I want to tell you about a client of mine who is a rehabber. A few months ago we sat down to clean up her books. One question I always ask my new clients is "How much have you been putting on your personal card?"
She didn't know. Not really. One of her subcontractors would send a worker to Home Depot for a missing fitting, a box of screws, another gallon of paint. She would just have them charge her personal card because it was faster than sorting out who should pay. She figured she'd catch up later.
When we went back through three months of statements, the number was just over $12,000. Twelve thousand dollars in one quarter!!!! Money she could have billed back to her clients as reimbursable expenses. Money she never saw again because she didn't have a system to track it, and by the time the job closed out, nobody remembered what was for which property.
Another piece that she didn’t think of…. because those purchases were sitting on her personal card and never made it into her books, she wasn't deducting them as business expenses either.
If any part of that story is resonating, this article is for you. Below is what I'd tell any investor, rehabber, landlord, flipper, wholesaler to put in place this week.
- Get a Home Depot and Lowe's Pro account. Today.
This is the single fastest win in this whole article and it takes about ten minutes. Both stores offer free Pro accounts that let you:
- Attach a business card on file
- Pull purchase history
- Tag recei ... Read More…