You Don't Have to Be Good At Math

Why does everyone think that being good at math is the primary requirement for bookkeeping?

I’ve had that assumption placed on me since I was in high school. Everyone assumed I was good at math because I did bookkeeping. Meanwhile, I had to drop my college Algebra class because I couldn’t keep up with it and I was super confused. Anything more complicated than high school algebra freezes my brain. (I graduated from a charter school. 10/10 do not recommend.)

There are three key skills with bookkeeping that folks overlook.

1) Knowing Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. 2) Understanding key bookkeeping concepts and navigating software. 3) The ability to organize transactions in ways that are compliant with the previous two skills, and to consistently stick to that organization system.

So if you want to be good at bookkeeping, focus on those three skills. The mistakes I frequently see in peoples’ books are related to having underdeveloped skills in those areas, rather than their ability to do math.

But I don’t recommend that you invest your time in developing that skillset as an entrepreneur.

How you invest your energy and time are one of the biggest indicators of success in entrepreneurship.

We all have finite amounts of time and energy. We need to invest these resources wisely in order to increase our returns on those investments. Think of it this way: If you had $1,000 lying around to invest, you would put it towards the investment that generated the biggest return. If time is money, don’t you want to invest that in the activities that will give you the greatest return? Is doing your own bookkeeping going to give you that big return?

You went into business because you like what you do.

Maybe like me, you’re unemployable and you needed to establish a business in order to generate income. But you had something you were good at. And I’m guessing it wasn’t bookkeeping. Assuming you’re normal and don’t like bookkeeping tasks, it’s not your skillset and it’s not an income generating activity; why would you want to pressure yourself to do well in this area?

I know it’s super tempting to feel like you should do everything yourself, especially if you aren’t generating a lot of income and cash flow isn’t flowing. If like me, you were socialized as a girl growing up, you probably reached adulthood thinking you had to do everything yourself. Insisting to do everything yourself is going to hold you back. It’s going to be so much harder to reach your sales goals if you’re working on bookkeeping instead of the tasks that you can charge for.

Going back to the issue of cost

There are solutions for this

1) Calculate how much in sales you need to cover the cost of a bookkeeper and push yourself to make those sales. Sounds easier said than done, doesn’t it? I get it. It’s not easy. Sales is one of the things that I struggle with the most. But is it easier than burning out because you spent too much time doing tasks that felt like torture? 2) The more anti-Capitalist solution would be to look for someone willing to trade for a free or reduced price. There are websites that allow you to skillshare with other entrepreneurs. There would still be an investment of time and energy, but at least you would be engaged in tasks that you excel at. I found this Skillshare website. This might be a better solution than pushing yourself to learn all the ins and outs of QuickBooks.