What do you mean you don’t track your finances?
How do you know how much money you’ve made? Have you brought in more money than it costs to run your business (aka, are you profitable?) How many customers have you had? How can you do your taxes?
Okay, everyone keeps telling you that you have to track things, but you don’t know the first thing about what to do. And you don’t want to pay someone to do it (you don’t even know if you could afford it…)
You can get started with an AI tool like ChatGPT.
It won’t be perfect and will miss things that you should be tracking. It is way better than doing nothing though.
You can even use a short and simple prompt. Here’s a template -
How can I set up an accounting system in {tool that you have access to} for my {type of business} business?
Here’s a real example -
How can I set up an accounting system in Excel for my photography business?
The output was pretty good -
Yes, I know. It is missing a balance sheet and a cash flow statement, and a …
All of those can be added later,
If you started with nothing, this is a solid start and, unfortunately, a lot more than a lot of people have set up.
Now go make some money and record it in your new accounting system.
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