Etta Chase Washburn

When Vidyuth Srinivasan was a teenager, he was sold counterfeit motorcycle batteries by an authorized dealership. "It's a really shitty feeling when you've paid like $200 for something and you've been had," he recalls.

Let's be honest-managing the books isn't the most exciting part of running a business. But failing to stay on top of your accounting can create big problems downstream. Just ask Jodie Heal, founder and president of Heal Accounting, who has seen the costly effects of poor bookkeeping firsthand, and spoke with Inc. about how to avoid the biggest mistakes she sees her clients make. Snowballing One of the worst things a small business can do is put off doing their bookkeeping.