Let's Talk Bookkeeping & Tax Solutions

Welcome to the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. We're your host, Erika Radis and Marie Lifschultz, a realtor and lender here in San Antonio. But most importantly, we're working moms just like you.

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Now on to today's episode. Grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and let's get started.

Welcome to this week's episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. Today we have a guest on, Joanne, with Virtual Bookkeeping Solutions, and we're going to turn it over to her to talk a little bit about herself and her work.

Awesome, that's great. First of all, thank you ladies for having me. It's a pleasure to be here this morning with you ladies. So I am Joanta Lily. I am an accountant. I have been in this field for over 22 years now, so don't count my age. Just a hint, hint. Lots of experience, ladies. This is what I eat. This is what I breathe, but I'm also a mompreneur. Okay, so I run my own business. I have two kiddos at home. I do the soccer thing, the basketball, the ballet. I handle my finances. I do the husband and the cooking and the packing lunches. So I definitely can relate to those mom entrepreneurs out there. Um, bookkeeping, accounting, and taxes is just— it's my thing. That's what I do.

Yeah, well, I'm glad for one that there are people that do that kind of thing.

Yes, you like the numbers.

For sure. Um, and so you wanted to kind of talk on some topics, um, for, you know, business bookkeeping and that kind of stuff. Um, and so why don't you share a little bit about that?

Definitely. So today, um, I really wanted to talk about the topic of how the, the importance of having your bookkeeping together and your finances before tax season, ladies. Mm-hmm. So let me tell you, when is not the right time to do your bookkeeping is at tax season. Yes, okay, tax season is crazy. Your tax preparers, your CPAs, your accountant, they have deadlines, they have things. Something bad is about to happen. That means money is not going to be accounted for if those finances are not in order. So that's literally— you are like an ATM just leaving money on the table for Uncle Sam. That is the wrong time to do your booking, okay? We don't want to do that. And The concept that I've been getting a lot in a lot of questions in this season, and we're right in the middle of tax season, is how much refund can I get? How much money can I get back? You know, can I get the max amount of refunds? All valid questions, but have you guys, or do you guys know how big that tax code is? I can implement 1,000 strategies to do that, but if you don't know where you stand, do you qualify? Do you qualify for those credits? Can you— does that apply to you? My finances look very different from Marie's finances. Marie's finances look very different from your business. If we don't have our books in order, then how can we even implement tax strategy?

Yeah, can you go a little bit more into what it means to have your books in order? Because I think when I'm speaking with people, I think a lot of— especially in what I do, asking for information about financial statements and they don't know what I'm asking because a lot of times business owners are good at their business, but their business isn't bookkeeping or accounting or tax preparation. A lot of times they think bookkeeping and tax preparation is the same thing, and it's not.

It's not. It definitely is not. Okay, so let's, let's break that a little bit into two, two different sections. Um, bookkeeping. What, what is bookkeeping? Bookkeeping is keeping track of all of your income and your expenses.

Right?

All of your business income, ladies. One of the biggest mistakes out there is missing personal expenses with business expenses, and we do not want to do that. That is something that we just simply want to stay away from, and we do not want to practice that, right? Um, scanning receipts, scanning proof of income. Receipts are so important. I'm gonna tell you why. Most people think that bank statements are enough. I'll just go off my bank statement. What I have there is my expenses, correct? Actually not correct. In the event of an audit, bank statements are not enough. And the easiest way that I'm going to explain this is, let's say that you have an expense for your business to go to Sam's. Well, if you're audited, that auditor is going to ask you, okay, where's the receipt that shows this was a purchase of a business expense and not food for the soccer team, right? For a kid's soccer team. So bank statements don't give the full story. That's why we need to capture those receipts. We need to stay on top of those receipts. We need to implement a way of scanning them in, of having an organized receipts to prove those expenses are out. Income tracking, your income, right? What do your invoices look like? Are you going to be knocking on doors to collect payments? Are we going to be chasing customers? Is there a simple way to implement invoicing? How do you invoice a client?

When I've run into people who don't realize they've not been paid, right? Like, if you have invoices going out daily and you're not keeping track of who's paid and who's not—

who are these people?

I know.

Who are these people that don't know when they are or not paid?

