When you become an adult, it’s no secret that one of the hardest things you have to learn to manage is your own personal finances. Making a budget, learning how much things cost, building your credit, and making big purchases….it’s all pretty stressful. But if you are a small business owner, too, then you know that takes your finances to the next level of complicated.

Yes, having to keep track of your own money and then your business’ money is just plain exhausting. So, you might be tempted to just combine the two to make it easier. After all, you’re the business owner and it is your money being poured into the business. But we’re here to tell you that no matter what your situation is, it’s pretty much always going to be smarter to keep your business and personal finances separate.

Obviously, when you start your own small business, you’re likely going to be using some of your own money to get things started. But it’s still important to keep your personal finances separate from the business’s finances, if for no other reason than to stay organized.

When you separate the two into different bank accounts, credit cards, and budget spreadsheets you can see a lot better just how much money your business is bringing in and how much it’s requiring you to spend. Having separate accounts will allow you to track your business’ cash flow a lot easier as well as keep your business accounting simpler than if you had to sort through different transactions to determine whether one is personal or business.

It’s a known part of life that eventually, one way or another, death and taxes will come for you. And while taxes might not seem so bad compared to the alternative, they get a whole lot more stressful when you become a business owner. And doing taxes for your business is especially frustrating when you don’t have separate accounts for your personal finances and your business’.

On the other hand, when your finances are kept separate, you can easily find all the relevant information you need when filing your tazes, whether quarterly or annually.

Another great advantage to keeping your finances separate is that it can help make legal issues a lot easier to deal with if and when they should pop up. Owning a business means you always have to be prepared for any sort of legal problem to arise at any given time — from copyright issues, an insurance problem, or anyrthing else. And if you don’t have a separate bank account for your business, that’s going to make those legal issues a lot harder to navigate, pay for, and keep track of.

Finally, having a business account separate from your personal account also gives your business a lot more credibility. Clients, customers, investors, and anyone else isn’t going to take you all that seriously if you’ve still got the same bank account you used in high school or college to pay for your business’ operations. And if you ever need a loan or some sort of funding, a separate account makes you a lot more likely to get what you need when you need it.

It might be a hassle at first, and it might even seem pointless, but creating separate accounts for your business can really set you up for success right off the bat. It doens’t need to be complicated, or even expensive, but it can make a world of difference.