 Hi everybody, some basic tips and what you actually need to know being a small business owner while you're doing bookkeeping. So you do need to know the importance of opening up your own separate business bank account and having business credit cards. In some states you actually need this or it is considered a penalty if you lump in all of your personal income and expenses together and then try to do bookkeeping later on. So I suggest just opening up your own business bank account now with your business credit card and this will make it easier for you anyway to keep track of income and expenses. Now another thing that you must know is make sure to keep all documents, all invoices, all receipts, anything having to do with your business, the money coming in and the money going out for at least six years because if you ever get audited depending on where you are they can audit you for up to five years, five or six years prior it could even be longer depending on what type of business you do. So keep everything on paper. If you have it digitally back it up extremely important. It's not a good enough excuse to say I don't have that or I don't know where that expense came from. Pardon me. Another thing to make note is make sure to really categorize your expenses and income properly. For example, if you are claiming your rent and you put that under office supplies but you don't put it under a better category such as rent, the IRS or depending on where you live will see that as that's just not good enough. You don't know what you're doing. We're confused of what this is being used for. Your income expenses just don't match. We are going to charge you. They are going to give you a penalty. So really make sure to keep those categories proper and have them make sense. Even such as if you're claiming your rent, don't put it under office supplies or professional fees. Put it under rent. They can't be confused with that expense and that category. If in doubt, ask your accountant and that brings me to my next point. I highly suggest outsourcing your bookkeeping and accounting, meaning don't do it yourself. Even if you try to hire a bookkeeper just for bookkeeping, that's going to add up and it's going to be very expensive because you will likely be paying them a full-time wage depending on your business to keep up with your bookkeeping every month. You can do that. But then I suggest sending everything to your accountant so they can do the hard work for you and manage your taxes. For example, what a bookkeeper actually does is they keep track of your income and expenses. So they will input that into a sheet or a software somewhere, all of your income, all of your expenses from your business bank accounts and your business credit cards. Then they are going to reconcile those accounts to make sure things add up. If there is an extra expense on your credit card, well, where did that come from? Why did it not show up the first time? That's what they do. And they will also save and or print out proper reports such as profit and loss, your balance sheet, any cash, any investments. They print out those reports every single month. They will also handle invoices. If your business is the type where you give invoices to your customers. If it's a service-based business and you do the service first and then the customers pay you afterwards, then that's kind of what they take care of. So that's what a bookkeeper does. So you can pay somebody to do that, pay them a lot of money, or you can do it yourself. Do all of that yourself. Learn how it is a lot, of course. But then take all of that to your accountant for them to deal with your taxes and kind of maximize your, the least amount of taxes that you have to pay. That's what I do. Some people, though, don't even want to do the bookkeeping side. They will hire a bookkeeper to do the bookkeeping for them. And then the bookkeeper sends everything to their accountant. I just prefer to do it myself because I like to have control over my business, not saying you don't if you have a bookkeeper, but I like to see everything. But there is a learning curve to learn all of that. So that's what I suggest. I hope that helps. Basically, the basics of bookkeeping and what you have to know as a small business owner. Let me know if you guys have any questions and I'll see you in the next one.