133. How to Reduce Stress Levels With Financial Literacy With Crystalynn Shelton

Sara Whittaker 0:00

Raise your hand if finances stress you out. I know so many of us feel this way and understanding our finances was probably one of the scariest things that we faced when we first started our businesses. As scary as it may be. The truth is that understanding your finances is so important because it tells you where your money is coming from, whether or not you're profitable, and what kinds of decisions to make in the future. When we can learn to understand where our money is coming from, where it's going, and how to manage it, everything becomes easier, and your business will probably become more profitable to our guests today. Crystalynn Shelton is a licensed CPA and QuickBooks top 100 Pro advisor helping startups small businesses and million dollar companies take control of their finances, through accounting, software training and consulting. We're talking about this idea of becoming financially literate and why it matters so much long term crystallin breaks down why entrepreneurs often become so stressed about finances and how it can really take a toll on your well being and how to really turn things around and become financially literate so that you can really understand what's happening in your business. And when it comes to finances. If you are somebody who has kind of put the understanding of your finances on the backburner, I think that you're gonna feel super empowered after listening to this episode, and understand the first steps that you need to take to finally take control of your finances. Your Podcast is a powerful tool that serves your audience and your business. But how do you manage it all bring in new listeners, and convert those listeners into customers. That's what this show is all about. Welcome to podcasting for educators. I'm Sara Whittaker, classroom teacher turn podcast manager. And I'm here to help you get the most out of your show, all while making an impact on other educators. Hi, Crystalynn Welcome to podcasting for educators. Thanks so much for being here today.

Crystalynn 2:12

Hello, thank you so much for having me. I am excited to be here today.

Sara Whittaker 2:17

Awesome. I was telling you that we've never really covered this topic of finances and financial literacy on the podcast before. And I know that this is something that a lot of people struggle with. A lot of people in this community call themselves accidental entrepreneurs, they kind of find themselves starting a TPT store or starting an online course or however, they're making their money in their business. And things escalate quickly. And all of a sudden, you've got all of these details to think about when it comes to running a business. And one of those things is finances. And it can cause a lot of stress for people if they don't have much background in knowing how to deal with it all. So I love to kind of start by getting your perspective on what you usually see, is the reason why a lot of entrepreneurs, small business owners stress about finances in the first place.

Crystalynn 3:15

Yeah, it's a great question. A lot of clients that come to me really have this fear of numbers, right? They don't believe they can do the bookkeeping, they don't think that they have enough education or they feel like they need an accounting degree, you know, to do their own books. And that's just not true at all. I would say that this is what I call a limiting belief actually goes back to grade school. And I must admit, back in grade school, I hated math. And I am a certified CPA telling you I could not stand math. Okay, you weren't. But what I realized are basically what I realized with bookkeeping, I ended up taking this bookkeeping class as a junior in high school, when I realized is bookkeeping is not, you know, the algebra and the calculus that we had to do in school. It's literally simple addition and subtraction. And nowadays, we've got accounting software like QuickBooks that does all the heavy lifting for you. And so that's one of the first hurdles that I have to sort of get over with my new clients is to help them understand that you can do this, I promise you, with my help, and my guidance, trust me, you've got this. And so basically, it's just kind of getting over helping them to open up to the possibility that they can do it. But I would just say that that's it. It literally usually goes back to when we were coming up in school, the fear of numbers.

Sara Whittaker 4:56

Yes, I definitely have a personal connection to that. I feel the same And I mean, it totally makes sense. I was also I still don't consider myself a math person numbers still intimidate me. Finances still intimidate me tax season stresses me out. But I love this idea of kind of simplifying things and looking at it as that like, Okay, this really as basic addition and subtraction. So you talk a lot about reducing stress levels when it comes to finances by familiarizing yourself with becoming financially literate. So how do you define what financial literacy is?

Crystalynn 5:37

Financial literacy is really just arming yourself with the knowledge and the skills to help you make informed decisions regarding money basically, right. Whether that's your personal finances, or whether that's your business finances, that's really all it is, is educating yourself on the basics of creating a budget, and or getting in the habit of having documentation, like your receipts and those sorts of things. So you can manage your business books and that sort of thing. And this, like I said, applies to both personal and business. And sometimes it's easier if people start with their personal finances. And then a lot of times once people start with their personal finances, that knowledge and skill carries over to understanding and applying it to the business finances.

Sara Whittaker 6:33

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, too. Because if you're really tracking your personal finances, and you're able to determine what your budget is, and how much money how much money you're working with, then you can also set goals for your business finances and see like, Okay, I need to make this much money or this is my kind of goal amount. Yeah, make.

