Shownotes
Whether you’re a new or established business owner, figuring out exactly what you need to know to manage and protect your business finances can make a huge difference in the success of your business.
When we work with new clients at Know Your Worth bookkeeping, we see even the most established businesses missing or overlooking some key elements for how to best manage and protect their finances.
In this episode, we’re breaking down exactly what you should be considering when it comes to your business finances so you can be sure you’ve set yourself up properly and your revenue is best protected.
02:21 – Setting up a bank account
10:45 – Income and expense tracking
13:22 – Insurance
16:36 – Contracts
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Transcripts
it just puts the ball back in your court where if a client doesn't want
Speaker:to work with you anymore and they want to terminate your agreement.
Speaker:You could terminate it tomorrow and say, great, I'm done.
Speaker:But if you need that income or you're not ready to, or you just say, I'm not
Speaker:letting them out of this contract early.
Speaker:You have the power then.
Speaker:Welcome to the Know Your Worth Show, where we teach you how to think about
Speaker:your money differently so that you can achieve your sexy money goals.
Speaker:I'm Sydnee your money Maven and owner of Know Your Worth.
Speaker:And I'm Kristen Sid's Dimepiece bestie team member and busy mama
Speaker:twins here to make sure that those of us without a financial degree can
Speaker:still level up with each episode.
Speaker:Let's get started on reaching your next goal.
Speaker:Hello.
Speaker:Welcome to the know your worth podcast.
Speaker:We are in our 10th episode.
Speaker:I am your host, Sydney or money Maven.
Speaker:I'm Kristen SID's assistant and dime piece bestie.
Speaker:And we're so pumped to be back with you.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Last episode we talked about structure.
Speaker:So what type of structure is most beneficial for your business?
Speaker:Taking that next step into making it official, getting that EIN
Speaker:number and giving it that, just that bones in the beginning.
Speaker:Yeah, that was a meaty episode.
Speaker:Yeah, it was good.
Speaker:I think that's one that you go back and listen to.
Speaker:Information.
Speaker:Yeah, lots going on there.
Speaker:Lots of information.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And once you make that decision, it's just important to know what
Speaker:your business structure is going forward so that you can make the
Speaker:right decisions for all of your legal requirements and taxing requirements.
Speaker:So there was a lot there.
Speaker:Once you make that decision though, you can move on.
Speaker:And in this episode, we are going to talk about what are some of the
Speaker:basics that you need from the very next point to set up after that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Let's go.
Speaker:And if you are listening to this episode and you already have a well established
Speaker:business, this is still applicable to you because if you do not have these things.
Speaker:You should get these in place right away.
Speaker:These are really important things that are there to protect you that
Speaker:are there to reduce that anxiety and to make sure that you have
Speaker:yourself covered as a business owner.
Speaker:And this is no matter what your structure is.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:Yeah, so use this as a checklist and this isn't all inclusive.
Speaker:There's going to be some other things and for different people
Speaker:in different industries, you might find that other things were really
Speaker:important for you in the beginning.
Speaker:If you think of anything else that you want us to talk about, let us know
Speaker:and we can absolutely talk about it.
Speaker:But these are some of the things that we just right away know are really important
Speaker:and we wanted to make sure that we, put those out there and that are we found with
Speaker:our clients are also really important to
Speaker:setting up a separate business bank account, making sure that you have
Speaker:a separate business bank account for your business is absolutely number one.
Speaker:If you don't have it, you need to do it.
Speaker:And that sounds simple, but we do have a lot of clients that come to us at
Speaker:first that have not separated their personal from their business spending.
Speaker:So tell me like, Some reasons why that is so important.
Speaker:And are you talking about like a savings account, a checking account?
Speaker:Like what is it?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So at a bare minimum, it's just the checking account for the business.
Speaker:You don't need a savings account for your business right away.
Speaker:You don't need the other accounts for the business right away, but
Speaker:you do need a separate operating account for your business that is
Speaker:not intertwined with your personal.
Speaker:funds and personal spending.
Speaker:So when you start your business bank account, you want to make sure that all
Speaker:the income for your business related to your business gets deposited into that
Speaker:account and the spending that comes from that account is business related.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:The reason for that is for mostly liability on yourself
Speaker:as the business owner.
Speaker:When you intertwine personal spending with business spending, it opens the doors.
