Update: It looks like Botkeeper isn’t ready to automate Canadian payroll (or businesses). There have been a number of drawbacks, particularly around payroll. And when payroll isn’t done right, ain’t nobody happy.

Revised plan: My wife has started taking a bookkeeping course at North Island College in Courtenay. She’ll be taking over our books in March. Initially, we resisted this course of action because we didn’t want “all our eggs in one basket” thinking she’d be better off getting another job in a different field, unrelated to Precision Tree. There are some reasons we decided to have her start helping:

1. As the bookkeeper, she’ll have a first-hand look at the flows in and out of the company and can weigh in on spending/decisions from an informed standpoint.

2. I won’t have to do all this alone and will have a partner to help me.

3. Precision gets a specialized, dedicated, bookkeeper capable of keeping our books up-to-date weekly – this is worth paying more for.

4. We can use this to income split legally so we earn more money personally.

I’m also getting my part-time admin assistant to help more on Precision Tree (instead of our other company Lil Worker Safety Gear). We revised our website so all residential contacts flow through her, she schedules my estimates and takes care of customer follow up. My aim is eventually to have my assistant scheduling estimates with an estimator who is NOT me, leaving me to schedule crews. Maybe we’ll even have enough work to justify a dedicated residential crew which she could then schedule for me, taking me right out of the system. I’m sure Beverlee loves hearing that.

The assistant also has payroll experience so we’re training her to take over payroll from Botkeeper using Quickbooks online and Wagepoint. She’ll be able to train my wife to cover for her so we make sure someone is always available to do payroll.