Crystalynn 6:51

And really it starts with, you don't have to have a fancy program for your personal finances. Even for some businesses, a lot of people start out with a simple Excel spreadsheet. And you're going to get to a point where you outgrow that, obviously, but that's a great starting point. Your budget and they say, Yeah, but then your your money going out what's left? And then how do you plan for that money that you have leftover? Whether you invest it, you save it, you know, or plan for future expenditures, like you know, purchasing a house or a car, that sort of thing? Huh?

Sara Whittaker 7:26

Yeah. So is I know you use QuickBooks, is there anything that like sets QuickBooks apart from other software's that people might use for their bookkeeping? Yeah,

Crystalynn 7:35

so that's a great question. You know, as an accountant and a CPA, I have tried numerous products out there. Yeah. Just for fun. I know. Nerd. Yes, I you know, one of the things that I really like about the QuickBooks products is I feel like it's made for someone who doesn't have an accounting or bookkeeping background. I think that's my favorite thing about the product is, even if you don't know what debits and credits are, you can actually figure out how to use QuickBooks. Is it? Would it be beneficial for you to understand it? Yes. But do you have to have that knowledge? No. And a lot of software that's out there, even me as a CPA, I wouldn't have been able to figure out how to not have the knowledge that I have from having an accounting degree, right. And that's just not most small business owners, most small business owners, they have a great idea. They're passionate about something, they go into business. They're not going into business to do bookkeeping, so they don't have that knowledge, right. And so I would say, I always call QuickBooks the non accountants software, because it's ideal for someone who's not an accountant. Yeah, perfect.

Sara Whittaker 8:52

And when would you and this might be completely situational and kind of different for every business? But is there a point in your business that you recommend like, Okay, it's time to hire somebody to help you with your bookkeeping, right?

Crystalynn 9:11

So the way I look at it is if you can afford to hire someone in the beginning, before you ever make any money, that's what I recommend. The reason why is a lot of people think in the beginning, I'm not making that much money, so I don't need it. And then when things start to take off, I won't say it's too late. But when I make things more complicated, it makes things more complicated and it ends up costing you a lot more because you're more than likely in a situation where I've got to catch up, or I need you to clean up this up because it's a mess. Either way, and if you take the time to hire someone, to set the books up for you, and explain how to manage those bugs properly, then you're just going to be set up from success from the beginning. Now everyone doesn't have the budget to do that right away. But that would be my recommendation. Otherwise, I would just say, I mean, it's really hard to say from one business to another when you can start hiring someone, but I would say as soon as you can afford to, won't be by recommendation. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense mentally.

Sara Whittaker: 10:25

So other than I know, we've kind of you've kind of mentioned some reasons already. But why is it so important long term, that you are becoming financially literate, that you are tracking your finances? Why does that matter in the long run?

Crystalynn: 10:44

So I would say, you know, from a wellness standpoint, a lot of people that come to me are extremely stressed out, it has to do with the fact that they need to bury their head in the sand when it comes to the books, or they're looking this way and pretending like it doesn't exist, they come to a point where either they need financing, which usually requires a set of financial statements, they need to apply for insurance. And the insurance company asks for financial statements, so they can provide rates, or they're just in this mad dash every year during tax season, right to gather everything together. And you know, it's just, it's very stressful, a lot of people lose sleep. And so for me, just for your health and well being, it's important to get the finances under control, and to have a system setup, number one, number two, I would say, having access to detail reports, because they help you with making really good decisions about your business, right and the path that it's going to take. So for example, you know, many small businesses struggle with a lack of cash flow, right? QuickBooks has a tool called cashflow planner. And so what's cool about that tool is it will pull in all of your customer payments that you're expecting and you can do, you can pick the timeframe that for the next week, two weeks, or maybe the next month, and then you can also have a total of all of your expected expenses for that same time period. Now the difference between those is going to either be you're going to have a cash shortage, meaning you don't have enough income coming in to cover your expenses. Or you could have a surplus, right? But either way, if you have information in QuickBooks, you can actually plan for either one of those situations, if you have a shortfall, you can actually decide, okay, which customers can I reach out to? And maybe I have to give them a discount so they can pay early. And that way I get this money before the due date, or, Hey, I'm gonna have the surplus that I wasn't expecting, should we invest this in something, maybe I should put this excess in a 401 K? Or maybe we need to invest in purchasing this piece of equipment, we're going to have the money now. You know, so those types of decisions are empowering for business owners, because they are able to plan, right, it allows them to plan ahead versus you know, they're running around, you're finding out two days before payroll that you're short, right? That is stress. Yeah, yeah,

