Today my post is not focused on the topic of bookkeeping, payroll, or sales tax issues. I’m writing to tell you a little bit about my office staff and how appreciative I am to have them on my team at Affordable Bookkeeping and Payroll Services.
Technically I started my bookkeeping business in December 2002, but Affordable Bookkeeping didn’t come into existence until 2005 when I opened an office. I had been working from home going to client locations to assist with their bookkeeping needs. Even when I opened an office, I did not have any employees at first. Not until 2006 did I hire my first part-time worker and start to offload some tasks to an employee helping me to process the payroll and/or bookkeeping for clients.
Fast forward to today, and I currently have 5 employees working in the office helping with bookkeeping, payroll, sales tax (and other filings), going through some of my e-mails received from government agencies to see what information we should share with clients, talking with prospects, and more. This year my goal was to be able to get out of the office for at least two weeks so I could visit my daughter living in Taiwan.
My goal for 2015 was to take that trip out of the country and not worry about the business while away, so I had to be able to offload tasks that I was still handling. I surveyed my employees to find out which aspects of the business I was currently doing that they would be interested in learning, and I began to delegate more of my work to them. I’m still sitting behind the desk doing a lot of it, but slowly but surely, the staff is becoming more comfortable with running the company.
This has been a benefit to me twice recently. In June, I left the office for a short trip to Indiana as my aunt planned a family get-together since we hadn’t had one in 4 years, other than my grandfather’s funeral a few months following the reunion. I wanted to be able to go and not log in to my work computer much. I wanted to quickly look at e-mails that came into my box, forward to my staff to handle, and then spend quality time with my family, which I was blessed to be able to do.
The second time this is helping is this week. I found out on Monday a business associate passed away and her funeral was Wednesday mid-day. On Tuesday I found out my best friend’s son was killed in an accident, and in the evening, I found out my cousin’s father-in-law passed away. Such tragic news within 36 hours was a shock, especially the loss of my best friend’s son. I asked my staff to take all calls early in the day as I was still pretty emotional and not ready for interactions. They were gracious to handle any calls until I was able to speak to clients later in the day.
Because my team is already doing much of the work I’d originally handled myself, I know I can be out of the office with my friend helping her with whatever she needs after such a tragedy and feel confident that everything back home is being handled. I can focus completely on her and her husband and not worry about the e-mails or calls I’m missing.
So if you need a company to assist you with your bookkeeping, payroll, sales tax or more, know that I have wonderful employees who can assist you even if I’m not available. They are ready to answer any questions you may have and start the process of taking over tasks you no longer want to handle. Call us today at 310-534-5577 and find out for yourself what an amazing team I have!