They don't— I know exactly when I'm paid and when I'm not paid because in what I do, I look at tax returns a lot. I'm like, I know what you do, and I've done, you know, multiple loans for certain people. I'm like, how are you not accounting for some of this expenses? Like, you're leaving money on the table because you're not being organized ahead of time. Or someone doing it for you.

And you know what, Marie, that I'm going to hit that point very quick. You know why? Because business entrepreneurs are busy with their business.

Yes.

And they're not putting the right people to do that.

Yeah, right.

CEOs don't grow alone. CEOs grow by having the right people to do that. Absolutely. CEOs don't know it all. CEOs find the right people to do that. And that's a big misconception. Think about it. When you don't have that bookkeeper, there's nobody there. It's you. You have to implement that. You have to stay on top of your finances. You have to create a system which can be done. Ladies, gosh, when I opened my firm, I was a one-man does it all. I've worn all those, right? I'm the marketer. I'm the social media expert. I'm, I'm the accountant. I'm the, you know, we do it all. Yes, but there is a point in your business where you have to invest in the right people in order to grow. And in your finances, that's going to save you money in the long run. Absolutely. Because guess what? I don't have to fire— hire an employee, right? I don't have to hire an expensive employee that's going to cost me a lot of money. I'm going to hire a bookkeeper that's going to be looking at those expenses. It's going to be say, hey, you know what, Marie, So-and-so hasn't paid you and you have so much that's owed to you.

Yeah, right.

Or you know what, Marie, maybe you're not charging enough for your services. This is what the standard industry is charging for, for a beauty salon or for real estate advice or, you know, vice versa. You have someone there that's watching those because you are busy. Busy what? Being mamas.

Exactly.

First of all, being mamas, dealing with the house, dealing with the business, dealing with growing, dealing with all these decisions that are going to be thrown at you. And let me tell you something, we as businesswomen are always going to face a lot of decisions that are coming our way. And if we don't know where we stand, how do you make those decisions, right? How do you make those decisions to know, is it time for me to hire an employee? Yeah, right. How do you make the decision to know, can I afford that new laptop, that shiny little laptop that's coming in? You know, should I afford to invest in in a podcast session with so-and-so. Well, if you don't know where your finances are, how do you make those decisions?

Yeah. When I think if you actually take the time to have hire someone to do your bookkeeping to keep you organized, then you can make time for the things that are important to the reason you became an entrepreneur to give you a nice work-life balance. Ideally, right? We always think that, oh, I'm going to be self-employed, I'll have more time. No, you work 24/7.

Because you should—

you're still a mom, you own a business, but you got to have— I think if you don't have someone in place to help you with your books, it's going to make the job a lot harder than it needs to be, like what your business.

Correct.

Yeah, correct. And you know what, ladies, it is not worth it. It's not worth it living in stress. I know a lot of entrepreneurs who are just, they're so stressed about taxes. Yeah, don't be, don't have to be. If you implement even small steps to organizing finances, that goes a long way. And what I mean by that is get it on a spreadsheet. Maybe you're not there yet. Maybe you're not at the point where you're going to hire a bookkeeper, right? Get a system in place, get a spreadsheet, find an app. There's a lot of free apps out there that you can scan your receipts that you keep track of, right? Implement those small steps, implement the time to review those on a monthly basis, right? That's going to create the stress of tax season to really go away.

But I also think you're adding someone to your business with a bookkeeper who cares about your business like you do, right? They care about you understanding your financial place, right? They— I feel so. I mean, I know I do. When I work with people, I care. When I have clients I work with and I'm looking at their tax returns because they're trying to qualify for a house, I'm like, hey, you own a couple of properties. Why is there no you know, a mortgage interest being written off, or no, you know, insurance and taxes and depreciation, that kind of stuff. Where's that at? Like, oh, well, my accountant. I'm like, well, your CPA can only do what you give them. So if you don't have someone keeping track of that for you, or you're not doing it yourself, it's going to cost you money in the long run.

