5 Financial Tasks to Avoid Delegating

“When I’m rich my people/team/staff/spouse will handle the money.”

Those are the famous words uttered by success-seekers heading blindly towards disaster. It may be slow to come but the day will arrive when their laissez-faire attitude towards handling money will slap them upside the head.

I remember an attorney telling a story: “I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that my accountant stole $400,000 and the good news is that I didn’t even notice!” Yes it’s a bad joke about how much money he was making, but theft like this happens ALL THE TIME. Really, you would be shocked by how often. You wouldn’t believe the bad behavior by accountants, bookkeepers, assistants, managers, partners, and even spouses.

While we teach you how to do everything yourself, once you understand and set up the system, we’re not opposed to you getting some assistance with it (the operative word here is “assistance”, not “hand-it-over-to-someone-and-never-look-at-it-again!”)

So without further adieu here are the 5 tasks that you’re best advised to handle yourself – since no one (and I really mean no one) cares about your financial well-being the way you do (even if their income depends on yours).

1. Spending – maybe you don’t need to approve every penny but you’ll want to keep an eye on how much of your money other people are spending. You may want to require your pre-written approval for any purchase over a certain amount. Perhaps a staff/family member needs to email you what they’re purchasing, from who, and why and get your approval if they need to purchase something over a certain amount. I heard Oprah requires a personal signature for any check issued on her behalf over $75K… no this is not a suggestion that your ‘certain amount’ be this outrageously high… unless you have Oprah money 😉

2. Signing checks – No stamps! And require that the check preparer paperclip the check to the invoice that the check is paying so you can verify that the check is covering your expenses and not someone elses. (A lot of bookkeepers get their bosses to cover their own personal expenses when the boss doesn’t require this).

3. Reviewing monthly financial documents – these sound horrifyingly boring but once you understand the story that those numbers are telling you, you’ll love “hearing” from your money- about what’s going well, what’s not, and even what’s ahead.

4. Collecting receipts – I mean, you could hire a shadow to be with you all the freakin’ time but unless you like someone being thisclose to you, you can probably do the dirty work yourself on this and just collect the receipts as you purchase.

5. Determining your yearly budget – eventually, the day will arrive when this is fun, lo juro (I promise ;)! This is where you get to decide, in advance, how your money will serve you, help you realize the life you desire and have it express your values.

Easy enough, right? And your money (and sanity) will be sooo much healthier!