Ep. 107: Clean Up Your Financials - From Hot Mess to Organized (Five Steps to Increase Profits - BONUS SERIES)

Are your financial records a giant hot mess? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. However, the longer you let that mess accumulate, the tougher it is to untangle. 

It's time to put on your grown-up pants and get them organized. Listen in for three easy steps, from being overwhelmed to sliding down rainbows on a unicorn.

This is the second installment of the Five Steps to Increase Profits bonus series. Stay tuned each day this week for a new episode.

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Ep. 58: Reframe Your Money Mindset to Make More Money in Your Business

For more info, see complete show notes:  https://www.getthebalanceright.net/blog/episode107

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Transcript

Today we are talking about. Going from hot mess with your financials to totally organized.  I've got three easy steps are you ready? 

Hello, my fellow rebels, freaks, misfits and geeks.  This is Heather Zeitzwolfe, and you are listening to get the balance right podcast.

 I don't want you to feel bad if, your financials are a hot mess, because guess what? 

Most creative entrepreneurs when they come to me, their financials are a total hot mess. No judgment. That's just how it is, because guess what? You are creative. You got into business to follow your passion and be creative. You are great at that. You probably did not go to school to study accounting, nor do you have any interest in it. And now suddenly as an entrepreneur, you are thrusted into the world of receipts. 

And bank statements. Ooh. Yeah. , here's what we're going to do. I've got three easy steps for you to go from hot mess to totally organized. Are you ready? 

All right. Step number one. 

, you got to get a grip on your mindset. Hmm, what does that mean? Exactly? Well, you need to. Face the facts that. You know, you went into business, you may be like, Ooh, I don't like that whole money thing. I don't like sales. I feel icky pricing. All the things that  gives you those cold sweats. 

And the middle of the night and wakes you up and you're like, oh my God. But what am I doing? I feel like I'm not making money or maybe I am making money and then there's taxes. And, oh my God, I don't know what to do. Yeah, you're not alone. So here's the thing. 

When,  creatives come to me and their financials are a hot mess, they come with their head down and they're like, oh my God. I feel so embarrassed. I'm so sorry. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And when I look at it, I'm like, okay. Yeah, I've seen it all before. You're okay. Let's just get it cleaned up. It's not a big deal. Really? It's not a big deal. 

And the longer that you make it a big deal.  The bigger the mess becomes. Instead of making that mess compound on itself. It's best to just. Face the fact that you started business and you're an adult. I think if you're listening to this podcast, 

. Put on some grownup pants and let's get your finances organized. So what do I mean by that? 

 First let's get a grip on your mindset. I offer free,  money mindset workshop. if you haven't been to that yet,  go to get the balance, right. podcast.net forward slash workshops. With an S you can sign up for my various workshops and I have a money mindset. One that happens every month. 

And the thing with the money mindset is It's so ingrained from your childhood. Until you face the facts and get over what's going on and try to have more of an abundant mindset. These money mindsets They're going to eat away at you. Until you face the facts. 

I don't mean to be abrupt about this. you know, , we all have money issues from our past.  We all have something to get over and , it never goes away.  A new level, new devil. I'm sure you've heard that before. , once you've conquered 



one level  now you're on to another. 

First step take my money mindset workshop, . Also, you can go back and listen to my episode on money mindset. And I will have a link in the show notes for that. 

 Be sure to listen to that episode  because I go much, much deeper on money mindset. All right. Number two. Stop commingling your funds. This is something that I see so many new entrepreneurs doing. The. Decide to have a business and they have an existing bank account, the existing credit card, and they just start using that for a business. 

Well, what happens is. Now your business stuff is mixed with your personal stuff. And this is where it starts to get tricky, to separate them. And a lot of times people just ignore that until it's tax time. And then they're spending all kinds of time trying to unravel all the things. But if you just open up a separate bank account for your business and just get a separate credit card, if you need a credit card. 

That makes it so much easier. You're going to save so much headache.  If you've already started to co-mingle. There's never a time like the present. Go and open up a bank account. That's where the business and the business name. And if you want a credit card, get one too. 

Then download. Your bank statements and start digging away and looking at which ones are personal, which ones are business and extrapolate the ones that are business. All right, but what are you supposed to do with those? Well that's step number three. You want to start itemizing your income and expenses. 

What does that mean? Well, it means totalling up how much you spent on supplies or how much you spent on. Software  or how much you paid a coach or whatever it is  total up, all the things that  go in the same kind of category. You want to organize not only the expenses, but also the income. Income, that's the money coming in the door. It's the gross income. 

And with that. And why have a free download for this.  Be sure to check the show notes so you can start organizing your income and expenses. To really understand what's going on in your business. It's better to always separate the different types of income streams. So you can better understand which ones are more profitable. And which ones are. Just sort of the lackluster ones in your business that maybe you should think about  getting rid of that and focusing on the ones that are actually making you more money. 

And when you do this, , I want you to break apart all of your income categories. With all the expenses that are attributed exactly for that particular income stream. For instance, if  one of your income streams has to do with,  a certain contractor  put the payments that you made to that contractor. In a category called cost of goods sold. And then you figure out your gross profit .from that 

  Now this may sound way more complicated than you even want to get into that's. Okay. You don't need to go that far. I'm just giving you that your options. So you can do this. 

Be sure to download. My guide. So you can start doing this yourself. Now, if you use software like QuickBooks, fresh books, wave something like that. That's great. You can organize your. Income and expenses, just make sure that you are working with the bookkeeper.  That can help you and make sure that you're doing it correctly. This is where I see people getting tripped up all the time. 

They're not sure what they're doing. They think they know what they're doing. The software makes it look like it's really easy. But this is where it can become. And even worse, hot mess. When you're trying to do the books yourself. And you're not really sure. What to do. So just be sure if you are using software, get some help. 

 If you need a bookkeeper, I offer those services. If you want to send me a note on Facebook or Instagram, please do. If you have any questions about how you're keeping your books. Number one, get a grip on your mindset. You have to be an adult . Two stop. Co-mingling your funds. Open up a bank account in the business name and start using that instead. And three itemize your income and expenses. So use a spreadsheet. If I know you probably don't want to use a spreadsheet, but you can use my tool. It's really easy to use. 

And you can even download the CSV file from your bank so that it has all the transactions already in there. And it's just a copy and paste job. That's it. Boom, boom, boom. Easy peasy. All right. So if you need any help with this, please let me know. You can find me on Instagram at Wolf or just search for the vegan CPA. And let's talk, if you've got questions I'm here to help you. And I also have my Facebook group called get the balance, right? If you want to join that as well. So be sure to contact me if you have any questions. 

All right. Good luck. And remember, even if it's a hot mess, we can clean it up and make it  a financially organized. Unicorn. Yeah, that's it?  Rainbows. You're going to have rainbows.  Go out there. 

Be goofy. Have fun and don't worry. It's not that big of a deal. You just need to put your grownup pants on over and out. See you on the flippity flip side