Speaker:For if there is a lawsuit, if there are legal issues they can go after your
Speaker:personal funds and your personal assets.
Speaker:Because you're blurring the line between your business and personal,
Speaker:you're blurring the line of what can be after in a legal suit.
Speaker:Oh wow.
Speaker:I didn't realize that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So when somebody opens their business bank account, they get like, their
Speaker:debit card and then what if they are like, this is jumping head.
Speaker:What if they're the store?
Speaker:And they like grab it by accident, like swipe something.
Speaker:It's okay.
Speaker:And that happens to every single one of my clients, every month they,
Speaker:someone, most people, almost every single one of my clients every month.
Speaker:Most of them have a personal charge on there.
Speaker:They forgot their business card, they used their personal card,
Speaker:they forgot their personal card, they used their business card.
Speaker:So we're doing it one way or the other.
Speaker:So if that happens, you just need to make sure that you have the right
Speaker:accounting classification for it.
Speaker:It is not considered a business deduction.
Speaker:And that you are running that through as an owner draw.
Speaker:If you are a single member LLC, a sole proprietorship a partnership, you
Speaker:are taking that out as an owner draw.
Speaker:So that charge for the personal spending just comes out of your
Speaker:account, like you're paying yourself.
Speaker:So it would be shown on the equity statement and you
Speaker:know, Sydney's owner draw.
Speaker:And it would not be considered a taxable deduction.
Speaker:So that's, you just need to make sure you're classifying it the right way.
Speaker:And if you go to the store and you forget your business card, you can
Speaker:use your personal card, keep that receipt, and then you just manually
Speaker:enter it into your QuickBooks account as a journal entry And you would book
Speaker:the other side to a contribution.
Speaker:Your owner draw or contribution account.
Speaker:You can have one where they're netted or you can have two separate ones.
Speaker:And so you can track anything that then you put into the business.
Speaker:It would be like, you know, Oh, I deposited, 20 into the account.
Speaker:And then I took that and spent it here.
Speaker:You're just subtracting out the deposit.
Speaker:You're like, Oh, I bought this.
Speaker:It's a business expense.
Speaker:So it would go on there that way.
Speaker:So it's not the be all end all, if you like.
Speaker:intertwined.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You're just doing your best to keep everything sorted for your tax
Speaker:purposes and for your liability.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So it's definitely best to keep them as separated as possible, but don't panic.
Speaker:If you have blurred the lines, you can remedy it and you can start fresh and then
Speaker:really just try going forward not to use that business card for personal purchases.
Speaker:It's super important to keep them separated so that there's just no.
Speaker:If ands or buts about it, that is the business funds and the business spending.
Speaker:And in a single member LLC, a sole proprietorship, you can take money
Speaker:out of the business whenever you want.
Speaker:You don't have to have set payroll.
Speaker:You don't need to wait till certain points when you need to pay yourself.
Speaker:You just take that money out like an owner draw.
Speaker:It's just a lot better if you take that money out, put it into your personal
Speaker:account, and then swipe from there.
Speaker:And swipe from there instead of having to classify everything
Speaker:in there as an owner draw.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:So having that separate bank account is huge.
Speaker:It just really makes sure that you are covered legally, that you are
Speaker:truly treating it as a business, and you're not blurring the lines between
Speaker:your business and your personal.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's super smart anyways, because then you can see like,
Speaker:Oh, this is what I'm making.
Speaker:This is, it just keeps everything very streamlined.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:And if it's that you have an S corp and you have payroll, it's not typically
Speaker:called an owner draw, but you can take it as like a distribution or it would just
Speaker:be an equity transaction where it would not be considered a business deduction.
Speaker:Yeah, it's like a shareholder loan or it would reduce your equity in that capacity.
Speaker:So this is a really basic question, but whenever I set up my business
Speaker:account, years ago, I like went into the bank and set it up at the bank.
Speaker:Do you have to do that?
Speaker:And how do you choose your bank?
Speaker:No, you don't have to.
Speaker:So they have a lot of online accounts now that you can just sign up just
Speaker:online, right through the internet.
Speaker:But BankNovo is one that I actually started with when I started the
Speaker:bookkeeping business, because it was still when banks were like, wary
Speaker:about you coming in and having an in person meeting from COVID.
Speaker:So you had to schedule appointments.
Speaker:And for me, that was just like not happening.
Speaker:So I just went online and opened up a bank Nova bank account.
