TAYLYNN | BUSINESS SOLUTIONS

Well it's been a couple weeks and things are moving along with the office renovations. With the craziness of Christmas it's been hard to find time to work on the new office let alone blog about it... But here we are to give you an update! Last time we checked in we had just decided to renovate a new office space and were just in planning stages of the whole process. Since then we've picked the flooring, moved all the furniture out of the room and begun ripping out the old ratty carpet. In case you forget, this is what the room started out looking like: Picking the flooring It tools us a long time to decide on flooring. The carpet that was in there had definitely seen better days and we figured if we were going to use the space as an office carpet wasn't ideal. Its hard to move around on rolling chairs, furniture sinks into carpet and becomes unstable and its just not as clean of a finish as we wanted. After weighing the pros and cons of other flooring o...

We're renovating our office!! Well actually we're renovating a new space and then moving into it. We succesfully run our company out of our homes. Most of the files are kept at Lynnette's house while I take stuff home with me and work from my home office and then bring it back for filing. It's a good system that has been working well for us. That's was until we decided to expand... In the last year and a bit the number of clients our company serves has tripled. Great for business; bad for space management. It was starting to get crazy!! There were to-do piles, not enough shelf space and we were always in each other's way when we were working in the same office. Then we brought on someone to do the filing part-time and it got even more cramped when the three of us were in our tiny office. Then one day my Aunt asked us, "Why is your office in the smaller bedroom when your master is huge?" At first we blew off the idea. Who wants to give up their mast...

  I'll be the first to admit it... I'm not very good at balancing work and life. I can't help it, I love my jobs!! Even if I didn't love what I do, I'm still the type of person that is going to go all in inorder to get the job done correctly. I have a hard time taking time for myself and stepping back to take a breath. In light of recent events I've been forced to realize the importance of having balance in my life. It's not good for my relationships, my work performance, or most importantly my health. While doing research on how to develop a better balance in my life I found most of the information was common sense, yet easily over looked. I wanted to share what I found with you so that you can start having a better work life balance right away and not wait until you're forced to do so. 1. Free time doesn't need to mean time for anyone In today's age of instant gratification we get lost in the idea that if we are sitting still (rea...

Being an entrepreneur can look so glamorous! You get to make all the decisions for the company, you get all the glory of closing a big deal or you get the thrill of expanding the business. On the flip side, you have  to make all the decisions for your company, if a big deal falls through or you expand too quickly there is no one to blame but you . Being an entrepreneur can be a completely liberating but also stressful experience. The trick is to never lose sight of why you started a company and why you continue with it everyday. Don't let the struggle of hard days knock you off your path. People have two responses to stress... Fight or flight. Fighting through hard times is a great way to deal with stress. Get your nose to the pavement and get some results. Don't give up! Flight in the face of stress is not as ideal of a response. Turning your back on stressful situations within your company is not usually going to make them any better. In fact, ignoring a problem usua...

What would happen if you got hit by a bus tomorrow? Who would run your company or take your position? When I talk about succession planning most people say, "But I'm not planning to retire for a long time!" That's ok!! Just because you've taken the time to develop a succession plan and train someone to do your job just as well or (hopefully) better than you, doesn't mean you need to be on your way out the door. Not only could it ease some of your current workload, it will help you be open other opportunities that you couldn't have taken advantage of if no one was in place to take up your position. It could mean early retirement (because obviously you're good at planning for business so you must also be good at planning your personal finances ;) ). Or maybe you do get hit by a bus, or get sick, or a close family member gets sick, or, for whatever reason, you need to take a leave of absence. Do you really want to be worried about who is going to run yo...

Ask anyone, when I was a teenager I was the most empathetic person you would ever meet! To the point where it hurt me when others were hurt and I felt joy from others' joy. At one point in my life someone told me being empathetic was for those people that were too weak to tell the hard truth, those people who were push-overs, those people who let others dictate their lives. I was foolish and I believed them... So I started guarding myself against my own empathy for others. Anytime I thought about how they must feel I tuned it out because I thought I could fight the "weakness". Let me tell you, that was one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made on both a business and a personal level. An ability to be empathetic is NOT a weakness. It is one of the most widely underestimated super-powers we humans possess! Merriam-Webster defines empathy as "the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings of anot...

    Our clients all have one thing in common – they are too busy being successful to handle their own paperwork. Many of them intended to do their own books but good intentions ended up with a pile of messy papers that kept staring them in the face and causing them stress. As their fiscal year ground on the pile got bigger and the stress got worse. Then we stepped in for a few hours a month and put everything in order and relieved that stress for them. We condensed invoices, receipts and other financial paperwork down to a few short reports that helped monitor progress and growth, showed real profits or losses and aided in planning for the future. We have had clients literally hand over bags full of mashed up papers and beg us to tell them if they are making any money. These people are BUSY! They don’t have time to sit down and sort through paper and figure out software and how to post entries. Set up a General Ledger?! Forget about it! We set up the bo...

We've all done it. We've all set out to do something important - to conquer mountains big and small. Maybe it was a life long dream, or maybe it was something new and we were just discovering the true breadth of our passion for it. And we've all felt those dreams slip away only to be revisited years later when we realized there hasn't been any forward movement on them. Here are 5 steps to help you make and reach your goals: 1. Make sure it's actually a goal. Not every idea that pops into your head is a goal. In order for it to truly be a goal it must pass the "SMART Test". S  – Specific (or Significant). M  – Measurable (or Meaningful). A  – Attainable (or Action-oriented). R  – Relevant (or Rewarding). T  – Time-bound (or Trackable). If your idea passes the "SMART Test" then you are safe to treat it like a goal and move on to the next step. 2. Make sure it's what you really want. Once you've decid...

What constitutes a "small" business  is not always easy to define and can vary greatly between countries. In Australia it is defined as less than 15 employees, less than 50 employees in the European Union and less than 500 employees in the wholesale sector  according to the U.S. Small Business Administration but  500 to 1500 employees in the manufacturing sector. In all cases, to be considered small the business must be privately owned and for profit. Small businesses are more common than we might think. They often take the form of convenience stores, bakeries, delis, hairdressers, tradesmen, lawyers, accountants (and bookkeepers :) ), restaurants, B&Bs, photographers and online businesses. Small businesses are often confused with and in some cases may overlap in definition with "entrepreneurships". (Stay tuned for an upcoming article defining entrepreneurship.) Canadian small business stats Industry Canada, using data from Statistics Canada, divides...

I've been debating starting a blog for some time now... But I couldn't decide what I wanted to blog about. I have so many interests: gymnastics, cooking, yoga, dance, fitness, motivation, travel. The list goes on. I could easily start a blog on any of those things. So I kept trying to decide (I like to plan things before I do it) and then it occurred to me... I'm spending all this time debating what to blog about instead of actually blogging! That seemed the most ridiculous result of all!  So I decided to just do it.  I love business, business planning, corporate literature, economics, small businesses, entrepreneurship, all of it! I have a few jobs, all of which I love in their own way. One of them is running and working for a company I own with my mom and business partner, Lynnette. She started the company many years ago and I always worked extremely part time for her. A few years ago we renamed the company Taylynn Bookkeeping  and became partners. We've been slowly e...