Tip # 1: Keeping PayPal Transactions Straight

I have several accounts that my customers use to make payments to me. The biggest one is PayPal. To make sure that I know what I have done in transferring money to my bank account, I number each transfer in the “cents” part of the transfer. For example: If I am transferring $100.00 and it is the first one I am making this month, the transfer amount will read $100.01. The next might be $78.02, etc.

Each transfer gets a consecutive number. When they show up on my bank account, I can check easily to make sure that they all came in. I keep a numbered register and enter the date and amount of the transfer and then double-check that against my bank account statement, and then cross it off the register. You can also use the date, but I like the consecutive numbers as I know they should all be there in order, and I will know instantly if one is missing.

Also, I don't let money languish in my payment accounts. I transfer regularly (daily usually) and move the money out of the incoming bank account to my other accounts. I use the Internet incoming transfers account for that purpose only, nothing else appears on that account.

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Tip # 2: Efficiency at the Post Office

I consider myself very fortunate to have very nice people working at the counters at my local post office. I do as much as I can to make their jobs easy, first because I admire what they do and secondly, I want my stuff to get good treatment. Here's one technique that makes my counter time shorter and more pleasant and efficient creating my own postage labels.

I took sheets of sticky labels (Avery makes the best) with 30 labels to a page and a black stamp pad with me to the post office in order to make sheets of shipping style labels. I used the post office stamps for "Media Mail" "Air Mail" "Do Not Bend" "Fragile" and "First Class," and I stamped my labels with these stamps. These are my "originals" that I keep.

I then make photocopies (onto labels, not paper), making as many copies as I need.

I keep the sheets of labels in slots on my shipping table and stick them on parcels as they are packaged. This way, when I get to the window at the post office, it is easy to process the shipments. I sometimes have 30 or 40 packages a day, and if I have to think about each parcel, I feel flustered and confused.

I know you can also get stamps made up, but I like the stickers because if I make a mistake, it can be easily corrected, and those stamps cost plenty to have made up. You can also write your own labels, but I like the post office stamps, and it is what the postal workers are used to.