Speaker:You need an EIN number for that.Because it's a business banking account.
Speaker:And they just verified that you were a real person.
Speaker:And then I was given a debit card was sent to my house.
Speaker:And I could just operate just like you would with any mobile banking,
Speaker:really at any physical bank location.
Speaker:The downfall to that is if you are someone that receives checks for
Speaker:your business and you go to deposit a check and there would be an issue
Speaker:with the check, say the signature's off or it's just not reading it.
Speaker:It's just a lot harder than get that deposited.
Speaker:You have to like mail it in, they need to check it and certify it, or you need
Speaker:to get on like a help desk call where if you have that happen at PNC or.
Speaker:First National Bank or M& T Bank, any of those, you can just go into
Speaker:the branch and talk to someone live.
Speaker:There are definitely positives and negatives to both.
Speaker:And it's just ease of starting at the online banks are, they're great and
Speaker:they work really well, but the physical bank has a lot of the benefits of just
Speaker:that customer service that you don't always get in the online banking.
Speaker:So maybe you would just consider what your business is, how people are paying
Speaker:you and make that choice from there.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:So I started out, like I said, with just that online bank, got started
Speaker:that way, got it up and running.
Speaker:And then transition to PNC.
Speaker:That's what we, that's who we use for a lot of our really all of
Speaker:our business banking right now.
Speaker:So we have.
Speaker:Now checking, savings, credit card accounts set up through them
Speaker:for the business and we can go in there and drop off checks.
Speaker:We can go in there and transfer money from account to account if we need it
Speaker:and it's just a lot easier than to be able to just run up the street and do it.
Speaker:Yeah, so let me ask you this question.
Speaker:So say somebody comes to you in May and they are like, I want to start
Speaker:working with you as a bookkeeper.
Speaker:And you get in there and you're like, you don't have a business account.
Speaker:So you coach them through how to open a business account.
Speaker:And then do you go back through all of their previous months
Speaker:and categorize that all out?
Speaker:Yes, but I will ask them to go through their personal account.
Speaker:So if they opened up a business account and there was a couple months where they
Speaker:had a personal account that they were using for their business transactions,
Speaker:I will ask them to go through their personal account, pull out those
Speaker:business transactions, put them in an Excel sheet, and then send them to us.
Speaker:And then we will, Import them into the accounting software and
Speaker:then categorize them from there.
Speaker:And then we'll connect the business account to the QuickBooks account
Speaker:and categorize all of those.
Speaker:Like moving forward.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:And that's one of our monthly checks for all of our bookkeeping clients
Speaker:to begin with is, do you have any.
Speaker:Spending on your personal card that should be a part of the business.
Speaker:And if they do, they'll just let me know.
Speaker:Typically it's one or two things or say they don't have a line
Speaker:of credit with the business.
Speaker:They have, a home equity line of credit and it's not a typical business.
Speaker:charge normally, but they bought something big and they want
Speaker:that to be a business expense.
Speaker:That sometimes is what happens if their business doesn't have like
Speaker:the applicable financing yet.
Speaker:They're using their personal financing and debt and leverage,
Speaker:but it's still a business expense and can be treated that way.
Speaker:We just will manually put it in and then make sure that it's treated up that way.
Speaker:That's awesome.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But they're super grateful to you for that.
Speaker:If you have your business funds and your personal funds mixed, I would really
Speaker:recommend at the end of every single month, just going through and pulling
Speaker:out all of those business transactions right away and putting them in a separate
Speaker:file and making sure that you have.
Speaker:Tracking for that, which actually leads right into our next important piece.
Speaker:So that was a really good, easy transition um,
Speaker:is income and expense tracking.
Speaker:So when you're starting your business or you are up and running already, this
Speaker:can be really applicable to anybody, but I would really stress the importance
Speaker:of this from the very beginning.
Speaker:And if it's not something you're good at.
Speaker:You really got to get good at it, or you really have to hire someone, or you really
Speaker:have to get a tool that can do it for you.
Speaker:Because tax season is horrible if you don't have it done throughout the year.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:And, you know, people would be surprised at how many clients we get
Speaker:that it's December 31st and they say, I have no idea what I made this year.
Speaker:None.
Speaker:And if that happens to you...
Speaker:Don't worry, we can help you out.
Speaker:We've done it for a lot of people.
Speaker:And bookkeepers can help you out.
