Well, I had our tax returns in the mail last Friday, 3 days before they were due. I also had extensions out for clients who needed them, except one. The last extension was done and mailed out on the due date as I received the information I needed overnight the night before. Then I had to get some payroll taxes done for clients - due out the end of April, but I don’t like to wait until the end of the month. Now comes the time to catch up with the stack of papers on my desk.
During the time I was busy with work and my husband needed me to help with work in the side yard and finding needed items he had to buy, I still had to keep up with everyday life. I serve as the treasurer of 2 small non-profits and have to keep their bills paid and money deposited in addition to keeping our finances up to date. I thought I did a good job. I did not this tax season and I was lucky I did enough.
Monday afternoon I sat down to write a treasurer’s report for one group for a meeting that night. I had not had a chance to reconcile any bank accounts, which are usually done right away when the statements are received. Luckily I decided to reconcile the group’s bank accounts before I wrote my report as I figured I had the 5 minutes it should take on the computer. Oh boy! The amount in my check book did not match the amount in the computer! I had made 3 deposits, in one day, of the dues money for the year and I had not posted them on the computer. Part of the deposits are dues for our group and part are the dues we collected for our national group, so I had to go back and figure out how much of each deposit was which. So about 45 minutes later I was back at the point where I thought I would be done in 5 minutes. Had I not decided to do the reconciliation I would have given the wrong information at the meeting - I would have said we had less money in our accounts than we did. I managed to get everything I needed to get done before the meeting and was ready only half an hour late!
Then I went to reconcile our personal accounts - I had similar problems with items deposited and listed in the checkbook, but never posted on the computer - again much time wasted which would have been done much quicker and more efficiently if it had been done right and complete the first time.
So today I went to do the bank reconciliations for the other organization. Not much activity. Again, items were not posted to the computer and had to be figured out including listing dues checks collected in the notebook in which I keep track of incoming money for the group. (I also have a similar notebook for the other group.) Again, nothing that made a problem, but what should take less than 10 minutes took almost an hour. I am, however, missing a bank statement for a CD and will have to get a copy from the bank. Was it lost by me due to stacking all the bank statements and putting a rubber band around them until I could do it? Was it lost by the post office - possible as we are having a problem with mail not getting here? I have no idea. If I had been more on top of everything I would know which case it is.
I was lucky. No checks bounced. No deposits were lost. Just time wasted trying to get everything done.
So what have I learned and want to pass along to you? When you start doing something - finish it. Don’t put off the rest of it unless there is really something more important. Make sure if you do stop you leave off at a spot where you can stop without a major problem and get back to it as soon as possible. Especially with money it is important to keep records up to date.
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