Common Bookkeeping Struggles (and why they’re totally normal)

Bookkeeping challenges are not a sign that you are bad at business.  In fact, that is far from the truth. Bookkeeping is its own profession for a reason!  As a small business owner, you’ve built your skills around your own specialty or craft. Bookkeepers (like me) have built ours around making sense of numbers, so we can help you focus on what you do best.

Here are some of the most common bookkeeping struggles I see (and why they’re nothing to be ashamed of):

·         Mixing business and personal expenses.

It’s super easy to grab the wrong credit card when making a business purchase. It happens to all of us!

·         Falling behind on categorizing transactions.

You spend your day doing your actual work.  Let’s be honest, no one wants to spend their evening staring at a bank feed in QuickBooks.

·         Not understanding the importance of reconciliations.

Reconciliations are the only way to be fully confident that every transaction has been captured (and nothing important has been missed).

·         Feeling confused by financial reports.

It’s okay if they don’t make perfect sense at first. Reports are powerful tools for understanding profitability, growth, and where you stand—you don’t have to master them overnight.

·         Forgetting about tax deadlines (or clamming up at the word “tax”).

You’re definitely not alone here. I have clients who practically freeze when the word “tax” comes up.  We work through it together.

·         Relying too much on software without really understanding it.

QuickBooks and other tools are designed to be user-friendly, but I’ve seen plenty of creative “accounting rules” that need a little clean-up before the books are truly tax-ready. It’s normal, and it’s fixable.

If any of this sounds familiar, you're in good company. These challenges are more common than most people realize—and they’re nothing to be embarrassed about. With the right systems and support, they’re also totally manageable. I’ll be sharing more practical tips soon to help make bookkeeping feel less like a burden and more like a tool you can actually use. I’m glad you’re here.