The Business of Blogging Part 5: Create and Maintain an Organized Bookkeeping System (AKA: Mazuma’s Secret Bookkeeping Formula)

Bookkeeping is an essential business task, but it's rarely a top priority. We're sharing our secret formula to tackle bookkeeping. An organized bookkeeping system is arguably the most critical component of monetizing a blog business. It doesn’t matter if you’re making boocoo bucks on your blog if you aren’t tracking money coming in and money going out. Here’s how we suggest you manage your time when you’re taking care of your own small business bookkeeping and accounting tasks.

Mazuma’s Secret Bookkeeping Formula

If you’re a blogger, you’re likely a list person. You like schedules, checklists, and organization. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with the bookkeeping part of your blog, here’s a simple formula that when followed closely, will limit time spent and increase profits for your business.

30 minutes / week

Schedule 30 minutes each week to do the following:

Gather all receipts spent on blog-related items that week and make note of what they were for.
Jot down miles driven for your blog business if you’re planning to use those an expense for taxes.
Review your ad revenue and make notes
Enter everything into a bookkeeping program–whether it’s an excel spreadsheet or something fancier, you must keep track.

1 hour / month

File all receipts from the month. To learn more about filing receipts digitally, visit this post.
Review all your entries for the month in your bookkeeping program.
Add up your income and expenses for the month to determine profit.
Compare to your anticipated budget and adjust where necessary.
Pay bills and send invoices.
Adjust for the next month.

1 hour / quarter

Review income and expenses for the quarter and enter into bookkeeping program.
Determine how much you owe and pay your estimated quarterly taxes.
Make changes to your budget and plan spending for the next 3 months.

2 hours / year

Review your yearly income and expenses.
Create a budget for the next year based on last year’s budget and anticipated growth.
Schedule time for weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly bookkeeping tasks.

Follow this bookkeeping schedule and you’re sure to stay on top of your blogging finances. When you’re blog business becomes too large to manage, you might consider outsourcing those services to save yourself time and money.