Recently, I had a conversation with an entrepreneur whose business is going through an audit by a government agency. He mentioned that a few years ago, he decided to pay a premium to upgrade his back office administration. That decision seemed expensive at the time, and he was reluctant to do it because of the added expense. But looking back, it’s clear that it saved him a tremendous amount of time and money in this audit, and he now realizes it was money well spent. His clean documentation has been a lifesaver in helping him smoothly navigate the audit. Because he has clean files and documents, he’s been able to quickly answer the auditors’ questions and provide supporting documentation.

To entrepreneurs who’ve found product–market fit and are growing their company, a solid back office to keep paperwork organized and create clean accounting records is important, but its value isn’t understood. As a business scales, an entrepreneur can’t be involved in everything. They transition to running the business using data and numbers generated by the business. If the numbers and data they’re fed aren’t quality, their decisions won’t be quality and the business will suffer.

In the case of this entrepreneur, having clean records is helping him run his business more efficiently with a close eye on profitability and navigate what could otherwise be a painful and costly audit.