6 Ways to simplify your finances as a solopreneur

Starting your own business gives you the opportunity to be your own boss and bring your business ideas to life. While most entrepreneurs don’t start a business because they’re passionate about financials, it’s a critical part of long-term business success. 

There are steps you can take to keep the financial side of your business running smoothly, giving you more time to look at the bigger picture. QuickBooks is designed with tools to help you do exactly that.

This guide will cover 6 tips to keep your business on track and simplify your finances – and how QuickBooks can help – so you can stay focused on the parts of your business that matter most to you.

1. Separate personal and business finances
2. Send smarter invoices
3. Manage your accounts receivable
4. Keep track of profitability and cash flow
5. Establish a business budget
6. Use tools to set and track business goals

1. Separate personal and business finances.

In an effort to avoid the monthly banking fees and balance minimums that often come with traditional business bank accounts, some small businesses might rely on personal bank accounts to organize their business finances. But mixing business and personal finances makes it difficult to stay organized and see the bigger financial picture. 

Establishing a business bank account helps you:

• Safeguard your business funds by separating your personal finances
• Easily monitor your business spending and create more realistic budgets
• Practice better bookkeeping habits that keep your business finances organized
• Get a business loan, line of credit, or a business credit card when you need one

QuickBooks offers an easy to use, free to open business bank account that’s designed for small businesses: QuickBooks Checking. QuickBooks Checking includes features that helps your money work harder – fast deposits, high-yield savings with industry-leading 5.00% annual percentage yield, and no monthly fees, overdraft fees, or minimum balances.**

You can get started with a QuickBooks Checking account by signing up for QuickBooks Money, QuickBooks Solopreneur, or QuickBooks Online. This guide will cover more details on the differences between these three solutions below.

2. Send smarter invoices.

Almost every small business owner knows the frustration of a late payment. Unpaid invoices can be a critical factor in a small business’s stagnant cash flow. When invoices are paid late (or not at all), cash flow suffers, impacting your ability to pay your own expenses on time.

There are a few steps you can take in your invoicing process to help keep cash flowing into your business:

• Create a clear contract: Creating a contract with clear payment terms is the first step toward ensuring your payments come when you expect them. Your contract should outline the most important details of your transaction, and each party should agree to the terms before work begins.
• Don’t delay your invoicing: Invoice your clients as soon as possible. Sending your client the invoice right away links the completed work and payment together, and ensures you’re taking all the necessary steps to reduce your waiting time. 
• Use the right tools to speed up payments: Invoicing tools that make it easy for customers to make payments can make a difference in payment speed. QuickBooks offers invoicing that can get you paid 4x faster than paper invoices.¹

QuickBooks has invoicing and payments solutions to simplify the payment process.  With QuickBooks Payments, customers can settle up via credit or debit, ACH, Apple Pay®, PayPal, or Venmo**. You can send invoices via email or SMS that include products, services, sales tax and ways to tip, and accept payments in person with a card reader and the GoPayment app. And when you use QuickBooks Payments and QuickBooks Checking together, you can get paid faster by depositing payments into your QuickBooks Checking account – eligible payments hit the bank instantly, and we waive the 1.75% fee.**

3. Manage your accounts receivable.

Once invoices are sent, remaining proactive with your receivables ensures you’re doing all you can to keep payments coming on time. Keeping track of outstanding payments ensures you’re aware when payments are approaching their due date.

With QuickBooks, you can see when customers view and pay their invoices in real-time. You can automate payment reminders for your customers, and outstanding invoices are organized by their due dates, so you’ll easily be able to keep track of which invoices are close to being past-due. When you use QuickBooks Solopreneur or QuickBooks Online, we’ll record and match payments for you, so your books stay organized all year.**

All of these features can help take busy work off your plate, so you can stay focused on your business and your customers.

4. Keep track of profitability & cash flow.

With your finances separated, invoicing system established, and receivables managed, it’s easier to look at broader trends of the cash flowing in and out of your business. With a positive cash flow, you’ll have the funds you need to pay your bills, invest in new growth opportunities, and repay any business debt you might be holding.

Profitability is a step further from just having the cash flow to cover your expenses. It’s the money left after you’ve covered your expenses: your net income, which can be leveraged to grow your business. The profitability of your business is an indicator of its long term success, and having an understanding of where your business stands in terms of profitability is a critical part of entrepreneurship.

QuickBooks has cash flow management tools to help you save time crunching numbers and tracking trends. QuickBooks Solopreneur and QuickBooks Online give you instant insights: a cash flow dashboard that allows you to see your business money come in and out over time. You can also use QuickBooks to easily generate financial reports, including the profit and loss report.

While for most businesses, cash flow will fluctuate over time, forecasting helps you avoid surprises when cash flow dips. This keeps you ahead of the curve – so you can make smart business decisions, prepare appropriately when less cash is coming into your business, and pivot as you grow.

5. Establish a business budget.

To better manage your cash flow, it’s helpful to establish a business budget. By taking a closer look at your assets, expenses, and financial goals, you can craft a better plan for the future of your business. And ideally, you can reap some of the monetary benefits.

Having a business budget has quite a few advantages:

• The exercise of creating a budget can give you better insight on the expenses it takes to run your business; this understanding can give you more freedom to run your business with confidence.
• A budget helps you identify cash flow and spending problems, as well as potentially uncovering unnecessary expenses.
• Budgeting empowers business owners to have a greater sense of control and insight when dealing with financial challenges.
• Having a budget helps in cash flow forecasting and making predictions, as we discussed in the previous section.

