Keep business and personal money apart - a simple guide
Mixing your own money with the business's is the most common reason owners can't tell if they're making a profit. Here's how to separate them without making life harder.
The SmartBuuks team · 22 October 2026 · 2 min read
Akosua sells made-to-measure dresses from a workshop in Kumasi. Business is good: there are orders every week, customers pay by MoMo, and the apprentices are busy. But at the end of the month she can't answer one simple question: did the business make money?
The reason is almost always the same. The business money and her own money live in the same MoMo wallet. School fees go out of it, fabric goes out of it, a customer's payment comes in, a cousin borrows GHS 200. By the 30th, nobody could tell what belongs to whom.
Why it matters
- You can't see your profit. If personal spending is mixed in, the business looks poorer (or richer) than it is.
- You can't price properly. You don't know what each dress really costs you.
- Banks and investors want clean numbers. A loan application with a mixed wallet is a hard sell.
- Tax gets harder. Proving which expenses were for the business is painful when everything is in one place.
Three habits that fix it
- Open a separate wallet or account for the business. A second MoMo number or a business bank account is enough to start. Every customer payment goes in there, every business cost comes out of there.
- Pay yourself a fixed amount, like a salary. Pick an amount you can afford - say GHS 1,500 a month - and move it to your personal wallet on the same day each month. Grow it as the business grows.
- Record what you take out, even small amounts. If you take GHS 20 from the business for transport home, write it down. It's not wrong to take it - it's just money you've paid yourself.
A good test: could you show someone your business wallet and explain every payment in it?
What about cash?
Keep a separate cash box for the business, and count it at the end of each day. If you take cash out for yourself, put a note in the box with the amount and the date. At the end of the week, record the total.
Making it easier
You don't need to become an accountant to do this. In SmartBuuks, you add your business MoMo, bank and cash as separate accounts. Payments come in, and anything you take for yourself is recorded as an "owner's drawing" - so your profit stays honest and you can still see exactly what you've paid yourself.
The first month feels strange. By the third, you'll know your real profit without thinking about it - and that changes how you run the business.
Your books, sorted.
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