This is one of the most important things that I’m going to tell you to do if you already aren’t doing it. Keep records of your day to day financial activities. Basically, keep a record of whats coming in and going out so you know where your company stands financially. This is one of those things that is very tedious and annoying but very useful in the end.

What I generally do at the end of the day is record how much money I have generated in each affiliate I work with.  Along with the money generated, I keep a daily tab of the money I have sent out to users via paypal, gift, or any other option they chose. My cut off time is normally 12 AM and anything over 12 AM I count for the next day.

I also keep track of each and every business expense as soon as it happens. If I am not by a computer, I simply take my awesome blackberry and email myself the expense I just made as a reminder to record it. Also make sure you record the type of payment you made for that expense (via paypal, credit card, check, etc) and the date.

I do all this tedious work for many reasons; one being to see where my company stands financially. I’m not satisfied with just knowing that my company is making money, I want to know how much it’s making each and every day. This way I know that if the month started off bad, I need to find a way to make it better before the month ends. I never wait till next month to try something new, I always jump on new promotional ideas as soon as I see a slump.

Recording your finances also helps see current trends that are happening. Sometimes certain days are just better than others, sometimes weekends are worse than weekdays, sometimes things pick up at night than during the day. All this information can be worthy to you if you are a smart marketer because you have a general idea of when you will get the most from advertising.

Another big reason I record what I make from every affiliate day to day is because at the end of the month I match up the check amount they send me to the number I have recorded. This way I can tell if affiliates shave or revoke any of my leads. You would be surprised at the amount of times I have gone back and seen my check amount much lower than what I had on record for that month. Some affiliates don’t even tell you if leads have been revoked so it’s always vital to match the numbers.

Lastly, recording all this just makes things easier during tax time. I dread tax time, I rather get my eye lids pierced than go through the hassle of taxes (don’t quote me on that). If I need to figure out how many business expenses I made, I just pull up my Expenses sheet and give my accountant the total. It relieves so much stress having this information right in front of me instead of looking around for it. I promise you that you will thank me during tax time if you take my advice and record all your finances. Use Microsoft Excel, it’s the easiest application to use for records.