QuickBooks can make the budgeting process easier with tools that categorize expenses and track your spending. QuickBooks Checking also has budget envelopes that allow you to separate your funds into buckets for different expenses, and the funds you keep in those savings envelopes earn an industry-leading annual percentage yield. You can create envelopes for different types of expenses to set that money aside, making it easier to track and organize your funds for specific expenses.

6. Use tools to set and track business goals.

With tools under your belt to help you manage your day-to-day finances, it’s easier to plan for your business in the longer-term. Setting growth goals for your business gives you clear objectives to work toward. As a one-person show, it may be challenging to look back and gauge how far you’ve come since you launched your business — or how far you have to go to hit your financial goals. 

QuickBooks Solopreneur helps you set realistic customer and revenue growth goals with target dates, and track your progress, right on your dashboard. You’ll always know exactly where you are in your journey and what you need to do to get ahead or stay on track. 

Make your time and money go further with QuickBooks

As a business owner, your time is money. And when you’re a business of one, time is in even shorter supply. New research by QuickBooks reveals that small business owners think time-saving is one of the top benefits of using new digital tools. Tools like QuickBooks exist to help small business owners like you save time — so you can turn more of your minutes into dollars.

Explore our plans to find the right solution for you and run your business with confidence.

This information is intended to outline our general product direction but represents no obligation and should not be relied on in making a purchasing decision.

*Customer testimonial based on usage of QuickBooks Solopreneur Beta.

**Product Information

QuickBooks and Intuit are a technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by our partner, Green Dot Bank, Member FDIC.

QuickBooks Money: QuickBooks Money is a standalone Intuit offering that includes QuickBooks Payments and QuickBooks Checking. Intuit accounts are subject to eligibility criteria, credit, and application approval. Banking services provided by and the QuickBooks Visa® Debit Card is issued by Green Dot Bank, Member FDIC, pursuant to license from Visa U.S.A., Inc. Visa is a registered trademark of Visa International Service Association. QuickBooks Checking Deposit Account Agreement applies. Banking services and debit card opening are subject to identity verification and approval by Green Dot Bank. Money movement services are provided by Intuit Payments Inc., licensed as a Money Transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services. For more information about Intuit Payments' money transmission licenses, please visit

https://www.intuit.com/legal/licenses/payment-licenses/. No subscription cost or monthly fees. Other fees and limits, including transaction-based fees, apply.

QuickBooks Payments: QuickBooks Payments account subject to eligibility criteria, credit, and application approval. Subscription to QuickBooks Online required. 

QuickBooks Checking Account opening is subject to identity verification and approval by Green Dot Bank.

QuickBooks Checking account: Banking services provided by and the QuickBooks Visa® Debit Card is issued by Green Dot Bank, Member FDIC, pursuant to license from Visa U.S.A., Inc. Visa is a registered trademark of Visa International Service Association. Green Dot Bank operates under the following registered trade names: GoBank, GO2bank and Bonneville Bank. Registered trade names are used by, and refer to, a single FDIC-insured bank, Green Dot Bank. Deposits under any of these trade names are deposits with Green Dot Bank and are aggregated for deposit insurance coverage up to the allowable limits. Green Dot is a registered trademark of Green Dot Corporation. ©2022 Green Dot Corporation. All rights reserved. QuickBooks products and services, including Instant Deposit, QuickBooks Payments, Cash flow planning / forecasting are not provided by Green Dot Bank.

Users must apply for both QuickBooks Payments and QuickBooks Checking accounts when bundled.

No minimum balances or monthly fees: There are no minimum balance requirements to open or maintain this account or obtain the listed APY. Other fees and limits apply. See Deposit Account Agreement for details.

Annual percentage yield: The annual percentage yield (“APY”) is accurate as of December 31, 2023 and may change at our discretion at any time. The APY is applied to deposit balances within your primary QuickBooks Checking account and each individual envelope. We use the average daily balance method to calculate interest on your account. See Deposit Account Agreement for terms and conditions.

Envelopes: You can create up to 9 Envelopes within your primary QuickBooks Checking account. Money in Envelopes must be moved to the available balance in your primary QuickBooks Checking account before it can be used. Envelopes within your primary QuickBooks Checking account will automatically earn interest once created. At the close of each statement cycle, the interest earned on funds in your Envelopes will be credited to each Envelope in proportion to the average daily balance of each Envelope. See Deposit Account Agreement for terms and conditions.

Instant Deposit: Instant deposit is an additional service offered by QuickBooks Payments subject to eligibility criteria, including delayed eligibility for new users and availability for only some transactions and financial institutions. The service carries a 1.75% fee in addition to standard rates for ACH, swiped, invoiced, and keyed card transactions. This 1.75% fee does not apply to payments deposited into a QuickBooks Checking account. Deposits are sent to the financial institution or debit card that you have selected to receive instant deposits. Scheduled instant deposits are run automatically; QuickBooks checks for eligible funds up to 5 times per day. Non-scheduled instant deposits are sent within 30 minutes. Transactions between 2:15 PM PT and 3:15 PM PT are excluded and processed next day. Deposit times may vary due to third party delays.

For more information about the services provided by QuickBooks Live Tax, refer to the  QuickBooks Terms of Service and TurboTax Terms of Service.

Apple Pay: Apple Pay is a registered trademark of Apple Inc.

Google Pay: Google Pay is a trademark of Google LLC.

Venmo is available only in the US.

# Claims

2. Get paid 4x faster: Four times faster based on U.S. customers using QuickBooks Online invoice tracking and payment features, compared to customers not using these features, from Aug 2022 to Jul 2023.