Are you taking care of business?

If we are to succeed in the voice acting business, we must pay just as much, if not more, attention to the "business" part of the equation.

Yeah, there's voice, most of us in this business have one, and yeah, there's acting, most of us are pretty OK in this area too, but the business part, that's where we "creative" types, fall on our faces.

I must confess, I haven't been doing a very good job of keeping track of my business. I have basically been working on the honor system. I do a job, and I wait (and hope) for a check to arrive . . . eventually.

Oh yeah, periodically I might jot down a client name and some dates on a napkin somewhere, but when the checks come in, do I carefully match up my check stubs with my napkins? Am I sure that all my napkins have been paid? Uh . . . not really.

So how do we keep track of the constant, never ending, avalanche of clients that want to send us sacks of cash for our services (man, oh man, talk about wishful thinking!)? Good question, I'm glad you asked.

I just recently learned that Intuit, the makers of Quickbooks, a respected name in accounting software, has made their QuickBooks Simplestart 2008 accounting software available for FREE!

Hey Joe! Did you say FREE??

That's right, FREE. It's not a 30-day trial, it's a full-blown accounting package that you can download and install for free and you can use for as long as you like to keep track of your business.

I am so glad the people at Intuit have done this because frankly, I caught a cold recently and most of my napkins . . . well, that's another story.