Speaker:Accountants can help you out.
Speaker:Your tax accountant is going to charge you a lot more for it if they have
Speaker:to do it, or they just won't do it.
Speaker:That's not typically in their wheelhouse of what they're willing
Speaker:to do for their clients is go through your bank statements for you.
Speaker:But if you get to the end of the year and you have no systems in place for tracking
Speaker:your income and expenses, you're really.
Speaker:Putting yourself behind in terms of maximizing your deductions,
Speaker:making sure you're getting the best returns and just making sure
Speaker:that you're tracking everything.
Speaker:Did you get all the income that you could have?
Speaker:Should you have followed up with people on paying you earlier?
Speaker:Should you have bought things throughout the year to reduce the
Speaker:tax liability at the end of the year?
Speaker:And now it's too late.
Speaker:So making sure you're tracking your income and expenses throughout the
Speaker:year and whatever capacity that is.
Speaker:Is super, super important.
Speaker:If you're using honey books, if you're using QuickBooks, if you're using
Speaker:zero, if you're using Excel and in an episode coming up, we're really going
Speaker:to dig into the positives and negatives inside the cost of all of those.
Speaker:But you just need to have something, you need to have something set up.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Before I met you and you saved my life, I used something called like TaxBot, which
Speaker:I don't even think it's around anymore, but it just linked to my bank account.
Speaker:And I would say, Oh, this was business.
Speaker:This was personal.
Speaker:Oh, that was income.
Speaker:I could take pictures of receipts and upload them.
Speaker:So I did that for like a couple months.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So there are things out there that you can use.
Speaker:But obviously nothing beats a bookkeeper because we can help you do it for you.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And you're just like nice and you answer questions.
Speaker:And that's super important when you're looking for a bookkeeper they should be
Speaker:answering your questions and teaching you.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So that's really important to us with our clients is making sure that
Speaker:you understand what the inflows and outflows of your business are as well.
Speaker:And you don't feel uncomfortable asking about them because it's truly a key.
Speaker:point to operating your business obviously is knowing how much money you're making.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So that's a big one.
Speaker:And then from there insurance.
Speaker:Insurance is super necessary right at the beginning.
Speaker:Tell me what you mean by it.
Speaker:Like, tell us what you're talking about.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So like a general liability policy for your business is just really important.
Speaker:And they're normally, when you're first starting out, very inexpensive.
Speaker:so We went through a business insurance broker, an insurance broker,
Speaker:brokerage company in Pittsburgh.
Speaker:And there's a couple different ones that we've worked with, but I believe
Speaker:the one that we're working with right now is at Christine Associates.
Speaker:We just sent them an email and said, Hey, you started a business, I need insurance.
Speaker:And they came back and they knew every single thing that we needed
Speaker:to do and what we needed to get.
Speaker:And they'll walk through the steps with you on getting your information,
Speaker:getting what your estimated income is, how many employees do you have?
Speaker:Are you going to have clients walking in and out of your business?
Speaker:Like, are you meeting them in person?
Speaker:Because then you want to make sure that you have the general liability insurance
Speaker:that if somebody were to walk on your property and injure themselves, they're
Speaker:not going to go after your business.
Speaker:And if they do, you're covered.
Speaker:So making sure that you have that insurance.
Speaker:Is just so key it's really really important To have, you
Speaker:just, you need to have that.
Speaker:If there were to be anything that you messed up on from a bookkeeping
Speaker:perspective if we mess up on anything from lack of information or, God
Speaker:forbid this would ever happen.
Speaker:And we don't ever plan on it because we've had our people really well.
Speaker:But if you were to hire somebody that it does a bad job is negligent and you
Speaker:know, it's what business owners deal with all the time and it's a scary thing.
Speaker:You're covered with insurance.
Speaker:You're really making sure that you have a backup plan.
Speaker:Let me ask you this.
Speaker:So last week when we talked about like setting up an LLC, we said
Speaker:one of the reasons why you want to do that is so you have protection.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So that isn't enough protection though.
Speaker:So it is protection.
Speaker:So say you have insurance.
Speaker:And your insurance covers the bulk of it, but maybe it doesn't cover all of it.
Speaker:Just like if you were to get into a car accident or have a doctor's visit that
Speaker:your insurance doesn't cover all of it.
Speaker:If you were to be held, liable for a bad situation from one of your
Speaker:clients or customers and, say they injured themselves, say
Speaker:there was, something really.
