Do you find yourself awake at night staring at the ceiling asking yourself over and over why you chose to be a small business owner? It’s one of the hardest jobs in the world, and you may be all alone with no safety net. But if that’s your situation, don’t give up. Instead, consider how a qualified small business accountant can help you manage your stress and live better.
Stress and Small Business Owners
Work-related stress affects everyone and has negative consequences
Health
Stress is often considered the silent killer. Unlike intentionally harmful actions (smoking, drinking excessively, etc.) stress continuously puts pressure on your body and wears you down without realizing it. Common physical symptoms of stress include headaches, insomnia, and high blood pressure.
Personal
The saying “don’t bring work home with you” exists for a reason. Balancing your work and personal life is good for your mental health. Those overly stressed at work often can’t let it go, bringing their problems home and taking out their frustration on friends, family, and loved ones.
Professional
Stress can transform you into a different person, one who may be irritable, anxious, or angry. These psychological changes can hurt your professional relationships and lead you into bad decisions.
Stress levels have been increasing
According to this gallup poll, 51% of male and 62% of female small business owners experience daily stress, up from 45% and 38%, respectively, before COVID. Being a small business owner is hard enough in good times, and these are not good times.
Tips for Managing Work Stress
Recognize what is working well
Not all is doom and gloom. Your business is still running, so you’re doing something right! Focus on the positives and keep improving. Take pride in what you’ve built and the difference you’ve made.
Build a schedule that includes personal time
As mentioned above, balancing your work and personal life is important. Most small business owners work 24/7 because everything falls on them. Before you assume that’s the case, build a schedule that incorporates both business and personal commitments. Are there opportunities to disconnect from work that you haven’t realized?
Prioritize your time
If you build your schedule and do in fact have work 24/7, consider how you’re spending your time, and prioritize what matters most. This is also where financial statements come into play. Could you stand to work less, cut a few costs, and be happier making the same or less money than before? Have you grown to a size where you can and should be delegating more responsibility?
Identify your stressors
Can you put words to what’s stressing you out? If not, consider these 10 causes of stress for small business owners, and how to cope.
Some causes of stress are harder to address than others, but there are seven identified in the report where outsourcing some work to a qualified small business accountant could be the solution you need. Check out how these solutions could work for you.
1) Admin
Delegate the paperwork to a professional. The right business accountant is ready to help you with payroll, work comp audits, HR issues, you name it!
2) Feeling Responsible for Company’s Success
You need an expert in your corner to listen and bounce ideas off. Stop talking to yourself and speak with a trusted business advisor monthly about where your business is at, where you’re going, and the things that matter most to you. A business accountant can give you the perspective you need.
3) Compliance
Odds are you’re not staying up to date on the most current Federal and state business and tax laws. Teams of business accountants, consultants and advisors all need to work together to stay on top of these dynamic items. Trust a certified professional to learn about those changes and deliver insights on the items that actually affect you.
4) Overhead & Expenses
Review monthly financial statements compiled by a professional and clearly see where your money is going. Investigate variances and make changes to protect your bottom line.
5) Filing Taxes
Don’t stress about tax season. Receive proactive tax planning and make adjustments before the year is up so there are no surprises when April 15th rolls around. Trust the experts to file your business and personal returns accurately and on-time.
6) Time Management
Delegate, delegate, delegate! There’s never enough time in the day, so don’t waste it on accounting, tax, or payroll when your local small business experts are here to help.
7) Multitasking
Multitasking rarely works. You think you’re being productive doing so much at once, but odds are something is not being done well. Work with a professional small business advisor to establish processes and procedures, such as using a standard chart of accounts to code transactions, and submitting your accounting records by the 5th of the following month. Building these processes into your routine will free up time you never knew you had, allowing you to stop multitasking and give full attention to the task at hand.
Working with Haworth & Company, Ltd.
We don’t like to see stressed small business owners, so we’ve built programs to take that stress away. We want to work with you every month, compiling financial statements to give you the information you need, discussing the good and the bad, and helping you sleep at night. Join our EZ Payroll program and never worry about payroll, payroll tax returns or W-2’s again. Send over any work comp audits, sales tax audits, or IRS notices, and let us help you file your business and personal tax returns as well. We strive to be the best small business accounting firm in the Twin Cities and Rochester, and we’d love to show you how our processes and procedures help our clients succeed at tailored prices they can afford.
