How a Carseat Canopy Started My Business (and Why Categorize ≠ Reconcile)

I wasn’t always an entrepreneur—entrepreneurship found me. After my second son was born in 2009, I went back to my corporate job in the finance department at the phone company and realized I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be home.

A girlfriend gifted me a carseat canopy an aunty had made. I looked at it and thought, “This is such a smart idea—and I don’t see anything like it in the market.” I’d gone to sewing school in the summers as a kid, so I figured out the pattern and made more.

I sold them to girlfriends who were having babies, then packaged them for small markets hosted by a baby store in Mānoa. I ordered fabric online (better pricing than local), played with reversible pattern combos, and honestly had a blast.

Did I have a bookkeeping system? Absolutely not. I knew what fabric and materials cost, but I didn’t remember paying myself for labor. Looking back, I loved creating—but without a simple way to sort and match the money, I was guessing. That experience is why I’m so big on clean, plain-English books today.

Categorize vs. Reconcile (plain English)

Categorize = sort the money.
Every transaction goes into the right bucket (income, supplies, advertising, owner draw, etc.). Think of it like sorting laundry: shirts with shirts, towels with towels. Clean categories make your reports make sense.

Reconcile = match the money.
Compare your books to your bank/credit card statements line by line and fix mismatches. It’s the checkbook balance step—making sure what the bank says and what your books say are identical.

Why both matter

• Accurate taxes (fewer surprises)
• Real profit (no fake “expenses” from miscategorized owner draws)
• Less stress (numbers you can trust = faster decisions)

This is exactly what I do for clients—categorize, reconcile, deliver readable reports, and handle Hawaiʻi GE tax filing on schedule.