Stephanie, who left accounts receivable to start The Right Return, a bookkeeping practice for artists, talks through her first clients from Facebook referrals and the gaps in QuickBooks integrations. PayPal doesn't capture New York's 62 counties for sales tax; Square works better. She's building an Instagram presence to reach artist clients.
Chapters
Hi, Stephanie. We're back for week number 2 in the mentorship program that we're working through together. And I'll just read a little bit about what it is because Facebook's kind of cool. It's got it all set up. This week's about assessing your skill level. And it's really me assessing your skill level of how you're just getting started and how you've been doing your craft and if you need to learn a new technique or improve your skills and what's your biggest challenges. And it kind of doesn't really fit for QuickBooks because you've been working in the product for a long time. You're familiar. You've been doing bookkeeping for a long time. So we're really at this point, you just— well, actually refresh your story of where you're at in your business and what you're doing so that, you know, maybe people wouldn't see the video last week and know where you're at.
Yep. So I have had a long career in accounting and office management. But it's always been exclusively in accounts receivable and collections. So when I started working with QuickBooks a couple of years ago, working for The Right Return, the whole general ledger thing, I was sort of vaguely familiar with it, but I am much more comfortable with it now than I was then. You know, it just— debit and credit, which side does that go on? You know, it's that kind of thing. So I've gotten a lot more comfortable with that. I am, I am happy about that. One thing that I'm not completely clear on that you and I have talked about a little bit is the apps that are available with QuickBooks. Like, I, to my own personal account, I have Square because that's how I take my art sales. And I, and then I have PayPal for another client, and I have it set up as a bank. It's just, it's not—
Yeah.
Neither one is as smooth as I thought they would be, and I, I'm sure it's user error, but No, not with PayPal. Okay.
PayPal app is much improved from a few years ago. Before, you would hook it up and it actually pulled all the transactions in and people didn't even realize that it didn't come in via the bank feed. So the bank feed method is definitely better because you have them in this, in the actual bank feed where you can put them in. It's not perfect, but the new app is much better. So if you're using the bank feed one, for sure, that's the best one to use.
Okay.
But yeah, for working with PayPal, it's always PayPal, all those Shopify, all of them are kind of challenging. Square is probably one of the better ones.
Yeah, that really, that hasn't been too bad and it matches and finds things and it's, it's, that's really okay. And I think my frustration with PayPal is it doesn't bring enough information from the artist's website because I need to know sales tax because in New York we have 62 counties and that information does not come through, so I have to look it up elsewhere. And it's just really sort of fiddly.
That's a specialty area, and it'd probably be a real good one for you to kind of follow into, even if there's a group out there just for that.
Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah. OK.
Just for e-commerce. It's really specialized. I know a couple of ProAdvisors that are really big into it, but it's definitely specialized. So you had a good week this week, right?
I did. I had 2 new clients this week. One was just a few minutes ago, so I'm still on that high. High five. High five. Yeah, so yeah, I'm really excited. I've done several because sales tax is due on March 20th here, so I've been doing some sort of short-term projects helping people out with that a little bit. But 2 new permanent clients, I'm excited. And one already uses QuickBooks Online, so that'll be a short learning curve.
And you're getting these clients how?
Through Facebook. These are people that I've already known, but I know them through Facebook initially. Of course, we've met in person now and that kind of stuff, so other artist friends, but I sort of live in Facebook and Instagram too, but I haven't even touched Instagram honestly with the bookkeeping thing. I'm not sure how I'm gonna do that just yet. It's— artistry there is very visual, so it's a no-brainer, but bookkeeping, I'm not sure how that will— I follow a bunch of hashtags and bookkeepers on Instagram, trying to feel my way, but anyway, back to Facebook.
Mm-hmm.
