Day Ten of our 12 Day Countdown – Suggestions for things you can do this month to prepare for a fabulous 2009!  It seems like we’ve officially hit the holiday season with the start of this week.  Most designers I know are taking this week and next off to enjoy the holidays with their family and friends.  Today, I’d like to suggest that you take some time this month to get your financial documents, paperwork and computer files organized.

I am one of those people who literally starts to feel uncomfortable when I’m not organized.  When life gets busy and crazy (which seems to be most of the time) I generally will take some time on the weekend to “tidy” everything up so that Monday morning I can start my week with everything in order.  When tax time comes around and I have everything in order and neatly filed it sure makes life a little easier!  Maybe you haven’t kept things in the best order this year – but have no fear, if you have some time on your hands this month you can spend an afternoon and get it under control.

A few suggestions to make life easier in the future:

Purchase a Document Scanner – no longer is it necessary to keep paper copies of important documents on file – simply scan them into your handy dandy scanner and keep paperwork neatly organized on your computer.  (just make sure you have a system in place for backing up documents – see previous post)  Visit Amazon to check out all your options and learn about document scanners.

Use accounting software specifically designed for interior designers – Studio Designer 8.0 – “From Proposal to Invoice, Studio Designer manages the daily activities of interior design firms.”

Let Gibson Design Management take care of the details: Contact Kay to learn more about our newest membership, Accounting Services.  With Accounting Services, our members have the benefit of a full-service accounting team to complete all financially related tasks within their design firms. 

These will include:

• Creating invoices for time and goods
• Disbursing checks to vendors
• Operating payroll, as needed
• Calculating and paying sales tax
• Running reports to show you the financial health of your business and where you need to improve

Our Accounting Services membership is led by a CPA with experience in both small business and the larger corporate world.  She runs a team of financial professionals to help our members get back to the real reason they became designers.

Author: Kay Alessi

Follow Kay on Twitter

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 21st, 2008 at 11:59 pm and is filed under Finance, Running an Interior Design Firm, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.