Sara Whittaker: 13:38

it's all about empowerment. I love how you worded that we, do you recommend updating your books monthly? Great

Crystalynn: 13:47

question. So one of the processes that I have all my clients put in place, and it's something that I do as well is, if possible, I recommend you review your Books Weekly. And when I say review your books, so one of the things that we do is we connect your bank accounts and your credit card accounts to the accounting software, QuickBooks, or whatever you're using. And so there's a banking center that you would go into and review those transactions at least weekly, right? categorize them, you know, hey, this was office supplies, this was meal, etc. So if you're doing that on a weekly basis, that typically it's going to be enough. And then once a month, I actually have the first Saturday on my calendar, I have an hour and a half to two hours, slotted out, I get up, I have my brew my coffee, and I sit down, I might have to review the last week's transactions, maybe two weeks, and then after I do that, I pull up my bank statements. I reconcile my accounts and then I want my profit and loss report for that previous month to see how I did, then I run it for the year and see, okay, how am I tracking for the year? I sit down and do that once a month. And I recommend all my clients to implement that process. Because that helps you to determine how you go into the next month. You know, what are we doing well, and what do we need maybe to cut back on for expenses? What are those subscriptions that I'm paying for that I no longer use? Or need? Yeah, just an example that happened to me. Or an example, I'll give you something that I just discovered. By doing that a couple of weeks ago, I saw a charge on my credit card for it was a hosting charge for my website. Well, mind you, I converted over to Kajabi last year. And I'm not sure if you're familiar with Kajabi. But most of your audience you probably are. Yeah, you know, so my websites on there. It's been hosted on Kajabi for a year. But I had this annual subscription with the old company that I had not cancelled. And guess what, of course, they bill my card. It was 270 something bucks. Yeah, you know. And so right away, I mean, I saw the charge, I called. And I was able to have them refunded because I no longer need the service. I've got someone hosting my website. But those are the kinds of things that people continue to pay. Like you're literally throwing money away when you're not looking at your numbers. And they just get us with these automatic billing.

Sara Whittaker: 16:34

I think about things all the time, and especially because if you like if you want to try out a new program or something and no gacha by doing the like seven day trial, but you have to put your credit card in and then seven days passes and you forget that you signed up for it. And now you're six months down the road and you're paying, you're not even using. I have been there.

Crystalynn: 16:53

Yeah, and that adds up. But people might share it doesn't add up. But oh my goodness, it does. And so that's just one example of the types of things that that you can find. So I definitely to answer your question weekly, if possible. Yeah, if not as often as you can, but then definitely put on the calendar to do that, that review once a month, is what I recommend, because what you're going to find is when January gets here, you're not going to be doing the mad dash for taxes, because you've been looking at your numbers you're in so you're probably maybe updating, let's just say one month, December. And I mean, can you imagine being able to hand over your your books or your reports to your tax person in January? When it comes out? Yeah,

Sara Whittaker: 17:42

I know, I know, life changing.

Crystalynn: 17:46

Actually, it is and in some ways less stress. Yes,

Sara Whittaker: 17:49

yeah. If you can just I love the idea, first of all of putting it on your calendar to whether that is even even weekly, or that chunk of time, once a month, because that's gonna hold you accountable to actually do it. Because you're gonna get that alert that says it's time to do this. Yeah, I have to put things on my calendar, otherwise they don't get done.

Crystalynn: 18:10

That was just You just took the words right out of my mouth. If it's not on my calendar, it's not happening. It's kind of like when my husband and I make a grocery list. And we go to the store, and we kind of home and my husband says, Oh, we forgot this I said wasn't on the list? Well, it's

Sara Whittaker: 18:25

exactly. I write my grocery list paper pencil, and I take my time with me and I cross it off as I go. So it's definitely not coming home if it's not on the list.

Crystalynn: 18:39

Just the little things, but they make a big deal.

Sara Whittaker: 18:41

Yeah, for sure. They add up over time, just like all of those little subscriptions. Yes. So what if somebody's listening, and they really are not tracking finances? They're kind of almost avoiding it. Maybe I know that there are people out there who are probably raising their hand right now. Where would you recommend that they start so that they do become more financially literate, and they are able to track things in both their personal and their business?

Crystalynn: 19:12

You know, there are so many resources out there nowadays to educate yourself about finances, from apps, right like there's mint. That's a pretty good app. A lot of people like that app. And it's it's more based on personal finances, I would say allows you to put in or connect your bank accounts, and sort of categorize everything to see how much you're spending every month and what you're spending your money on. So I can

Sara Whittaker: 19:40

see like, how many subscriptions you're signing up for this you don't need.

