This post is brought to you by CJ Affiliate’s VIP Content Service. While this was a sponsored opportunity from Intuit QuickBooks, all content and opinions expressed here are my own.
I can’t believe we just hit the year anniversary of adopting our 2 year-old daughter, Nella, from the Philippines. We waited almost five years (which felt like an eternity, by the way) for this sweet girl and then, BAM, a year goes by in the blink of an eye.
With the first year of our adoption under our belt, we certainly entered into another season of crazy.
So here’s the short version of how we’ve claimed some of our sanity with four kids and all the crazy that brings: QuickBooks Online.
Plain and simple. But more on that later. Ahem.
To add to the stress (and fun!) of raising four little humans for the last year, we both committed to keeping up with our online businesses and blogging. Being a business owner is one of the best decisions we ever made, but trust me, it doesn’t mean the world of business ownership is easy peasy.
There are days, even weeks that feel like a tornado runs through our house and a lot of the “business” parts of owning our businesses go by the wayside.
With kids rushing off to summer sports camps, travel baseball tournaments and chasing a potty training toddler around in circles… life is hectic.
Did I also forget to mention that Miss Thang’ likes to be VERY independent…
Like when she decides using a cereal bowl for her breakfast is overrated. Yea.
Nella, why you gotta always go sneaking into the pantry? Stick with the toy basket sister.
Along with adoption, starting and building a business together has always been on our bucket list… it’s really something I didn’t know we could do and it seemed so impossible when we started dreaming about what it would look like.
Along with Jeff’s online platform and my blog, we’ve also developed a marriage platform which brings our online businesses to three and counting that need constant attention, record keeping and general finance operations to keep them going.
Cue the crazy needing some attention.
While owning several online businesses has been one of the most amazing blessings to our family, it’s also a lot of work.
Let no blogger fool you, this isn’t a sit at home in yo jammies all day kind of gig.
It’s hard work, day in and day out.
Just think through the amount of receipts and payments we funnel out each month for web hosting, development, freelancers, etc. It’s so much that my head is starting to hurt.
We have money coming in and out constantly and trying to keep tabs on all of it gets CRAZY-TOWN.
Before Quickbooks Online… enter Mandy Rose feeling like a unorganized failure of a bookkeeper.
After Quickbooks Online… I feel like I could run for President.
Errr, maybe not so much President since I am sure the President has a million bookkeepers of his own. But for real, I feel like I finally have a grip on our craziness.
Quickbooks Online is an online accounting software that has really helped us get a handle on our monthly cash flow and business financial needs while reducing a ton of stress and savings hours upon hours of time on how I used to keep track of our bills and expenses.
Because if you’ve never tried to run multiple businesses via excel docs, you’re really missing out. #justkidding
The process to getting organized.
And now, drumroll please… if you’re still here reading (which I hope you are because this is life changing stuff here people), the long story. Because when I say we’ve claimed our sanity back, I’m for reals.
When we finally stopped and decided we HAD to do something, the first step toward finding a solution for all our business accounting seemed pretty overwhelming. With Jeff being a numbers guy we really didn’t want to outsource all of our accounting, but we also didn’t want to get addicted to Excedrin migraine either. You feel me?!?!
I guess you could say we are picky with wanting to keep it all in house, but also because we like to keep tabs on how we are investing into our businesses and what’s costing us a pretty penny each month. Ok, that’s more me than Jeff, but still. Call me Mandy Frugal Rose.
I’m pretty type A and love organization so basically it all came down to creating a checklist to sort through what we needed from an accounting tool. We did our research and I had my color-coded checklist of items we knew we needed, really just to survive and keep up with our businesses.
But after watching some online tutorial reviews and receiving additional info (including a 30 day free trial!) about QuickBooks Online our checklist began to grow… as in we were realizing there were tools we didn’t even know we needed that were available.
A relief right?!
From organizing expenses to tracking our cash flow… plus dare I say it, taxes, QuickBooks Online has made it all seem so doable and without the added stress (or headache medicine). And at anytime if we need additional features, QuickBooks Online has got us covered and we can quickly upgrade our account for a small monthly fee.
We are able to easily navigate to record bills, purchases, and expenses along with running reports, profit and loss statements and more… all from our fingertips with QuickBooks Online.
Making the switch.
Along with the task of finding a management system to aid us in our accounting for all our businesses, the idea of actually using it felt terrifying too. After reviewing a few accounting options, QuickBooks Online was simple. Like the kind of simple that I could do in my sleep or sleep deprived from four kids. #SeeWhatIDidThere?
The navigation is ideal for freelancers and small business owners who don’t want to invest hours learning a new tool, but just want to get organized and have every dollar accounted for.
Anytime I’m confused or wanting to learn a little more, I scroll through the QuickBooks blog or QuickBooks resource center and get the answers I’m looking for. It’s chalked full of all the info and helpful hints to keep us and our business record keeping on track!
Have questions? I’m always happy to share more about how we’re using QuickBooks Online and how in the future we hope to expand that – Just comment below!
In the meantime, head on over to the Intuit QuickBooks website to learn about the the latest promotion ending on July 5th (which has now been extended a few days!) and how you can start claiming back a little of your sanity and make the step towards getting organized today for up to 70% off.
But rest easy friends… because now with QuickBooks Online support, I’ve got more time for wrangling her off of the chair each day and I’ve got peace of mind that our finances for all our businesses are in check!
PS – Here’s that link to a free 30 day trial again!
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