I'm not super organized.

That's a weakness. Especially when running a business.

But I try to compensate. I like paying experts to do things for me—things I'm not good at—so I don't have to worry about those things.

Mostly, I do it so I can focus on what I'm good at. Focus on what brings the money in, not where the money goes or adding it all up at the end of the month.

That's why I use Bench (bench.co).

Bench is a remote bookkeeping service on steroids. Subscribe, and you get assigned a bookkeeper. You also get access to a cool dashboard that allows you to see how your business is performing from month to month. This works by linking to your bank accounts, and reporting data from there after your bookkeeper has cleaned things up.

What I really like is the way it prompts me to categorize expenses right in the dashboard. I don't have time to take a note of every expense, or photograph every receipt. I'd rather just categorize everything at the end of the month. That's what Bench does. At the end of the month, I get questions about the handful of expenses my bookkeeper doesn't know how to categorize, and it takes me maybe 5 minutes to clear them all at once (rather than having to worry about it for 5 minutes several different times in a given week).

I highly recommend it. Starting a business should be about you hyperfocusing on what you do best. On what brings in money. Not managing your books. Books are a necessary evil. You should not be spending more than an hour a week managing your books. These days, I spend maybe 10 minutes per week, at most. Because of Bench.

Yes, there's a cost. But it's unbelievably low. More than worth it. Anywhere from $100 to $300 per month, depending on your business's monthly expenses.

Of course, Bench isn't perfect, but mostly on account of what it chooses not to do—not because of what it tries, but fails, to do. It's not a full accounting system, and doesn't claim to be. You can't use it to create and send invoices, so tying revenues to particular projects can be a bit of a hassle.

Try it out. Link here.