Mastering Work-Life Balance: Essential Tips for Traveling Bookkeepers

How do you manage your traveling as a bookkeeper? Whether traveling across the state from one client’s office to the next or taking your business with you across the world on a personal trip, you can stay organized if you have the right tools. In fact, this is critical for healthy work-life balance for bookkeepers.

The Importance of Work-Life Balance for Bookkeepers

When you have a robust strategy in place to manage your business, one that does not take away from your personal life, you can do a better job and improve your quality of life. Work-life balance for bookkeepers offers numerous benefits, including:

• Better physical health
• Improved productivity
• Reduced risk of burnout (which often leads to mistakes and bad communication)
• Improved creativity, including better problem-solving skills
• Improved mental health and overall quality of life

For bookkeepers time management is nearly always a big factor in this process. You need to be able to manage your time effectively when traveling for work so that your personal life does not suffer as a result.

Building Work-Life Balance for Bookkeepers on the Road

Let’s say you are traveling for work. That often means you are picking up fast food as you go from meeting to meeting. If you are traveling any length of distance, you may not be taking time off from work at all but just focusing on the tasks at hand. When it comes to bookkeepers time management strategies, it’s critical to see the value in providing yourself with a break.

These strategies can help you to have a better balance in work and personal time while you are on the road:

• Create an itinerary. Instead of just hitting the road and hoping you are going to meet the objectives desired, create a detailed itinerary. This allows you to have a clear view of when you need to be at various locations. It also allows you to keep that work-life balance for bookkeepers in place.
• Create checklists that help you focus on what you need to do. In the days leading up to your trip, make checklists of everything you must do or remember on the trip. This could be client-specific, date-specific, or just notes about a place you want to stop for a break. Checklists make it easier for you to stay on top of things when you are out of your normal work environment.
• Schedule downtime. A part of building work-life balance for bookkeepers and other financial professionals is to book time off. If you have a full day of meetings, take that hour off for lunch, and make sure you leave your laptop in the car. The goal here is to give your brain a break from the intensity you are facing on a routine schedule.
• Be ready to problem solve. One of the most challenging aspects of bookkeepers' time management is actually being able to problem-solve when a delay or concern pops up. If your client is late, there’s traffic, or there’s some other delay, you have to have a strategy for getting back up. Have an idea of what steps you can take if you suddenly lose internet access, for example. By having this thought out in advance, you minimize the risks moving forward.
• Manage your finances on the goal. As a bookkeeper, you know the value of careful expense management but don’t overlook that from a financial standpoint for your own business. There are numerous apps that can help you to better track expenses while you are on the go, even tracking as you scan your car or arrive at a hotel. It is an excellent decision to put one of these tools in place so you are always clearly managing your business expenses separate from your personal expenses.
• Focus heavily on time management apps. They have work-life balance for bookkeepers, you have to pull in more of the time you’re giving away for free by working when you’re not getting paid. To do that, track the actual time you are spending on the job, over the phone, or working on client projects. Use an app to help you monitor how much time you should be billing for.

These tools and steps can help you to make better use of your time and allow you to get the work-life balance you need. However, this can only occur if you have the right tools in place to help you.

Invest in Qbox by CoralTree for the Support You Need on the Go

One of the biggest obstacles many bookkeepers and other financial professionals struggle with while they travel for work is staying connected in a safe and effective way to their clients. Having access to your client’s QuickBooks, for example, while you are on the go allows you to work anywhere, even if you decide to stop in for a late afternoon drink on the road.

There are numerous reasons why you’ll want to consider Qbox from CoralTree for this particular objective. As one of the best financial management tools for small businesses like bookkeepers, Qbox gives you the information and tools you need to manage your company on the go. Consider some of the features that this tool can help you to achieve while you are working on the road.

Share and Collaborate with Ease

Many times, bookkeepers find that they will “talk at the office” with team members. Yet, that drags down the amount of time you are spending working. The good news is that with this tool, you can collaborate with multiple users and share files at any time from anywhere. This is critical for bookkeepers who use programs like Excel, QuickBooks, Word, MS Access or PowerPoint. It allows you to not just share easily with those you need to, but it also allows for the process to happen automatically, saving you time and money.

Also, note that it also locks the file for you. This allows you to protect the information so that it remains accurate and up to date.

Share QuickBooks Attachments

When it comes to bookkeeping time management, you also have to consider the value of sharing attachments in an effective manner. With Qbox, that is easy to do no matter what the file format is. For example, it allows you to share PDF, PNG, JPG, XLS, and DOC files without delay. You can do that as an attachment in QuickBooks or as a separate document, depending on the needs you have.

Security at its Best

One of the biggest concerns for anyone traveling for work, especially when they have sensitive information to share, is the lack of security that can infiltrate systems like this. However, Qbox offers robust solutions to minimize this risk. In fact, it incorporates bank-level security into your data files. This provides the highest level of protection possible so that your data is accessible but safe.

When you are traveling, you need tools that support your productivity on the road and do not hamper your ability to communicate with your clients, get work done, or log details as you go. You cannot afford delays or mistakes especially when it comes to data security. With Qbox, you do not have to worry about those common struggles.

Consider How Qbox from CoralTree Can Help Your Business Plans

Creating work-life balance for bookkeepers does not have to be as challenging as it may seem, especially if you have the right bookkeepers time management tools and strategies in place. Make Qbox from CoralTree one of those tools.

Now is the perfect time to learn more about how Qbox can improve your business. Sign up now. New users get a 30-day free trial to see how well this tool can work for them. There’s no risk and so much reward. Check out Qbox now to enhance your work-life balance.