just enter what happened, and it tells you the basics of what’s going on.

Is it a full bookkeeping system? No.

It's not going to replace an actual bookkeeper once things get more complicated — multiple income streams, contractors, inventory, whatever your particular flavor of chaos becomes. But right now, today, if you're solo and stretched thin and just want to stop guessing? This will get you there.

Also, there’s no shame if you are just now starting to realize you need to keep detailed track of these things. It’s better to start late than not start at all.

Grab it free below. Open the tracker, then select File → Make a copy to save your own editable version to Google Drive.

And if you ever outgrow it, or just get tired of doing the math yourself, you know where to find me.