101: Bookkeeping For Coaches Whether You Are Starting A Business, Self-Employed, A Solopreneur

101: Bookkeeping For Coaches Whether You Are Starting A Business, Self-Employed, A Solopreneur, Entrepreneur, Mompreneur, Business Owner, Side Hustler, Freelancer, Bookkeeper, Virtual Assistant, Or VA

To ensure your coaching business is profitable, you need to make sure you are setting your bookkeeping as a priority. It doesn’t matter if you are a life coach, business coach, sales and marketing coach, financial coach, weight loss or health coach, relationship coach, or any other type of coach. If you want your coaching business to be successful, you know you will need to bring in revenues, make a profit and sustain your profits to stay in business. You started your coaching business to help people better their lives, and to continue to do this successfully, you need to put your bookkeeping and understanding your business financials as a priority. If you don’t, what is the alternative if your business fails? In today’s podcast episode, I walk you through some of the best bookkeeping tips for coaches as well as what you need to do to understand your business finances so that you can have not only timely and accurate financial statements, but you can also see how you can create more money and profits in your coaching business in the future. I understand that as a coach, bookkeeping and numbers may not be one of your strengths or one of your favorite activities, but whether you are a self-employed individual, a solopreneur, entrepreneur, mompreneur, freelancer, small business owner, a remote, virtual, online, or in-house bookkeeper, or a virtual assistant or VA, it is possible for you to do your own bookkeeping successfully, and with the right processes implemented, you might even enjoy doing it. These tips are essential whether you are using a computerized software system like QuickBooks, Xero, Wave, or FreshBooks for your business finances; or doing your bookkeeping manually with an Excel spreadsheet or even a Google Document…

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Show Notes:

Welcome Back…Bookkeeping is essential for every business, but when you are a coach, you need to understand what happens if you don’t put your bookkeeping as a priority. As a coach, you are creating content, delivering your services, and helping your clients make their lives better by helping them get results, but bookkeeping is just as important if you want to ensure your business continues to impact your clients and operate into the future. When you let your bookkeeping go, you might miss deductions you could be taking and overpaying your taxes. You could be working for free if you don’t take the time to follow up on your invoicing and make sure your clients are paying you for your products or services. If your bookkeeping isn’t done correctly and you are not consistently looking at your financial statements for information about how your business is doing, your coaching business could fail. What are your options if your coaching business fails? Would you need to go back to working for someone else? What if you simply said that failing was not going to be an option for your coaching business? If this is the case, you need to make sure your bookkeeping is a priority, and you take the time to learn more about your financial statements and how your business is running as well as how you can make sound financial decisions to help you not only reach your goals, but achieve the future profits you know your business can create.

The secret to increasing the profits in your business is to be knowledgeable about your business finances. Have you found yourself wondering if you have enough cash flow to pay your bills? Do you know when you can afford to hire team members? Do you know how much you should be paying yourself? Do you know how much of the revenues you are bringing in are going to be taxed? When you have a good understanding of how your business is doing financially, all of these questions are easily answered. The first thing I will recommend is to make sure that you treat your coaching business as an actual business and not just a hobby. Decide what type of entity your coaching business will be. Many coaches will start their business out as a sole proprietor and then move into a different entity when it makes sense for their business. You want to make sure that you have a separate business account and if you are utilizing credit cards, make sure you have separate business credit cards as well. Keep your business and personal finances separate.

Next, I want you to find a system you love to record all of your money coming in and going out of your business. I feel strongly that if you find a system that you enjoy utilizing, even if you don’t like bookkeeping, it will make it easier for you. When you use a computerized software system like QuickBooks Online, you will find that it is easy to automate many of your transactions, and it takes care of the back-end journal entries for you, which means you don’t have to be a pro at accounting. For example, when you record a check in QuickBooks Online, it will ask you for the category you want the expense to go to, but it will do the journal entry in the background and reduce your bank account by this amount, as well as capture the expense category you select. Not only will a system like QuickBooks Online speed up your processes, but it will also reduce errors and create accurate reports. This is important if you are not necessarily a numbers person. If you are interested in learning more about QuickBooks Online, you can go to www.FinancialAdventure.com/QuickBooks and with the link there, you can save 30% on your first six months.

Let’s talk about the money coming into your business. If possible, you should try to get paid for your services immediately or before the services are provided. By setting up an easy way for your clients to pay you and utilizing payment links, you will get paid quicker, and if you have recurring income, make sure you set these payments up automatically. Anytime you can automate processes, you’ll save yourself time. You might be thinking about the credit card fees you are paying, but these fees often outweigh the time you could be spending tracking down payments on overdue invoices. If you are utilizing invoices, make sure that you follow up with unpaid invoices sooner than later. If you are using QuickBooks Online, it will easily capture outstanding invoices for you in the Accounts Receivable Aging Summary Report. The longer you have an outstanding invoice, the harder it will be to collect on it. Your bookkeeping system should track the revenues and profitability of each of your products and services and give you a month-to-month tota