Small business: Simply Accounting

Seriously...

...take the mess to a bona fide bookkeeper. It may cost you $100-$200 to get it straight, but it will be worth every penny. I was once a hard-nosed ''enforcer'' for the SBA and hiring a good bookkeeper was *ALWAYS* my first suggestion for small business owners when I walked through their doors. I cannot begin to count the number of times I later received a ''Thank you!'' for that very basic advice.

I was typically called in when things looked especially dire or even terminal. It was usually my good fortune to inform the exasperated and stressed-out owners they had failed, lost their life savings, and then hopefully salvage what little might be left after a series of bad business decisions--the first of which was *ALWAYS* not keeping good accounting records. I had to say more times than I would have preferred, "I could help you if you had decent accounting records, but without them cannot."

You see, everyone says they will use some particular software package to do their own bookkeeping, but I have yet to see even one single instance of it actually happening. Good intentions never make for good bookkeeping. So again, save yourself the time, headache, and a still incomplete job by just handing the whole mess over to a good bookkeeper. No one yet has not told me that was money very well spent.