The other day, after I met with this one woman who's a new client, she posted in my Rochester Artisans Facebook group that she's happy to be working with me. One of my other clients chimed in, and then this morning I got a message from a new client that she wants to work with me. So—
Can you share your screen and show us the post? 'Cause I can tell you, for me, Facebook has been not the best for advertising to get customers. So I clearly am not doing anything— doing something right. I can also tell you that with your industry, I would think that Instagram, if you're really working with artists, especially since you are an artist, is probably great. Hey, sharing screen. Look at that.
Okay, so my mouse, my mouse stuck. I had to wiggle the battery.
So yeah, I mean, so you're just starting out with your business. You took over The Right Return, right? So you're now an entrepreneur, your own business, your own bookkeeping firm. And this is phenomenal. I mean, the fact that look at this, she's like, you're the best. And you got like somebody else posted on. That's your second client, the one that said you're the best.
Oh no, she's existing. She's been with me the whole time.
Yeah, this is, um, I'd almost, um, yeah, I would almost see so much different than with the artist. You get all the pictures and the visuals and all that. I almost would say you should put this on your— you're building a website, right?
That's right.
Okay, so let me, let me share with you my page.
So there it is.
See here, here's my page, right? Very much I work with attorneys in the real estate, so mine's very different. I'm not the flowery, pretty pictures, although hopefully you like the color. And I did this with mine, with my— these are from actually from the ProAdvisor site that people wrote things or Googled.
Oh yeah.
And so you could do something like this, but in your own way, because your clientele are gonna want something. They don't want this business-looking screen. They're gonna want something more pretty, right? Because artists, they're creative. You're creative. I would definitely, when you build out your site, focus it that way so that you can attract them. Right. They're not going to want to come to— an attorney might want to come to my page, but they're not going to want to come to— your clients aren't going to want to find me. They're going to be like, no, that's not— she's too square.
Yeah, that's good. I like the way you had them sort of boxed and separate. You know, that looks good. So I'll figure out something to do that's, you know, brand, on brand or whatever.
So, I mean, so let's see. The other thing on this week 2 is Observing. So I mean, observing your Facebook page is great. And maybe you can teach me some tips on advertising and Facebook so I can get clients through Facebook. I'm still working through the whole marketing piece. And I'm hearing a lot about, really about working with Pinterest now and Instagram. Those are the 2 main platforms. And, you know, Facebook kind of feeds together when you do the paid ads and paid with Google. So I'll let you know what I learned. That's kind of on my homework or agenda. But if you find anything, obviously you might want to teach me how you get clients on it because I've not had that experience at all.
Well, I will tell you one, one thing I use too. There's an app called Later.
Oh yeah.
It's a— you can schedule your social media through it. So I have not done this 100% successfully yet, but my goal is to like every Sunday schedule out 5 posts for my Facebook page. You can, you can post to all different platforms with that, but it's, it's kind of good. I don't want to think about it every day. I'd like to be able to plan my posts and then schedule them and then move on to Things, other stuff, you know.
That makes sense, right? Time saving is really good too. I mean, I think Hootsuite does that as well. Yeah, for it though. I don't know if Later is free, but yeah.
Well, I think they have a paid version and a free version, and I did try Hootsuite once, but it was like too much clutter on the screen. I couldn't deal. So I'm liking Later.
So I hear, I hear you on that. Sometimes if it looks like it's overwhelming, it probably is. Well, I hope you have a very successful week next week. Obviously, you already had a successful week this week. So 2 clients and 2 permanent clients is fabulous. And we'll just meander through the next week. But obviously, you're doing wonderfully. And of course, you can reach out to me at any time. But I'm so grateful that you have come on and done this video stuff with me because some people would be afraid of the camera and you've been great.
I know it's helpful. I don't crave doing it. And but it's Just be yourself and hopefully it helps somebody. So yeah, exactly.
And that's what we want to do on the QB Community Live group is help others. So this has really been, really been— I've been having fun, but I just— it was karma. You were supposed to be working with me.
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.
Well, everyone, we hope everybody has a successful week and hope you all having a week like Stephanie's having, and we'll see you all next week.
