Adopting a tech-based solution for your business doesn’t mean you have to abandon your back-ups.
Growing up, my family – which includes my mom’s parents and her sister’s family – took a month-long “vacation” from Sunday dinner from March 15 – April 15 every year. Why? Because my grandfather, a retired military accountant for the Veterans Administration, spread his entire tax kit out across the three dining tables in my grandparents’ home, leaving us nowhere to sit our 12-person gathering. And when my grandmother opened her business in 1982, my grandfather added her business bookkeeping and accounting to that process.
Setting the Standard: Ledger Book Accounting
He’d already spent 1 full day each month meticulously organizing, cataloging, and entering each credit and debit into a practice ledger and then, once satisfied that it couldn’t be more correct, into the official old-school ledger book by hand. But then he’d spend a full month re-tallying everything in the practice sheets, and again in the official month-to-month ledger book before embarking on his annual pilgrimage. That’s what I learned to call it as a child because he spent so much time talking loudly to God, and not always using his nice words.
That pilgrimage took him through the annually revised tax code, completing every possible permutation of deductions so that he could figure out the minimum he owed the government. You see, he and my grandmother made a magnificent business team: she analyzed consumer and market trends and selected the investments and he served as her financial backer and accountant. They always owed taxes as the end of the year but were determined to pay as little as possible.
Building on a Traditional System: First Bookkeeping Software
My grandfather’s system worked so well that he passed it along to my mother, who applied the same redundant (that’s a good thing in accounting, by the way) bookkeeping and accounting system to her business, which she sold in 2011, and continues to use as her base system for managing her own personal accounting.
But while she continued to apply those fundamental GAAP accounting systems to keep everything straight, I was able to convince her in 1996 to start using Microsoft Money to keep better track of her business’s regular bookkeeping and monthly, quarterly, and annual reporting; after all, it came free with her first box-style desktop computer and back then, no one even considered using a professional system like the early Quickbooks for home use.
That first year when she was able to turn in her year-end financials to her CPA for the business taxes, he bought her season tickets for the local college football team. Yep! It was that big a deal to him to have his business clients make the transition from all of that paper that had to again be entered by hand and calculated and corrected in his system before it could be turned into tax statements. But to receive an electronic file on that 3.25” floppy was like winning the lottery, making it easy and time efficient to run the taxes and make room for even more clients and his own business growth.
But that didn’t stop my mom from continuing in her father’s footsteps. The last and first day of each month is a tricky time to call her still and we never have family dinners then because, like her father, she spreads all of the statements and receipts out on the dining table and gets to work – every month without fail.
In 2009, when Microsoft announced that it was no longer developing or supporting Microsoft Money, well, that wasn’t a good day. And since you can no longer download the original program (there’s a replacement program), my mom spends a lot of time and energy keeping her laptop in good shape because when it goes, she’ll have to grow with it to a new accounting package.
The Value in Redundant Bookkeeping
Though she no longer does the bookkeeping for her own business, she now volunteers as the bookkeeper for several small charitable organizations. And when her laptop went kaput, she lost two years of electronic records for those organizations.
After she recovered from heart-stopping fear, she gleefully shot me – her tech-happy daughter – a big, fat “I told you so.” Naturally, I’d given her a lot of grief over keeping ledger books and doing so much work every month when she could just keep it on the computer once.
But if she hadn’t had those laboriously organized and cataloged ledger books, she wouldn’t have been able to recreate the missing two years in a new program to pass on to her successors in those organizations.
The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far
So I’ll let you in on a little secret. For all that I’ve abandoned pencil, paper, and calculator in favor of a cloud system when I do my own personal weekly reconciliation, I’ve got every statement and every receipt neatly organized in an 13-slot accordion file and tucked away in my home office. Just In Case!
CeCe Mikell is the Editor in Chief for Cleaning Business Today, coming to the cleaning industry from a 15-year career as a college professor of communication and business. She also works with several cleaning business owners on business development projects.
Originally published on June 16, 2015 at CleaningBusinessToday.com.
Post view and engagement statistics show that Facebook posts without hashtags perform more than 50% better than posts with hashtags. More than that, the more hashtags you add to a Facebook post, the less likely it is to be seen. Why? Facebook has never truly embraced the hashtag from Twitter, which it sees as competition.
CBT: Originally, your company was named Professional Home Ames, but you’ve rebranded to phClean. What prompted you to change the name and rebrand your company? What benefits or disadvantages have you experienced from the change?
I draw energy by looking at the steps I CAN take and taking them rather than looking at all of the steps I have not taken yet or need to do. I’m also pretty good at not taking things too personally, which helps me not get too bogged down in negative energy. And finally, I avoid dwelling on what doesn’t work and trying someone or something else when my first (or second or third) choice doesn’t pan out like I planned.
In 2014 we added a Quality Assurance manager for four days a week, to check homes, encourage staff in the field, correct problems in the field, re-train as needed. This was the only major change. We also read and promote the ideals in the Jeffrey Gitmer book 
SM: In the past nine years, going from content stay-at-home mom to owning and managing phClean is huge. Hitting $1 million in annual revenue mark is a source of pride for all of us, and keeping it above the line is essential to us now. Managing over 37 people blows my mind. It is a huge responsibility, and I don’t take it lightly. And knowing that we brought one person from tech to trainer to scheduler to being the new Manager of our 2nd location really makes me proud.
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In our third year, we are asking YOU – our subscribers and the users of these products – to vote each month for the “Best of” Awards in a variety of categories: 
It’s not often that the heroes of the cleaning industry are known outside of their association, let alone outside of the company for which they work. But thanks to the power of our connected world, the tale of Patrick Morgan of Sunshine Cleaning Systems went viral in early 2013. So on November 20th, when Larry Calufetti, President of Sunshine Cleaning Systems, introduced Patrick for the BSCAI Employee of the Year Award, sponsored by Hillyard, Patrick was known, recognized, and appreciated for the example he sets for members of the industry, and also for consumers.
Singing about Cooking 