Why Solopreneurs Need More Than Just Excel to Manage Their Business Finances
There are approximately 41 million Solopreneurs in the US alone per the MBO Partners Report and most of the small businesses/startups are registered as Solopreneurs as they grow they may add contractors or employees. As more people are starting their businesses as Sole Proprietorships or single member LLC, the number of Solopreneurs in the US is set to grow upwards. Starting, running and growing any business takes a lot of hard work that is why 70% of Startups do not survive their first 5 years as found by Fundera study. During these tough make or break first 5 years, Solopreneurs have to deal with many challenges which typically happen to be their area of expertise, below is a list of those main challenges:
- Create a Business Plan
- Develop a Website for the Business
- Find an Attorney to write up a Contract
- Find New Customers
- Pricing Products and Services
- Create an Estimate
- Create an Invoice
- Set up Business Banking Account
- Get paid by the Customer
- Keep a tab on Sales and Expenses
- Learn the basics of Accounting
- Perform Bookkeeping
- Keep track of Sales Tax
- Comply with Tax Deadlines and Filing Requirements
As they are starting out, for many Solopreneurs this may be the first time they have ever started a business, rightly so the first order of business is to find a Customer who will pay for their Products or Services. In order to save money or lack of knowledge they tend to create Invoices in Word and then they start managing their finances using Excel or Google Sheets. They will add the Customer name and addresses in Excel and Google Sheet and then copy & paste the Customer Name, Address and Email to a Word document where they will create an invoice. The time spent in copying & pasting data, formatting the invoice to look professional is absolutely not worth the Solopreneur’s time and effort. This process get complicated very quickly when the Solopreneur’s company has Products and Services that are subject to Sales Tax. In many instances, most Products are subject to Sales Tax while most Services are not subject to Sales Tax.
These solutions work well when you have a handful of Customers, Vendors, and Business or Credit Card Transactions, they quickly get out of your control as soon the volume goes up and that is when you need a software solution which is very inexpensive and is easy to use. Excel is an empty canvas, you will have to recreate the entire accounting logic in order to have Excel produce the Financial Statements (Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow). Unless you have deep knowledge of accounting, it is not recommended going through that route at all.
Let me introduce you to accurants, it is a Cloud-based software suite that is designed for Soloprenuers and Medium Size Business owners to run their entire business from any time, anywhere and any device. You can use the Invoice module to invoice your Customers. The Products and Services are referred to as Items. You can maintain a list of Items and assign which Item is subject to Sales Tax and which is not.
There is one time set up for the Online Payment Gateway, once it is set up, your Customers can pay invoices by clicking on the Pay Now link on the invoices either from their computer or mobile device. There is also a QR code that is displayed on the invoice which takes the Customer directly to the payment screen. It comes with all necessary features to collect online payments, send reminders, create recurring invoices etc. The accounting module will allow you to connect your business bank and credit card accounts so that transactions can be auto-downloaded and auto-categorized. The Profit & Loss will be auto-generated. You will need help with Balance Sheet statement preparation but once it is set up, your business can very well run on autopilot. Invoicing and Accounting are essential functions of your business, do not spend time and effort managing them on Word/Excel/Google Sheets when software packages are already available to do most of the heavy lifting for you and free up your time so that you can focus on growing your business.