What you'll find here, who it's for, and how it fits with my Substack.
Some of the most frustrating bookkeeping problems I've helped sort out over the years had very little to do with debits and credits.
An owner looks at an accurate profit and loss statement and can't figure out where the cash went. A bookkeeper sends the month-end reports and never hears a word back. And every tax season, someone is trying to track down receipts that each person assumed the other one had.
Sometimes the books are accurate and the confusion is about what the numbers mean. Other times, two people have been working from completely different assumptions about who's responsible for what.
That gap is what Both Sides of the Books is about.
What this blog is for
This blog is the practical side of Both Sides of the Books. Each post tackles a question I see come up again and again, whether it's about understanding the numbers, working with a bookkeeper, or helping clients get what they need from their financial information.
Why don't profit and cash match? What does a bookkeeper actually need from you each month? How do you explain a balance sheet to a client who's never read one?
The posts are meant to stand on their own, so you don't need to read anything else first. Come back to them whenever the question comes up.
Who it's for
If you own a business, you'll find posts that help you understand your numbers and make better financial decisions, whether you do your own bookkeeping or hire someone to handle it. You'll also learn what to expect from a bookkeeper and what responsibilities still fall to you when you hand off the work.
If you're a bookkeeper, you'll find posts about the client side of the work, like explaining reports, setting expectations, and understanding why clients do what they do.
Some posts are for both, because plenty of what goes sideways happens right between an owner and their bookkeeper.
I've spent more than 25 years seeing where business owners get stuck, all while learning what it takes to build a successful bookkeeping firm of my own. So when I write for owners, I know what their bookkeeper is dealing with, and when I write for bookkeepers, I know what's going on with their clients.
How it fits with my Substack
The blog and my Substack do different jobs.
Here, you'll find practical posts you can look up when you need them. On Substack, I write the longer stories and opinions about what happens between owners and bookkeepers.
If you're new, Start Here: Why I Write for Both Sides tells the story of how this all came together.
You can also get new blog posts by email using the signup form on this page. When you subscribe, you can tell me whether you're a business owner, a bookkeeper, or both. That helps me understand who's reading and what might be most useful to write about next.
