By paying your bills on time, you can make sure you don’t put unnecessary strain on your relationships with vendors and contractors. The people you work with hold you to a higher standard when you promise the return of payment. If you don’t meet that standard, they might think you are an unreliable partner. Here’s a recipe for paying bills weekly (and keeping your vendors happy). Bon Appetit!

Before we get cooking, here are a few helpful hints:

• Create a policy outlining the cycle. This should cover what you expect from both your bookkeeper and yourself at each stage of the cycle. Include rules for collecting bills, email confirmations between the bookkeeper and yourself, and how to handle bills that are in question.
• Tell your vendors your policy. Let them know what day a week you make your payments on so there isn’t any confusion or anxiety.
• Establish an inbox for bills. It can be an email account or somewhere physical, like a bin on your desk labeled “bills.” Share them with your bookkeeper once a week.

If you’re ready to cook up your own perfect process for paying down your loan weekly, let’s get cooking!

Paying Down Your Loan Weekly

Essential ingredients

• Bills
• Email account for bills OR a bin on your desk
• Accounts payable system
• Bookkeeper

Optional ingredients

• Diligence to keep the cycle going
• Motivational poster in the office
• Reading glasses to see those small numbers
• A stamp that says “approved” and a few fun ink colors

Directions

1. Choose one day a week to have your bookkeeper enter all bills from the previous week into your accounts payable system.
2. Later that day have your bookkeeper send you the updated accounts payable aging listing. This shows you what bills are due and what bills are past due.
3. Take the next day to review the listing and mark which bills you would like to pay. Remember to prioritize bills that are past due. If they’re more than 30 days past due, they should be paid ASAP.
4. Send the approved bills back to the bookkeeper and have her review the bills and do a check run. Have your bookkeeper send you a confirmation email when she sends the checks out.
5. Repeat each week.

At Pretty Books, we are always whipping up new and helpful ways to keep your business moving. While there are tons of ways to prepare these processes, we believe that this one is the best. Enjoy!