ADHD Entrepreneurs: How to (Finally) Separate Business and Personal Finances
You know you're supposed to keep business and personal money separate. Someone has probably told you this already (likely on repeat), maybe your accountant, a business book, a fellow entrepreneur, or maybe you even heard me say it on a podcast. Any everyone who has ‘told’ you what you ‘should’ do has said it very confidently, like it’s easy-peasy. You ‘just’ do it. And you nodded, because yes, logically, that makes sense. And then you went back to the system you've always had, where everything flows into one account, you feel like you’re flying by the seat of your pants, and you just figure it all out later (sort of).
"Later" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that thought. And if you have ADHD, "figure it out later" often becomes a yearly panic, a scramble at tax time, and a vague ongoing sense that you have no idea how your business is actually doing. So, I’m glad you’re here. I’m going to spend a little time sharing why the separation matters so much (because knowing clearly why is a key step for your brain), and how to actually do it without it becoming a three-month-long project you abandon halfway through.
Why Mixed Money Is Especially Chaotic For Entrepreneurs with ADHD
You Can't Tell What's Real
When personal and business money live in the same account, every transaction is ambiguous. Was that $200 a business expense or personal spending? Can you afford to buy that thing you need for your home, or does the balance actually belong to an upcoming charge for a subscription service that’s essential to your business? Your brain has to answer these questions and do a lot of mental math every single time you look at your account. This is exhausting for everyone, but the cognitive load this adds to your daily life can be a very short path to living in fight-or-flight mode.
Our ADHD brains already struggle with working memory and decision fatigue; this is genuinely exhausting. It's also how "I had the money" becomes "I spent money that wasn't mine to spend" without any deliberate choice being made. The ambiguity is doing the damage, not you.
Tax Time Gets Significantly More Complicated
I’m sure I could leave this paragraph out, so I’ll keep it short. When personal and business transactions are all mixed together, tax preparation becomes a f*cking nightmare that is likely costing you a lot of time, money, and even more mental energy than you’d like to admit! For ADHD brains, dealing with the clean-up is an unstructured, backward-looking task and exactly the type that triggers massive avoidance. Separate accounts will save you a lot of grief at tax time!
You Can't Actually See How the Business Is Doing
One of the less-obvious costs of mixing money is that it becomes nearly impossible to understand whether your business is profitable. Revenue goes in, personal expenses come out, business expenses come out, and the number at the bottom of the month doesn't tell you much. Is the business growing? It creates a whole lot of murkiness! Which is, frankly, not a challenge we need in our lives!
How to Actually Separate Them
The Minimum Viable Separation
You don't need a perfect system today. You need a starting point that works well enough to stick. And is simple enough that your brain only sort-of resists it.
The simplest version:
Open one account for your business
Open it with a financial institution that makes it as easy as possible for you
And Then What?
You’ve got the account open, and you know that isn’t enough so here are your next steps. Again, focus on keeping it as easy as possible.
Move your business revenue into it. Think: how do you get paid, and how can you make those payments go to your new business account?
Next up, how do you pay your business expenses? What is the easiest way to move them to your business account?
Instead of setting yourself up for failure by trying to move them all right now, do one week at a time. Look back at last month and identify what business expenses are coming up in the next 7 days. Focus on moving those.
Then do the same thing next week, but add a phone reminder or whatever system best helps you to remember things like this.
Once you think you have them all moved, wait a month, and then do a quick check to see if there are still any coming out of your personal account.
Full disclosure, I have typed and deleted so much more because I want you to keep going to make your financial life easier, but I don’t want you to add even more to your plate, so I’ll end it with a few parting thoughts on what to look for when deciding on an account for your business. But, if you’d like to learn more about managing your variable self-employment income, I’ve got you!
What To Look For In A Business Account
Ease of access. What do you need your business account to do for you? Do you deposit checks, cash, or do you need to get change? Make sure the financial institution you pick can do what you need it to.
Easy transfers of $ to your personal account so you can pay yourself for all your hard work
Location, location, location. Online can be great for many entrepreneurs, but if you need in-person support, location is important.
Cost. I put this at the bottom of the list on purpose. While it’s an important factor, if you choose a low or no-fee option but it’s a pain in the ass and doesn’t do what you need it to do, you’ll end up using your personal account for everything again; let’s not do that!
About the Author
Sherry is a financial coach who works with entrepreneurs, freelancers, and self-employed folks with ADHD who are ready to stop letting their business and personal finances run them, and always feel like an emergency. She has ADHD and runs her own business, so she gets it in a way that generic business finance advice usually doesn't. Let's chat!
