Want to eliminate a lot of stress? Invoice and review A/R & A/P reports on a weekly basis with your team. Too often I speak with owners who have completed a lot of work but haven’t invoiced or collected on those projects and find themselves in a cash flow crunch.

If you review the following items weekly you will always have a clear understanding of where you sit financially. Waiting too long to invoice, or to follow-up on outstanding invoices can often result in the final payment never being collected, since many owners feel awkward trying to collect on a job that’s been completed for a long time. 

Weekly Accounts Payable/ Receivable Checklist:

• Create invoices for work completed in the last 7 days
• Create files for work to completed next week 
• Track incoming receipts per job 
• Follow up on outstanding invoices from the last couple of weeks
• Review incoming payables
• What needs to be paid this week
• What gets paid at the end of the month

Do you avoid reviewing AP and AR...

In my conversations with business owners, there are issues and problems that seem to arise over and over again. They’re the same problems most owners deal with, the same ones I deal with. We found this article by Roberta Matuson to be very practical and helpful - 7 common mistakes business owners make and how to avoid them. I’m all about avoidance when it comes to mistakes! Take a look and let us know what you think. Do you have any other tips to add to the list?

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I've been in business for over 20 years and have seen my share of mistakes made by business owners — many that certainly could have been avoided. Here’s my list of common mistakes business owners make, along with advice on how to avoid following suit.

1. Failure to hire for fit.
Think about a job that you worked in that didn’t work out. Was it because you didn’t have the skills to do the job, or was it because your values did not align with the organization’s?

I’m betting it was most likely ...

Atomic Habits has been recommended to me a number of times so it got moved up to the top of my reading list and it did not disappoint!

In some ways, it’s just really practical. Habits take time. The more often you do something, the more it becomes a habit - whether good or bad.

What makes this book stand out in my opinion is how James Clear says we are to achieve the habits we want. It’s not about motivation, it’s about systems. Small actions over time equal big results.

My 3 biggest takeaways are:

• It’s practical. The framework for creating good habits professionally and personally is easy to understand.
• In order to lead your team well, you need to have good habits. An owner cannot expect his/ her team to have good habits if they don’t model that behaviour themselves.
• It’s self explanatory. Following the methods of the book will allow you more bandwidth for greater productivity in your life and business. 

Right now is the perfect time of year to read this book as it's the be...