Resources too good not to share....

As part of building a sustainable business as a solo-preneur, I did a lot of research early this year on how to get my accounting and finances under control.  I found two great resources that I am happy to share with you.

Mark and I are both independent contractors, so every receipt is important when it comes time to do our taxes. I always have felt pretty stressed out about what to do with those receipts and how would I find them when I need them. My research led me to Shoeboxed - an affordable and extremely useful service that scans and digitizes receipts. I just stick my receipts in an envelope and send them off to them and they handle the rest. In a few days my reciepts show up online and I can categorize them to my heart's delight.  There are lots of great features, but they can explain them better than I can - just go to Shoeboxed.com and check out their plans.  They even have a free plan if you like to scan the receipts yourself. I had a back stock of them so I opted for a yearly plan that included an initial scan of 300 receipts (or a combination of receipts, business cards and even documents!)

I was searching for an accounting software solution that I could use on both my Mac and Mark's pc.  I found several good programs that were much more affordable than Quickbooks and easier to set-up and use but most had a fee of some sort and limitations that I wasn't totally happy with.  Then I found Waveaccounting.  I am in love. Wave is absolutely free, connects to all our bank accounts and lets us see our personal and business finances all in one place. (Disclaimer - you must be ok with having all your financial data in the cloud.)

The customer support was phenomenal. I know they're a fairly new business, but they have quite a subscriber base already in place and every question I asked via the support interface was answered thoroughly, courteously and with a real sense that my questions (read I) mattered to them. I hope they build a much more rich FAQ and/or support forum in the future, but I had no problem getting the answers I needed from Ehab - my main support contact.  They also love getting user feedback and suggestions - which I enjoy - I feel like I actually get to have a voice in the way the product is shaped. It's the solution I've waited a long time to find!  To find out more go to: www.waveaccounting.com