In a survey, TD Bank asked 508 small-business owners what they loved about owning their own business. Nearly all of the respondents — 96 percent — said they loved having flexibility and a feeling of control. They loved spending time with their customers and serving them.

But bookkeeping? Not so much. Almost half of the owners surveyed said that bookkeeping was their least favorite task. And the more time the business owners spent running their businesses, the more they loathed the task — 58 percent of business owners working 60 or more hours a week said that bookkeeping was particularly draining. Handling finances, banking and marketing were also unpopular items on the to-do list of many small-business owners.

The survey didn’t delve into the reasons why bookkeeping tasks gets no love, but I can fill in some of the blanks from past experience.

• Bookkeeping can be hard. Unless you have an accounting degree, you won’t automatically know the first thing about basic accounting practices. You have to learn it.
• Bookkeeping usually isn’t fun. It’s all about cold hard facts — the truth. When you see your business expenses racking up and little income trickling in, it can hurt.
• Bookkeeping can be very time-consuming (especially if you’re new at it.)
• With bookkeeping, it’s easy to make mistakes, and mistakes can be costly.