How do you people who own hosting companies, organize the bills you pay monthly, Such as Rent,Internet,Advertising,Phone,etc? It gets confusing to pay each bill and on time. whats your method?


Thanks ;)

My Process: Bill Arrives - Open Bill - Feel Sick - Enter Received Bill In QuickBooks Pro Accounting Software - Print Cheque IMMEDIATELY or I know I will forget, regardless of how many reminders QB gives me - Put Cheque in envelope - Stick stamp on - Stick in outgoing mail next day.

So, as you can see, normally every bill here is already paid within a day or so of receiving it.

This is a good process if you are religious about keeping your accounting software up to date. I am. Every morning, before I even check e-mail, I spend about 15 to 20 minutes updating everything that happened the day before.

The first business day of every month usually means it takes a few hours due to our monthly billing cycle of our clients.

I agree with that.
Pay bills on the day the come in and it makes life a lot easier.

Also, our database has a function for calculating our monthly income and expenditure at any point so we know how much we need to bring in to make a profit this month.

Gordon

Pay bills on the day the come in and it makes life a lot easier. Easier in some ways but more expensive in others. Depending on the size of your bills, it's often times better not to pay them until they are due. For example we have some BIG BILLS for things like the DS-3s and that money is far better off in our interest earning account than it is in Qwest's et al. It also looks better on your bank account statements (esp when you go looking for lines of credit or anything) to have your accounts well padded. We take just enough money out of our interest bearing each month to pay the bills and we do not do that until they are due. All incoming funds are immediately moved into the interest bearing account.

If you're in the US and you have not already done so, you may want to talk to your bank about a Money Market account as the interest is usually a bit better in those types of accounts while still allowing you to move the funds easily. A lot of hosts have said to me; "pfftt who cares about the interest..." but when small ticket items mean a lot ($5 to $20 a month clients) then interest earned should mean the same as a handfull of clients ;)

As for the rest... we use PeachTree (excellent piece of software) and an accountant. I was THRILLED the day we could finally bring an accountant in. He was one of the best investments we've made!

By paying by return of post we get lots of perks from our suppliers.
We pay our major suppliers by bank transfer automatically.

Its allright for me to say that because we are in positive cash flow all the time and I knbow lots of other hosts don't have that luxury.

The down side of doing it is we have a zero credit rating.
We just don't use credit so we have no history of being able to pay.

Gordon

The down side of doing it is we have a zero credit rating.
We just don't use credit so we have no history of being able to pay. This is a great way to be imho..and is the same rule of thumb we follow however... As time went on we found it difficult to get product in quickly if they had to wait for payments to clear etc. By establishing a line of credit with some of the hardware vendors it becomes easier to obtain product FAST when time counts... We also found it helpful when we leased the location for our Data Center. If we had not of established ourselves with the "Credit Gawds" it would have been far more difficult to accomplish the task. So for some things... it can help to go ahead and allow yourself to establish some credit lines. NO MORE THAN YOU CAN PAY OFF EACH MONTH but a paper trail in that area can help you out later.

I just have them all taken out of the bank account, that way i know they will be paid as long as i have money

we pay everything by credit card

one check per month to the cc company

leaving the accounting to my accountant

our employees work for food- no accounting needed

lots of coconut trees round here, good fishing too

dried up scales on the shared keyboard can get irritating though
:D

Originally posted by miami_g
we pay everything by credit card

one check per month to the cc company

leaving the accounting to my accountant

our employees work for food- no accounting needed

lots of coconut trees round here, good fishing too

dried up scales on the shared keyboard can get irritating though
:D

!!!!!!!LOL!!!!!!!!!

Where is this location, having a place to fish nearby sounds great! And coconuts right outside?

weee

How about hunting?

Originally posted by Scoochy
How do you people who own hosting companies, organize the bills you pay monthly, Such as Rent,Internet,Advertising,Phone,etc? It gets confusing to pay each bill and on time. whats your method?


Thanks ;)

Simple.

1) Everything, (yes everything) gets charged to the corporate AMEX.

2) Get AMEX Bill once a month.

3) Pay AMEX in full by check.

Works well for us because its easy, and we get nice statements keeping track of all of our expenses in one place.

Take care,

Brian

Originally posted by Deb
As for the rest... we use PeachTree (excellent piece of software) and an accountant. I was THRILLED the day we could finally bring an accountant in. He was one of the best investments we've made!

We've just purchased PeachTree Accounting 2002 and will be making the switch to it over the next few weeks. Any tips? :)

.