Balancing your checkbook isn’t hard to do if you take the time to properly record your transactions (ex: deposits and payments/withdrawals) into your checkbook and subsequently reconcile those transactions against your monthly bank statement.

It should go without saying that maintaining a steady, positive cash flow is critical to keeping your business afloat. After all, if you don’t have the cash, you can’t pay your bills. And, if you can’t pay your bills, you won’t be able to stay in business for long.

As a business owner, you may consider distributing bonuses to employees as a show of appreciation for their passion and dedication to the business and/or to reward employees for exceptional performance and/or achievements. It’s important to remember that bonuses should be treated as taxable income and reported accordingly.

Remember those movies where one of the principal characters is dealing with some financial crisis and pulls out a box filled with scraps of paper receipts. Don’t do that!

As a business owner, receivables (accounts receivable or A/R) are a vital part of your business. If you are not billing or invoicing clients and subsequently, collecting those receivables in a timely fashion, your business will be unable to sustain itself.

A business credit or charge card can be helpful for business owners when it comes to making purchases and paying expenses on behalf of your business. However, it’s extremely important to develop best practices when it comes to managing and using these cards.

If you run a business, you may need to keep some petty cash on hand to cover small business expenses.

Generally, if you are comfortable preparing your own tax returns, are familiar with your tax situation and you don’t have a complex tax situation (ex: you only have income from W-2 wages, interest income from interest-bearing accounts, you don’t itemize your deductions or only itemize state & local taxes & charitable contributions), you should be able to prepare your own tax returns using tax preparation software (desktop or online) from companies like Intuit (TurboTax), H&R Block and TaxAct, just to name a few.

Hopefully, you’ve already started your taxes or at the very least have taken the time to gather your tax documents so you’re ready to go, whether you do your taxes yourself or work with a CPA or other tax professional.

Once your business is on track to “go live” and commence business operations, you’ll need to find a good bank and open a business bank account. To start off, you’ll probably only need one business bank account - typically, a business checking account but as the business needs and requirements change, opening additional accounts may be warranted.