I'd rather lick a moldy iguana carcass than do my bookkeeping + taxes.
(God, could I use a more disgusting example? GROSS!)
But, seriously. I sat down this morning, intent on FINALLY carving out the time to sit down and review my—gag—books, categorize a million transactions, and get together SOME kind of mysterious document to pass over to my CPA, who is growing more and more impatient with monsters like me (because, hi, apparently we shouldn't be waiting until the clock strikes 11:59pm on April 14th to submit this stuff—at least, so I hear ?♀️).
So I logged in, expecting the worst. I mean, I haven't logged into Bench since, like, last year, because of all the commotion with the book launch. I expected there to be all KINDS of mysterious charges I'd have to run around trying to identify (who the hell remembers what VISA DDA PUR TURD BURGLAR means?), and a solid day's worth of thankless, nauseating work, getting it all sorted. (And never really knowing what I'm looking at, half the time.)
Alas, I pushed the button: LOG IN.
And then—by some sort of dark magic—I was greeted with the most delicious surprise!
It. ? Was. ? All. ? Freaking. ? Done. ? Already. ? Expenses, categorized! Books, done! Reports, ready-to-download! Numbers, easy-to-understand! And one tidy little package, called “Financial Package 2019,” ready to be sent off to my CPA. (Or their in-house CPA, if you don't have one.)
I couldn't believe my eyes. It was like I landed smack dab in the promised land of “organized people”—an ancient, mystical species—and bathed buck naked in waterfalls made of brownies. (Liquid chocolate would be too messy; I'd much rather have brownie pieces falling from the sky, thank you very much.)
And then I looked up at my timer, since I time everything I do and how long it takes so I can be able to tell where I'm investing my time and which investments produce the greatest return. Four minutes, the timer said. Four freaking minutes. And I was done. All I had to do was review, download, and send it off.
So! My taxes are done, how 'bout yours? ?
That's why I'm able to email you right now, instead of spending today mired in transactions and paperwork and emotional eating sprees and wishing death to the IRS. Look at all this extra time I have on my naughty little hands! So I figured you might want some, too. (Time, not naughty hands—though who's to say you might not want both?)
So here I am, passing it on. This is a reminder that (a) It's beyond time to get your half-drunk transactions in order, stat ?; (b) You don't have to do it yourself! In a few clicks, you can sign up to have my ride-or-die bookkeepers, Bench, categorize your whole year for you in a jiffy. (Note: For now, you must be based in the U.S.) They are SO FREAKING GREAT. There might be no company I love more. Quickbooks can suck it. So can Wave and Freshbooks and all of those other ones that require you to get an accounting certificate before you can even understand what the categories are. Bench beats all of 'em by about 1,000-fold—all you do is link up your accounts, load in your transactions, and then let them go to town. (Them as in “real bookkeepers” who work behind the scenes like little, magical numbers elves.)
And, bonus? Because I'm, like, their best client (no, really, ASK ABOUT ME, SON), we also worked out a sick deal where readers of The Middle Finger Project get 20% off their first 6 months of bookkeeping. You just have to use this link so their system knows to give you the discount:
https://bench.co/partner/middle-finger-project
And to prove just how much we love one another, look at the adorable pic the Bench team sent me, reading my book! Are they not the cutest?!
I know. They're the best. I'm so happy they do what I do so I don't have to worry about this stuff. ❤️
Anyway, that's it for today! Hope the discount + recommendation is helpful!
Now I'm off to finalize the dates for THREE brand-new live workshops coming your way: one on creative writing, one on sales pages, and one on email marketing. ? I'm so excited. I changed my mind: we're going to be running these as live workshops, first, and then also creating a downloadable version as well, in case you'd rather learn that way. More on these in a hot minute!
OH—and before I forget, today is also kick-off day of my publicity friend's free pop-up group that's going to teach us hacks for getting featured in places like Cosmo, Forbes, etc. I already introduced myself in the group this morning as: “Hi, I'm Ash from Philly, currently in Costa Rica! I run a company called The Middle Finger Project and just published a book by the same name, so here to learn how to hack my own publicity, once it all dies down via the publisher! ❤️” Hope to see you in there! It's free, and while I don't run my own groups, anymore, I will be inside, causing a ruckus.
HOLLA. Happy Thursday!
XO,
Ash