229: Bookkeeping Processes For Coaches And Service Businesses Whether You Are Starting A Business Or Side Hustle, A Solopreneur, Entrepreneur, Mompreneur, Freelancer, Bookkeeper, Virtual Assistant
229: Bookkeeping Processes For Coaches And Service Businesses Whether You Are Starting A Business Or Side Hustle, A Solopreneur, Entrepreneur, Mompreneur, Freelancer, Bookkeeper, Virtual Assistant, Business Owner, Or Self-Employed
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:
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…
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 total revenue amount. You can easily track each of your revenue sources, such as coaching and other programs you are offering to know exactly how much revenue is coming in from each area. You can also see how much recurring revenue you have each month.
You also want to make sure that you are taking advantage of all of your expenses or deductions in your coaching business. You should be tracking all of your expenses, such as your office expense, travel, insurance, subscriptions, education, and internet expenses, to name a few. QuickBooks Online lets you connect your accounts and will automatically import your transactions for you. When you do this, you can add these transactions to your books with just a click of a button. Make sure that each expense you have for your business is actually helping your business grow. If not, see if there is a way you can reduce the expense or eliminate it all together. Look at all of your expenses, but pay close attention to your subscriptions and any membership sites or course content programs you are utilizing. As your business grows, you may need to reorganize where you are spending your money. If you are working from home and you have a designated area in your home that is used regularly and exclusively for your coaching business, you may be able to deduct a percentage of your expenses based on your office area size in comparison to the overall size of your home. You should also keep a log of all of your business trips so that you can get a deduction for your business miles driven in your business as well. Be sure to keep good records and receipts for your expenses. You can either do this manually or electronically. I have many clients who like to utilize the document attachment option in QuickBooks Online so that they have their documents attached to their transactions right in their bookkeeping system.
Whether you are utilizing a computerized software system such as QuickBooks Online or a manual system, make sure that you understand your chart of accounts. Your chart of accounts is the backbone of your bookkeeping system. Get to know what each of your accounts is for and understand each type of account. Your chart of accounts is broken down into your assets, liabilities, equity, revenues, and expenses. Once your bookkeeping system is set up, you will also be able to ensure you have enough cash flow or money coming in to pay all of your bills and expenses. You’ll also be able to create a budget and can easily compare this budget to your actual profit and loss to see how closely you are following your budget or meeting your revenue goals. You can take this one step further and do some forecasting and look into the future by planning your future profits. When you look at your past financial statements and then plan for the future, you can really take some time to work on your mindset and think about how you can utilize your financial statements to create more money and profits in your business. You’ll know when you can add more value for your clients and increase your fees, and you can focus on your goals and the growth you want to see in your business. Overall, you’ll know how you can make more profit, sustain those profits and successfully stay in business.
You’ll also want to reconcile your accounts on a monthly basis to see what’s outstanding and ensure that you are capturing every transaction in your financial statements. When you reconcile your accounts, it will give you the confidence that you have an accurate account balance. When you have accurate and timely financial statements to rely on, you can make smart business decisions. You’ll understand your business better, and you’ll know when it is OK to invest in yourself or your business. If there’s a big purchase or expenditure you see in your future, plan ahead by setting up a separate business savings account to help save for these expenses. A perfect example of this would be a certification or additional education course you know you’ll be taking in the future and want to ensure you have the funds to pay for it without harming your business.
Bookkeeping doesn’t have to be challenging, even if you are not a fan of working with numbers. The software solutions out there make it easy for you to track everything you need for your business, and most coaches can do their own bookkeeping. Even if you decide to outsource your bookkeeping, it can be done easily, especially if you already have your bookkeeping system set up with all your prior year’s data. When you schedule time every day, week, or month to do your bookkeeping, you will start having a routine you can easily manage. Not only will you be making smart business decisions, but you will also have much less stress when it comes to tax time since you’ll have all your reports ready to accurately prepare your tax return.
