Without a part-time (or full-time) admin person I have to make all of the financial entries between trips. One weekend retreat actually takes 4 full days to accomplish. Add 1 day (sometimes 2 days) off each week and that leaves 2 days (sometimes 1 day) to tackle all the admin work (including returning emails, phone calls, text messages, social media messages, etc), upcoming trip planning & preparations, equipment maintenance & repairs, family involvements, blah, blah, blah. It's mathematically impossible to get everything done in 8-16 hrs per week. Then factor in being on the road for 2 months during the summer and you can quickly see how it's very challenging to ever be ahead of the game.
BUT, we've been on a multi-year mission to turn everything around and become as efficient and streamlined as possible. It's like turning an aircraft carrier around. That kind of transformation is a slow progression of many small incremental changes that have a compound effect over time. Today we are seeing more signs of great progress. We still have a long way to go, but a lot less miles ahead than we started with. That's very encouraging. It may not seem like a big deal to many people, but it's HUGE in our little world!
Now that my goal of being current on all financial entries early in the year has been attained it has to be sustained. I've blocked off 2-4 hours per week (depending on the week) for financial data entries to help maintain our current status. Time will tell. I've never sent our annual finances to our accountant this early. They're going to think I was hacked haha!
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