If you work 40 hours a week for some body else, that's okay, but if you work 50 hours a week, maybe you should be working for yourself." So says Margery S. Davidson, owner of two businesses, and daughter, spouse, mother and sister of entrepreneurs.

In addition to running her own accounting practice plus consulting enterprise known as Business Development Team Inc., both of Aberdeen, Davidson is an enthusiastic member in NJAWBO, the New Jersey Association of Women Business Owners. "When I went to my first meeting, I saw a room full of women, all business owners, and I said, "This is where I have to be." As an accountant, Davidson says her colleagues tend to be men. "I didn't know women business owners, except clients." She says, "and there's a difference. With clients, there are areas you just don't touch."

Davidson conducts business training seminars for NJAWBO and is the organization's incoming vice president if finance. She speaks on "It's Time for Your Business to Grow Up" and "Profit Focus" at the organization's conference, which runs from Wednesday, April 25, at 3 p.m. through Friday, April 27, at the Doral Forrestal. Cost: $750, including room and meals. Call 732-560-9607.

A member of NJAWBO for five years, Davidson says the best part of the experience for her comes as members sit around the table at monthly dinners. "Any questions or concern, there's always someone who has just hired a first employee, or is looking for insurance." Beyond informal advice, she finds the organization provides rich opportunities for acquiring - and - selling services. "When I opened Davidson's Business Development, within hours I had a logo, printing, a website, five different things. I just called these women." She also recommends NJAWBO contacts to her clients. She likes the idea that she is able to suggest a whole range if business services to them from personal knowledge.

While she revels in drawing on the experience of fellow women business owners, Davidson also has a rich background of business savvy within her own family. When she was growing up in California, her father owned an electrical contracting business. Her brother owns an automatic transmission business in Nevada, and her sister, who started out selling crafts from her home, now owns a California-based bookkeeping business. Davidson's husband James J. Nelson, owned Aberdeen Electric for many years, until he sold the company three years ago to join her CPA firm, doing back office work and handling personal income tax clients.

Davidson was working as a bookkeeper when it occurred to her that she was well able to do everything the CPAs did. All she lacked was "the piece of paper," so she went back to school to earn it. "It was the most frightening thing I ever did in my entire life," she says. Giving up the independence that goes with a paycheck was hard, and so was walking onto campus and "looking around, trying to find someone as old as I was."

Davidson was in her 30s then, and started her quest for a CPA at Brookdale Community College. She transferred to Rutgers, which she found even more intimidating. "Rutgers, that was mainly young kids," she says. "I heard them talking in the lunchroom: 'My parents say it's either work or school.' I wish I had that ultimatum." She preserved, started a bookkeeping business while earning her Rutgers accounting degree (Class of 1983). For the next two years, she fulfilled the CPA requirement of working for a firm for two years. During that time, she hired people to keep her business running, working at it herself on nights and weekends until she earned her CPA and could return to it full time.

In working with clients, Davidson soon began to detect a common thread among those who own businesses. "There's so much they don't know," she says. "Simple things, like how to keep books, and what things are tax deductible." She found herself spending a great deal of time providing tutorials. "I started charging," she says. "And they were willing to pay." And so another company was born. Last year, Davidson formally broke her business development practice away from her accounting practice. Davidson offers this advice to new business owners.

Beware the partnership. "When businesses fail, most of the time it doesn't have to do with financials," she says. "Most times it doesn't work out because people go into partnerships." Whether it's a spouse, friend, or a stranger, inviting someone to share your business dream can be a disaster. The problem, she says, is simple, and oh-so-human: "I want to take it one way, and you want to take it the other."

Asked how her business has avoided the pitfalls of partnership, she reveals the second key: "There's one boss, and that's me." Just one person can be in charge, she says. The job can rotate, with each partner taking the helm six months or a year, but for each time period only one person should be making the decisions for the business.

Lean to keep the books. Three to five years after a business opens, its owner is working 12-hours a day. That, Davidson says, is no time to learn accounting. By contrast, "new business owners have more time than money," she says, and need to be spending some of that time on learning bookkeeping basics. Having seen her fair share if shoeboxes crammed with a mélange if receipts, bills, and canceled checks, Davidson observes the total ignorance of the financial side of running a business is rampant. The shoebox non-filing system costs all business owners big, she says, particularly at tax time.

Bookkeeping is especially important for businesses with seasonal dips. By writing down all expenses in categories and keeping track of what checks come in when "they can know when a bad season is coming," Davidson says. Keeping track of financials will also allow busy entrepreneurs to see if their businesses are growing from year to year and by how much.

Davidson suggests business owners do their own bookkeeping in the beginning, and outsource it as they reach that busy three to five year mark. Then, when cash flow grows to a point where there is enough to support staff, it is time to bring accounting back in-house. Even then, however, she urges business owners to retain control over bookkeeping functions. The bookkeeper should not have access to all the company's funds, she says, but only to the amount that is required for the month's operating expenses.

Take a paycheck. Some business owners put every cent back into the business, thinking 'I'll take what's leftover.' Bad idea on a couple of counts, Davidson says. "What's left over is profit," she says. "That is what you use when you want to buy a new computer." Business owners who do not write themselves a paycheck often end up resenting their company, she says. "Pay yourself, even if it's only $25," she says. "It feels so good to get a paycheck."

For Davidson, surrounded as she is by business owners, the choice of an entrepreneurial life is a no-brainer, but she knows it is not for everyone. When her husband decided to join her business, he sold his electrical contracting business to her son. "He worked for the company for 18 years. He wanted to take it over. We thought it would be perfect." It wasn't. Son and grandson of entrepreneurs that he was, the young man lasted all of three months.

Turns out, Davidson says, he wanted a paycheck every week, and when he finish work at 5, he wanted to be really finished. It's not that way for business owners, she says. There are always calls to return, and invoices to write out, and employee problems to be resolved. "Running a business is the job you do after you finish your job," is how she puts it.