Imagine having a system in place where you spend less time buried in paperwork and more time doing what you love. That’s where I help my clients. They are able to have proper processes in place, understand why they are following through with these processes, and they have more peace of mind when it comes to their business. Striking a balance between the demands of running a business and maintaining a fulfilling personal life is an art; it’s about creating an environment where you can thrive and support your lifestyle. By being proactive and setting up efficient processes, you can ensure a smoother, more enjoyable year-end, and you’ll be prepared to file any necessary filings with the IRS. By working with me, you’ll change more than just your bookkeeping processes. Like many of the clients I’ve worked with, you’ll go from not knowing how to get through all the stressful situations or being unprepared to being totally in control of exactly what you are choosing to get done at the time you want to have it accomplished by, all while knowing you are doing enough and you’re able to enjoy your business and your personal life. I help clients just like you with strategy, mentorship, and coaching. When you work with me, you’ll show up much more differently than you do today, and, after all, this is what you ultimately want in your life, right? You can be stress-free in both your professional and personal life. Come join me. When I work with clients throughout the year, they are able to reduce their stress and overwhelm, understand how to master their small business finances, develop solutions to grow their bottom line, and create a work-life balance they truly enjoy. I encourage you to take the next step by signing up for a free consultation where I’m going to teach you the first step in my process so that you can eliminate stress, overwhelm, or overworking in your professional or personal life while you continue to get done what matters so that you can live your life with joy, purpose and a more fulfilled life. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions you have; I’d love to help you on this journey. You can schedule your free consultation or sign up for a coaching session today at www.FinancialAdventure.com. As a Certified Public Accountant and Certified Life Coach, I can help you set goals and develop a plan that will allow you to lead a happier and more sustainable life in your business, career, or your personal life. I’m here to guide you through the financial aspects of your business as well as help you focus on the strategies you need to follow to reach the success you want to achieve in your professional or personal life and stay committed so that you can continue to keep pushing forward and relieve the stress, anxiety, or overwhelm you are currently feeling. Having an accountant and certified life coach like me can provide you with valuable insights and ideas to help you simplify your life, which enables you to go back to enjoying your professional and personal life. I work with business owners, accountants, and other financial professionals to create the actionable steps they need to take to ultimately achieve their goals while getting relief from the stress and overwhelm they feel from the pressure of owning a business, deadlines, and the workload they face every day. If you are struggling with this as well and would like some help developing a solution, help strengthen and maintain your emotional health, increase your well-being, create a more positive, happy, and joyful life, set and achieve your goals, and manage your relationships, I’d love for you to join me in my Balance Life Coaching program so that you can live a more purposeful life. Each week, we meet privately one-on-one, and you get to bring whatever is on your mind on any given week. I also have a daily coaching program where you can talk to me whenever it works best for you, 24/7, any day of the week. In either program, you get to work on your highest priority, whatever you want more of in your life, or if there is something that is weighing on you heavily that you need coaching on, and we’ll work through it together. Having a certified life coach like me helping you through all of this allows you to feel so seen and cared for, and the results are amazing. Everyone benefits when they work with a certified life coach. After every session, you feel energized, and you know exactly what to do for the day or week to come, and relief knowing we will meet again to go over anything that comes up after your session. You’ll gain self-awareness while you take each step toward your goals. The investment in either of these programs is an easy yes for you. I’ve set these programs up in the most supportive way. If you are ready to join the Balance Life Coaching program, you can go to www.FinancialAdventure.com and click on the work with me button. You’ll see the link to join as well as additional information about the programs. Sign up now. There are limited spots available for these programs due to the one-on-one aspect, and they do sell out. If the payment link is gone, you can get on my waitlist to join the programs when additional spots are available. I help people get results and live a more joyful life. I coach everybody on everything. I know there is something you want in your life, and I can help you get it. I know this is something you’ve been waiting for. I’ve been asked by many of my listeners to create these exact programs. The faster you get access to the program, the quicker you’ll see the possibilities available to you. I also have a risk-free guarantee. I believe so strongly that everyone benefits from coaching that when you sign up for the Balance Life Coaching program today, if for any reason you are not satisfied with your first session, you can send us an email, and we’ll refund you immediately. Are you ready to enjoy your life now? Why would you want to wait? Make this investment for yourself. Take the journey with me…make it happen for yourself. Ask yourself why you need this program in your life right now. Are you ready to make bigger, bolder, stronger life goals? I’m looking forward to meeting with you soon and digging deeper to see where you currently are in your business or career and start creating actionable steps so that you can reach your vision and goals for the future, not only in your business or career but also in your personal life. I’m ready to work with you, see all of your successes, and watch you thrive in your business or career while creating your best work-life balance. I’ll post links to this and other valuable resources for business owners and accountants where you are listening to this podcast.
And, you know I’m going to ask…what’s at least one thing you will take away from this episode that will help your business succeed and grow your bottom line? If you need some accountability, join our PRIVATE Facebook community and post your action item, we’d love to support you.
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