Crystalynn: 19:44

Exactly. Or in my case. How many trips to Starbucks do you make in a week?

Sara Whittaker: 19:49

Yeah. Those are the kinds of things we don't want to like actually see on paper. Yeah,

Crystalynn: 19:54

exactly. You're in disbelief like what? But that's a great Good place to start for personal finances. From business perspective, I actually have three resources that I recommend to people who are managing their business finances. The first one is a book that I wrote called Mastering QuickBooks. It's actually in its fifth edition, when it's called Mastering QuickBooks 2023 is the latest version. That is like the most budget friendly resource. It's about 2530 bucks on Amazon. And it walks you through the basics of managing your books for your business, it's a step by step guide, you can set up your books and learn how to manage them throughout the year with just that resource. So I think it's great if for people who you know are very visual and have a lot of screenshots in there, and like to read, that's a great resource. I also recommend the dummies books are fantastic, I love those books. They're straightforward, simple, easy to understand. That's one of the things that I do in my book is I use very simple language, I don't use a lot of technical terms that you know, people who don't have accounting degrees can understand. So it's definitely written for the small business owner with zero accounting background, I would say the second resource that I usually recommend is I have an online course. So I do have created like many of your listeners a product that you can go online, it's called QuickBooks bootcamp basic training, you can access that course 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So it works really great for those who don't have time to consult with me during business hours. But they know I want to learn QuickBooks, it's really step by step, it's me teaching via video, you can pause the video and do what I've told you to do, and then start it up and continue. One of the things that sets my course apart from a lot of courses is you have access to a private community, where if you get stuck, or you have a question, you post your question in that community, and you get a response within 24 hours from myself or a QuickBooks expert on my staff. And so that's the second resource. And it's good for people like me who you learn best by doing. And that's totally my, my learning style, is I can't just sit here and listen to someone talk, I have to do it so that I understand that. And then the third resource is just a live coaching session. I meet with business owners every day through a zoom, and I do an initial consultation that's complimentary. Just talk about where they been in their journey, what they feel is their, I guess what we call pain points, and just being able to get the book set up and running properly. And then I create a custom training plan for them. And so that plan includes however many sessions are needed to get that person up to speed with managing their own books, I focus a lot more on educating the business owner, even if they have a bookkeeper, you still need to know what that person is doing. And so of course, the learning plan is going to be different from someone that who I have to do the books myself versus someone is I've got someone doing the books, but I don't know what they're doing. But still, you've got to be willing to, you know, take the time to to realize, hey, I need to understand what's happening. It's my business. And just what people end up realizing is one, this isn't as hard as I thought it was, you know? And two, they feel empowered, because now they've got access to all these cool reports that show them, hey, you're making money here. But this product isn't selling that great, which will help you make better decisions, right? Should we keep that product that's not selling? Should we have a sale on that product? That's not selling? Right? Yeah.

Sara Whittaker: 24:08

Yeah. No, I love that. Yeah, I think that's another like a second important layer of all of this is not only tracking your finances, but then making informed decisions for next steps that you can take in your business, depending on that data. Well, Crystalynn thank you so much for all of this before we wrap up, is there anything that you are hoping to cover today that we did not talk about?

Crystalynn: 24:35

I just want to mention that for your listeners. I actually have not mentioned the book and the course and the coaching sessions. So if they go to www dot crystalynn shelton.com backslash podcast within s. All of those resources are on that one page. I also have a free download there called a tour. checklist and it's called your first seven days in QuickBooks. And so for those of you who are considering or thinking about QuickBooks, it's a great checklist that coincides with my book to get you going your first week using that software. And so it's free for them to download.

Sara Whittaker: 25:16

Awesome, great resources. And we will link all of those in the show notes. Now, do you also do QuickBooks setups?

Crystalynn: 25:23

Yes, absolutely. I do a lot of QuickBooks setups for people. Like I said, I show them how to use QuickBooks. And then I will if there's someone who just absolutely doesn't want to do their own bookkeeping, we provide bookkeeping services as well.

Sara Whittaker: 25:39

Perfect. Well, thank you so much for being here and for sharing your expertise. This is definitely a gap that you are filling for me because this is not something that I can speak to. So I really appreciate your time and everything that you shared with us today.

Crystalynn: 25:52

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

Sara Whittaker: 25:56

Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. To keep this conversation going connect with me on Instagram at podcasting for educators. I'm always looking for an excuse to talk about podcasting. If you're looking for support and launching, managing or growing your podcast, check out my online course the podcasting for educators prep school at podcasting for educators.com/prep school. I'll see you here next time.

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