Speaker:terrible that happened, your insurance hopefully would take most of that,
Speaker:if not all of that, but if it doesn't and they find that you are being
Speaker:negligent, like something really bad happened, they can go after.
Speaker:Personal assets if you're combining them.
Speaker:So yeah, if you are a single member LLC and you are keeping things really
Speaker:separate, your personal assets are safe.
Speaker:So your insurance will cover, they can't go past that.
Speaker:Your business is all they can take.
Speaker:They can't go after personal assets.
Speaker:They're covered if you're keeping them separate.
Speaker:But we're talking about keeping your business safe.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And keeping your business safe with that insurance.
Speaker:So that way you can.
Speaker:Pay for that and then move forward.
Speaker:If you don't have insurance and you're mingling funds and something bad were
Speaker:to happen, they could, your business could go and your personal could go.
Speaker:So it's really what you don't want and it's very easy to set up.
Speaker:So if you're a business owner that's listening to this and you don't have
Speaker:business insurance and you're mingling your personal funds, you really want
Speaker:to, yeah, you're leaving the door open and you don't want to do that.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Yeah, that's a good tip.
Speaker:And then I think we have one more big tip.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Which also goes along with a lot of this too,
Speaker:is contracts.
Speaker:Legal contracts for a lot of different pieces of your business,
Speaker:but legal contracts are huge.
Speaker:And there's a couple of different things that you can do for this.
Speaker:You can use a lawyer.
Speaker:You can go to Rocket Law, LegalZoom, you can go to ChatGP for some advice
Speaker:on what to do and what contracts to set up and how to word them.
Speaker:There's a lot of resources out there that will cover you.
Speaker:You just need to make sure that you're covered.
Speaker:You want to have contracts for your clients.
Speaker:If it's a service agreement, you want to make sure that you have those.
Speaker:You want to make sure that you contracts with your contractors.
Speaker:If you have people coming in to do different services for you, that
Speaker:you have a contract there and I would also put disclaimers on your
Speaker:website and even potentially social media, depending on how you're
Speaker:selling your product, that you will.
Speaker:shouldn't be held liable for this, or this is at your own risk.
Speaker:Or these are the terms of our agreement because if a client comes back and says
Speaker:that you didn't follow through with the terms of the contract, but you have no
Speaker:contract, then how do you determine that?
Speaker:And then you're just getting into this hole of legal fees and,
Speaker:arbitration and things like that, where you just don't need to do that.
Speaker:If you have a clear set contract.
Speaker:Again, you're covering yourself.
Speaker:You're just making sure that all of your boxes are checked.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Even on a very basic level, when I first started doing copywriting and
Speaker:I was working with a company and I didn't have a contract because I
Speaker:just started and it was like a 400 a week project that I was doing.
Speaker:And then one day they just decided that they didn't need it anymore.
Speaker:And that was income that I was depending on, but we had no contract.
Speaker:So they could just say, we're done today.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Like I didn't have something that said you have to give me two weeks.
Speaker:There it is.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:Something that.
Speaker:Simple.
Speaker:And then I just went to Etsy and there are contracts there everywhere.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Etsy, that's a great spot too.
Speaker:And I just printed one out and that's what I used from there on out.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:But that was like a tough lesson to learn.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Right out the gate.
Speaker:And I think that a lot of people go into relationships with their friends.
Speaker:Or colleagues where they think, oh, we don't need a contract with friends.
Speaker:They would never do that to me.
Speaker:They would never do that to me.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it's not that they would or wouldn't, it just makes it easier.
Speaker:It just makes it easier.
Speaker:There's no stress or pressure.
Speaker:If you want out of a relationship that's like, Hey, this is,
Speaker:we will be both agreed on.
Speaker:I need to take these steps to remove myself from this situation.
Speaker:And if you don't, then it's like, you're leaving me here.
Speaker:You're throwing me under the bus there.
Speaker:You need to do this assist to make sure.
Speaker:If you have a clear set of standards or you have a contract.
Speaker:It just makes everybody feel better.
Speaker:Yeah, I learned my lesson and luckily all of them were really
Speaker:simple And nothing we're going to knock on wood was you know, really?
Speaker:detrimental, but I absolutely was working with friends in the beginning
Speaker:for a lot of different projects for, the maverick, our coworking space and
Speaker:the golf academy for parties and events downstairs and the maverick for parties
Speaker:and events up here for renting our space.
