Day 2 of my office being open and I didn’t go in there today at all.

Today, I just had to take a moment to get caught up on several things I’ve been putting off.

I have been doing bookkeeping since this morning. It really needed done. I didn’t realize that I’d already done a breakout for some advertising reports and I’d written up the instructions for it. If I’d known that, I probably wouldn’t have let those get as far behind as they were. There was also a lot of sorting, and I have a lot of scanning to do. But that will all wait until later, maybe while I’m listening to workshops or something.

I also had to build or rebuild some Power Queries to collect data for PowerBi, which I use to simplify my bookkeeping. I believe I started working on it this time last year. It’s amazing how much it simplifies data entry. I’ve actually been fairly current with entering the data that runs through PowerBI because it’s so simple. Yes, there are steps to go through, but it’s so much simpler than the old way I was doing it line by line from statements with an on-screen ruler. I actually watched a video last night and found a way that I probably could have combined all my reports into one folder and got them all streaming into PowerBI, but this way still might be better. At least for now. Maybe when Amazon decides to change the format of their statements (again! Yes, it will happen at some point, I’m certain), then I can consider a more sweeping format for them all. For now, this works. Now I must get started on 2022 statements, which are now starting to roll out on some sites.

Overall, I’m happy with where 2021 ended up. It could have been better (as it always could be), but considering how 2020 was a dismal year, it was good to see some recovery in addition to the effects of continuing to build. I am very grateful for everyone who buys my books or my artwork. Having someone turn over their hard-earned money for something I have worked on is very humbling. I don’t take it for granted.

I probably do go a little overkill with my bookkeeping, but I like to have many ways of looking at the data for business planning. It always makes me a little sad when people obviously don’t understand their business (and it’s not just creative people). I do also consider myself lucky to not only have training as a bookkeeper, but to have worked for a CPA firm where I saw many different ways of handling transactions, and also to have in interest in bookkeeping. It probably makes me a little weird, but I’ll take it. I just have to be a little more organized and not let certain aspects get away. That sounds like a lot of my life.

Tomorrow it will be back to creating.

Until then, happy adventuring.