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Running a business

4 ways QuickBooks allows small business owners to focus on their craft

By Zac White

Published on June 20, 2024

Hi, I’m Zac White! For those that don’t know, I’m an Aussie photographer and adventure seeker. As a full-time photographer and content creator – no two days are the same – which is something I love about my job!

I love that by using an amazing financial advisor and powerful tool such as QuickBooks, I can focus my attention on growing my business and pursuing my passion. It’s funny to hear my mates get all worked up and worried about filing taxes and keeping all their receipts because with the help of my financial advisor and QuickBooks I can stay organised and grow my business with just a few clicks of a button. I can now simply just relax, take time to reflect on how the year has been, and focus on my business and doing what I love most.

Luckily for me, I met my accountant through another small business owner friend right before things with work started to get busy. My financial advisor helped me to find clarity early on with the direction I wanted to go in and advised me on the importance of starting with a business plan. And the first piece of advice my advisor shared was to get onto QuickBooks as soon as possible. He told me it would save so many headaches in the future and that it was the most efficient way to run the back end of my business.

4 ways QuickBooks allows me to focus on my business

Receipt uploads: For every business it’s important to keep a hold of any important and necessary receipts. I love how on QuickBooks all you have to do is take a photo of a receipt, upload it to QuickBooks, and it will directly link it to a transaction you have made. So, you never have to worry about saving or tracking down an old receipt again!
Income and Expense reports: Being able to easily track what is coming in and out of the business is super important. If there are certain areas I need to focus on, whether that's to push my prints more, or increase the price of the campaign I’m doing, or spend less per month, I can evaluate all of this on QuickBooks. This is really important when growing a small business, so you don’t remain stagnant.
Automated invoice reminders: A tool that will ensure that you’ll never miss an invoice payment again. As a small business, you are often very busy working on your craft, and you don’t have much time to follow up with everyone who hasn’t paid. With QuickBooks, as soon as an invoice is due, it will automatically send a reminder to the client.
Mobile App: I’m constantly on the road so having the mobile app makes life so much easier to quickly send invoices or mark off transactions on the go. Honestly a lifesaver!

QuickBooks makes my accountant’s life easier

My accountant has been working in the industry for over a decade. With the combination of his expertise and QuickBooks, I have some certainty around my taxes and finances, and I don't have to stress one bit. QuickBooks makes my accountant’s life easier, and he makes my life easier by saving unnecessary money I'd usually be paying on taxes.

For me, it only takes 15-30 minutes a week on QuickBooks to send invoices, mark off expenses, and balance transactions. I can confidently say that all I have to do is make a few clicks on QuickBooks and send a report document to my accountant, and just like that my finances are all documented and sorted. So instead of spending weeks on taxes and falling behind, I can just focus on my craft, grow my business, and just enjoy this time of the year with zero stress.

The combination of a financial advisor and QuickBooks is a winning combo! As a small business owner, the combination of having a financial advisor and using QuickBooks makes running a business stress free! It's as simple as a few clicks and sending off a few documents to my accountant.

Essentially, all my accountant really needs from me is a profit & loss statement – an account of how much I made and how much I spent on my business throughout the financial year. And QuickBooks has made the second part of that equation especially easy, because it allows me to manually categorise every transaction, so I know where the spending is exactly going.

As a busy photographer and business owner, these simple features on QuickBooks – plus an advisor who helps me maximise their use – keep me organised and on track so I can focus on what I love, which is getting out and taking photos!

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