Speaker:And, people, we didn't have a contract at first, and people would ask, oh, do we
Speaker:have to do a security deposit or this or that, and I'm like, I know you, it's okay.
Speaker:It's fine.
Speaker:Then they came in and they blew out like three of our fuses, and they
Speaker:stained half of our carpets, and they didn't mean to, but it was like...
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Now what?
Speaker:Now what?
Speaker:Are you going to come clean this?
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Are you going to come fix this?
Speaker:Are you going to pretend like it never happened?
Speaker:Am I going to charge you now when I said I, I never said I would do that?
Speaker:And if I gave you a clear cut contract that said like, please
Speaker:read this, make things really clear.
Speaker:If we have to do this much work of cleanup after there will be a fee
Speaker:if we have to do, and then you can choose if you want to charge them.
Speaker:If you have contracts in place, it just puts the ball back in your
Speaker:court where if a client doesn't want to work with you anymore and they
Speaker:want to terminate your agreement.
Speaker:You could terminate it tomorrow and say, great, I'm done.
Speaker:But if you need that income or you're not ready to, or you just say, I'm not
Speaker:letting them out of this contract early.
Speaker:You have the power then.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But if you say, okay, great.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know what?
Speaker:I don't want to work with this client either.
Speaker:This really wasn't working out for me.
Speaker:I know our normal terms are, 30 days or 3 months, but.
Speaker:We'll be good next week.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Sounds great.
Speaker:You have the power.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it's something where you have to abide by too.
Speaker:If it's written in the contract that you have to give that they
Speaker:give you 30 days notice and they need you for the next 30 days.
Speaker:You have to stand by that.
Speaker:But if you talk to them and say, Hey, how do you feel about this?
Speaker:You can change things if you both agree on it then, but you have
Speaker:something in place to protect you.
Speaker:And I just think that's one of the biggest things that I have learned in working with
Speaker:friends for the past three, four years.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Is I'm a yes person, I'm a people pleaser, and it's bitten me
Speaker:in the butt quite a few times.
Speaker:Because when it comes down to it with some people and money and their businesses,
Speaker:like, They're not going to pick you.
Speaker:Nope.
Speaker:And that's fine, but I agree with you.
Speaker:Like I've put myself out a lot of times just to be like, let me do this for you.
Speaker:Don't worry about it.
Speaker:I'm so easy.
Speaker:You don't have to do a contract.
Speaker:Like, yeah, let's just do this.
Speaker:And just to be taken advantage of.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So it's a rough lesson to learn.
Speaker:So if you're in that boat.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:And I think that a lot of people now are so used to the customer service and
Speaker:sort of the bending over backwards of like large companies that have all the
Speaker:money and the capability of it, like, Oh, I don't like this from Amazon.
Speaker:I'm going to return it.
Speaker:And maybe I did wear it.
Speaker:They'll never know where if you have a retail shop and
Speaker:someone buys something from you.
Speaker:Do you have a return policy in place because they don't know that was your
Speaker:cell phone bill this month that was paid.
Speaker:They don't get that and you don't necessarily want to hold them against
Speaker:that or, hold that against them.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But also people are looking for that now.
Speaker:And the last thing you want is for someone to go and post on social media
Speaker:that you didn't do something the right way or that you hurt them in some way.
Speaker:You're just covered.
Speaker:You're covered from that completely.
Speaker:Another one too with your contractors and employees is non defamation
Speaker:clauses and things like that.
Speaker:If we terminate this contract, you can't say anything negative about me and I
Speaker:can't say anything negative about you.
Speaker:And that's come into play with a couple of my clients that they now have that because
Speaker:they had to go through this battle of like, why would you post this on Facebook?
Speaker:This is my business.
Speaker:This is my livelihood.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:right to, you know, they could say whatever they wanted.
Speaker:And so just making sure that you protect yourself is just it will
Speaker:let you sleep easier at night.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So all these things, let you sleep easier at night.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:So just to recap, we talked about getting a business account,
Speaker:personal and business separate.
Speaker:We talked about tracking your income and your expenses.
Speaker:Talked about insurance for your business, not just for your personal, and contracts.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Those are some big ones.
Speaker:Big ones that, once you check all of those off, you're going
Speaker:to be, feel a lot better.
