There is a saying that most people have heard about jobs and careers; “If you are getting paid to do something that you love, then you will never have to work a day in your life”. The majority of business owners are, in fact, in business doing something that they love to do. If they’re also making a profit doing it; all the better. Unfortunately, for many, the dream of bringing passion and profit together remains elusive. The daily reality is that they haven’t figured out a way to make money with what they are doing or, the money that they are making is being made at the expense of happiness and fulfillment as they spend their days performing tasks that are less than thrilling. Scheduling, billing, sales calling, accounting and bookkeeping fall into this category for most people that would rather just do the creative work that they love to do.
Like the piano player that would rather perform and not spend his days practicing scales, the business owner doesn’t get into business to become immersed in all of the daily minutiae of running an enterprise. The challenge is in finding the right balance where all of those daily tasks are completed without becoming an unmanageable burden that sucks all of the fun and joy out of doing something you love. The good news is that the advancement of technology in the last few years has allowed for most of those tedious tasks that are critical for business growth and prosperity to be automated and simplified.
Data entry is one of the daily jobs that can take hours of time that could be used for profit generating activities. Receipts, bills, invoices and statements all need to be handled, sorted, exported and filed. How many times were you stressed out at the begginig of the year, because tax season has arrived and you have no clue of how much you made last year or how much you owe in taxes?. Performing traditional bookkeeping (physically handling each and every document) involves several steps that require time and energy. Thankfully, there are apps like Hubdoc (cloud based service proudly Canadian) that can be described as a virtual filing cabinet whose design makes data entry painless and simple. It automatically converts hard copies of bills, invoices and statements into data that can then be exported to cloud accounting softwares and secure vaults like dropbox. With an app installed in your phone you can now simply snap a picture of the document, which is then placed into an appropriate folder in your very own client portal. Aside from the ease of use, one of it’s greatest features is that the user will have no more filing to do. Hubdoc does it for you!
Aside from the physical work of handling data on an ongoing basis, business owners understand the importance of sound record keeping, not only for planning and managing growth, but, to remain worry free during tax season and to ensure tax compliance. In Canada, it is a legal requirement to keep all receipts for 7 + years, something that Hubdoc does in an extremely efficient and manageable way.
The reality of business today is that we already have the tools available to free up time, energy and resources in meaningful ways. Fintech (Financial Technologies) represents a major step forward for all businesses that are looking for strategic advantages and is revolutionizing the way that all of us do business. From marketing to scheduling, selling and accounting, data and information can be accessed from anywhere and customers are now expecting this to be the norm. For the businesses owner, the upside is more time available to be spent working ON their business rather than IN their business. This translates into increased profits along with more satisfaction, joy and fulfillment.
Are you ready to hop on the cloud?