I once took a daylong course called "Accounting For Non-Accountants." The CPA who taught the class said business owners don't need to do all of their own accounting, but they do need to know what is happening with their money in the business. He said that the biggest mistake business owners make is to hand over the accounting to someone else.

Very often, business owners treat money as a distraction from their businesses. They got into business to do something they love and don't want to pay attention to their finances. In addition, often people act on the idea that, if they do what they love, the money will come.

I once heard a charismatic speaker talk about money in his business. He talked at length about his office manager who took care of his finances for him. He said that he was so grateful that he didn't have to think about money at all, and was free to do what he loved to do. He lavished praise on his office manager for her ability to take care of the money for him.

Less than a year later, I took another seminar with the same charismatic speaker who talked about how heartbroken he was. He had recently discovered that his wonderful office manager had embezzled more than $1 million from him. This brilliant speaker had made the mistake so many business owners make. He had handed over complete control of his finances to someone else, thinking that money was a distraction from his real work. In the process, he missed the fundamental difference between a hobby and business.

The IRS makes the difference between a hobby and a business clear. The primary function of any business is to make money. You can do what you love and forget about the money if you have a hobby. If you have a business, not paying attention to the money is the shortest path to business failure.

Isn't it odd to think that the primary reason to have a business is to make money, and yet many business owners don't want to deal with the money?

From this perspective, it seems very shortsighted to hand over control of the money to someone else. If you are in business to make money, the money is the most important part of your business. The opposite temptation is to get so involved in taking care of the finances that you have no time or energy left over to do what you love.

So what do you do about the money? Money is the lifeblood of your business. And knowledge of money is power. When you give up control of your money to someone else, you're giving away your power as a business owner.

There is no royal road to business success that will allow you to simply hand off all knowledge and responsibly about money to someone else. At worst, you will become victim to embezzlement or incompetence. At best, you will never feel in control of your business, because you don't understand what is happening with the money.

So what is the solution? The solution is to understand clearly that control of the money coming in and going out of your business is your responsibility. You don't have to get involved in doing the details of bookkeeping, but you do need to understand the data. If you are in business, your business exists to make money.