Speaker:Yeah, and they're another thing, like, they're almost like one and done.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:Like, just do them.
Speaker:So that's why we said, if you're a new business owner starting
Speaker:out, great, get these in place.
Speaker:But if you've been in operation for a while and you're like, oh, crap, I never
Speaker:got a contract or I never opened this account, this would be a great time
Speaker:to go back and, Start at that point.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:And year end's coming up.
Speaker:If you are looking at your business and you're thinking,
Speaker:crap, I'm that person that I didn't track anything all year long.
Speaker:Don't fret.
Speaker:Give us a call, yes.
Speaker:Because she'll make, we can help all of your problems Go away.
Speaker:Away.
Speaker:We can help.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We can absolutely help you.
Speaker:It's like bookkeeping, Duffy . Yeah.
Speaker:You are not you are not.
Speaker:at a loss right now.
Speaker:You are not too far behind.
Speaker:You are, you can get through it and out of it and end up
Speaker:really well on the other side.
Speaker:You still have plenty of time before taxes are due.
Speaker:You still have plenty of time to get things in.
Speaker:This is when we really do see a lot of that influx of new clients
Speaker:coming in, just of people saying, I didn't track anything all year.
Speaker:Is this what you call a cleanup service?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:So maybe just talk about that a little bit.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:At Know Your Worth, we offer a cleanup service, so what we would do is, if
Speaker:you have QuickBooks Online and you have things flowing through, we'd go
Speaker:in and we would clean up for the year.
Speaker:We'd recategorize, we'd reconcile, and we would get everything trued up for you.
Speaker:You'd be able to review everything, we would talk about it, and send those back.
Speaker:If you don't have QuickBooks Online, We would do what we said before with
Speaker:like, we'd look at your bank statements.
Speaker:If you have a separate account, we'd get all of those statements,
Speaker:we'd get them connected.
Speaker:We would then start fresh in a new QuickBooks account.
Speaker:We have a discount through QuickBooks for subscriptions for 30 percent
Speaker:off for the life of the product.
Speaker:So we can also offer that to new clients that don't have the
Speaker:QuickBooks online accounts yet that we can get them set up at a discount
Speaker:for the entire time they have it.
Speaker:It's much cheaper if you do it that way.
Speaker:And We'll get everything entered, we'll get everything imported, and
Speaker:then we'll ask you to go through personal accounts and pull out
Speaker:any of the personal charges, too.
Speaker:So if you haven't separated things for the whole year, we still
Speaker:can help you with that, too.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And we will walk you through what that whole process looks like, where you
Speaker:need to start, what you need to look at.
Speaker:We've done it for many people, and we can make sure that you're not spinning your
Speaker:wheels for too long before we get it done.
Speaker:And then with a lot of your clients that you do, they come on as like.
Speaker:Clean up clients.
Speaker:Then they stick with you for months and months services
Speaker:just to keep the ball rolling.
Speaker:So maybe you've reached a point in your business where you're like,
Speaker:I'm tired of feeling this way.
Speaker:This is a great option.
Speaker:If you've been the one that at the end of the year, you've just sat there
Speaker:with your receipts and your statements and you've just screwed everything
Speaker:up and it's taken you days or weeks.
Speaker:We will do the cleanup for you and then we offer the month to month services
Speaker:so that you'll get those updated statements every month going forward.
Speaker:And we do offer discounts to a lot of our clients for the cleanup fee.
Speaker:Cleanups can be pricey.
Speaker:We definitely have a really good onboarding process for that
Speaker:now where we can really offer.
Speaker:Really efficient rates compared to what you'll get if you
Speaker:have a tax accountant do it.
Speaker:Or a larger accounting firm, they'll be very expensive if you have a large
Speaker:business and a lot of transactions.
Speaker:So we offer a discount too that if you sign on for month to month
Speaker:bookkeeping after that, your QuickBooks cleanup is at a lower price too.
Speaker:Oh, that's pretty awesome.
Speaker:Yeah, if you are going to sign on to be an ongoing client, we offer
Speaker:a nice discount rather than just the one time cleanup service.
Speaker:Very cool.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:I think that's a lot of great info for the next step in our new entrepreneur series.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Good stuff.
Speaker:Good stuff.
Speaker:Thanks, Sid.
Speaker:Alright.
Speaker:Thanks so much and we'll see you guys next week.
Speaker:Bye.
