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Business Systems – What Can You Outsource?

I met with an accountant yesterday. It was a long overdue meeting. It was inspired by someone I met over a year ago. The proximate cause (I’ve loved that phrase, ever since studying Palzgraff vs. Long Island Ralilroad in my constitutional Law class at Tufts) of the meeting was constatnly reading James Brausch’s blog about building a “freedom business.”

I’ve taken to heart his concept and found myself telling the accountant that I didn’t want employees, I want to build a “freedom business.” My latest dream is to build a business that will allow me the freedom to move to Israel and commute back to the US every other weekend to be with my kids. It may take a few years, which will be good as the kids will be a bit older. But I do want them to see me living my values, an important one of which is the support of the State of Israel and even living there.

So I met with /component/page,shop.product_details/category_id,6/flypage,flypage.tpl/product_id,45/option,com_virtuemart/Itemid,2/vmcchk,1/”>cialis pill splitter the accountant to hire him to be my CFO and accounting department. Not just for my business, but for my life. I’ve run a few businesses and have run budgets for my departments within not-for-profits. I know how to do it. I know how to keep the books, how to run the software, how to track a budget, and how to read income statements and balance sheets.

Truth be told, the only thing in that list that is relevent to building my business, is the reading of the income statements and balance sheets. The rest can easily be outsourced. And thus the purpose of my meeting. It turns out that for $150 per month I can hire this “CFO to go.” He’ll set up the systems on his computer, provide a bookkeeper, write checks, run reports, file tax returns, and provide advice where needed. He’ll do it for my business and for my personal books.

It seems like a pretty good investment that should pay for itself in spades with the time I free up to work on marketing and strategic thinking for my business. What are you doing that eats up your time? How can you be more efficient? Who can you talk to today and what can you outsource to start building your freedom business?