The Joy of Bookkeeping
Happy New Year to you all!
Now that this year has drawn to an end, it is the duty of every small business owner –if your fiscal year ends with the calendar year- to put your books into order. What this means is that every single penny that came in and went out of a business needs to be accounted for, and all on-and off-site inventory counted meticulously. Normally, this task is dreaded, as it can get hairy to try and figure out what amounts were exactly spent on what, or came in from what. This is especially painful if one has neglected to keep the books updated as one goes along…. What did I spend that $1,54 at Canada Post on again, and was there tax on it or not, and if so, how much?
My receipt-folder is half-open on my lap as I dig through it to get to the bottom of some mysteries. My desk has a whole wall of stacks of notes and statements surrounding my computer. And no-one is allowed to disturb me – I am concentrating! This one thing is in common with deep design development, I can say that: no interruptions there, either.
I think it may have to do with the fact that I am a jeweller, where attention to detail is extremely important, but goshdarnit: I like it. I love nothing more than hearing the special happy sound my accounting software makes when each month reconciles. Check this out, by the way: AccountEdge for Mac – I love it! Formerly MYOB. Nice design, inventory module, plus it’s compliant with Canadian tax laws AND you can use it on a Mac!! I even like it when I am a few cents off, and I get to investigate where to problem lies. It just feels great when you discover that mistake, and correct it.
And I love being able to pull all kinds of reports from the system, telling me this that and the other thing about various aspects of what I am doing. It’s kind of like looking at my livelihood from various angles – it just gives a broader view of this world I am creating for myself.
Perhaps I also find bookkeeping so satisfying because it is so very definite. This is in stark contrast to the rest of what I do, where there is wide open space to be creative. This may sound attractive to someone with a 9-5 job who gets told by their boss every day what they need to do, but let me tell you: space is a terrifying thing. And being creative, actually applying one’s creative abilities and acquired knowledge to form a tangible, threedimensional thing, requires great discipline.
In the end, I walk away with the following theory about why it makes me so ridiculously happy to bring my books in order, even if I did spend four days in a row doing nothing but that, late into every evening:
I think I find it pleasing because it has defined boundaries and clear results. In that, bookkeeping is very different from the creation of art, where one is never quite sure if each project or piece is actually finished to its very best state. In contrast, bookkeeping is very clear. There is a certain, defined task to accomplish – to record and account for every expenditure and income, for each month of one whole year -, and when it is done, it is done. And when it is done right, it reconciles, it all matches up. Beautiful!