And I do think that having the right person on your team as a bookkeeper, as an accountant, they really put themselves as part of your team. Yeah, your growth is their growth. And that's what you have to look in. You're ready to hire that person. But we also have a lot of mom entrepreneurs who are just starting. And that's why I say smaller steps, get those finances, reduces this. I've been there. Yeah, because I mean, I didn't have nobody doing anything for me in the beginning. I had to do it all right, because we have to grow, we have to grow, we have to get clients. That's a hard step to get over and don't necessarily have to just not do anything and wait until tax season to hit the panic button. Do it, do it throughout the year. Set it, time block it, put it on your calendar, ladies. You know, at the end of the month on around the 5th, I'm going to sit down, I'm going to review what I have, I'm going to enter those expenses on Excel. There is all that. When you're ready to go to that CPA or that bookkeeper, then you have something to turn to.

To turn to. Yep. Right.

And not a box of receipts at tax season.

Yes.

Let's say that. Not a box of receipts at tax season, ladies.

Oh my gosh. In my past, I worked for a CPA, like in a temporary job that lasted 5 years after college. And you would, well, you wouldn't be surprised, but a lot of people would be surprised, like what is delivered to these CPAs in terms of like, their records, right? And I say records with quotes, like it's the most wild stuff I've ever seen. Like a box, a cardboard box full of, um, documents and some receipts and like cat hair and like just like the most craziest stuff. And so if that's the way you're keeping your books, I feel like that's probably not the way to do it.

More than likely it's not the way to do it.

That cat hair is not a write-off. That's not gonna write off very much.

I can tell you that.

Then I gotta like, Well, and there's, there's, with stuff like that, you're gonna, you're gonna miss, you're gonna miss expenses, you're gonna mix where you— yeah, you're gonna waste money that way. So you're just, you're costing yourself more money. And you know, when you start a business, you have a time period where you're not making anything.

Yeah.

So by doing it that way, you're just costing yourself more, more money in the long run.

Right, exactly, exactly. And, and that, that is one of my goals, to let you know that The sooner you implement this, the sooner you implement your bookkeeping, your own business, the more time and money stress that you're going to save.

Yeah, for sure. And now, Joanne, you mentioned earlier, you know, a lot of these gals are new, you know, and they don't know. So I— would you mind sharing some of the more common mistakes that you see maybe new entrepreneurs make in terms of bookkeeping?

Definitely. One of the most common mistakes, ladies, we, it's a big no-no we don't do, is mixing personal with business expenses, right? Okay, definitely start your own business account, very separate, and let's not mix those two together. Okay, that's one of the most common mistakes that I have seen. Second common mistake is saving your shoebox with receipts. Yes, right, we go back to the shoebox with receipts, ladies. If you can't figure it out, neither can your bookkeeper or anybody because you are your own journey, right? You're the one knows how your business runs. You're the one doing those transactions. How do you translate that to a bookkeeper? How do you translate to an accountant? They're not there for the beginning of those stages. So you have to organize yourself. Third mistake that I would say is not setting aside money for taxes. You don't wait all year long and then tax season comes around and, oh, here we go, surprise, right? Yeah. So that is, I think, 3 of the most common mistakes that are a major no-no that we don't do. I wouldn't recommend it for anybody. If you're doing it, please don't do it. It's a big no-no.

And so I'm sure it depends on the industry, but is there like sort of a general amount that you would recommend business owners set aside for taxes?

So rule of thumb is on that, now it does depend. Everybody's tax situation is different, industries are different, so it quite varies. But the general rule of thumb is 25 to 30% of the income that's coming in.

Oh, that's a lot of the income.

It is a lot of the income.

It is. So that's why we need expenses, ladies. Expenses, reducing those incomes. That's the goal, is to keep up with those expenses that are coming.

And by not having a box full of receipts allows you to lower that 25 to 30% that you'll be paying Uncle Sam.

Yeah.

So yeah, or it allows you guys to get credits. There's so many credits, or to implement tax, tax strategy, right? Saving money. Everybody wants to save money in taxes, but none of that information is there, then how do you implement that?

Well, I think everybody's goal when they decide to be self-employed is because they want the flexibility in the— or the ability to make as much As they can, right? When you're a salaried employee, you're stuck.

Yeah.

So when you work for yourself, you can make as much money as you, as hard as you work. But in order to keep that money, we gotta do some work ahead of time.

Yes. I always feel like in our industry, both being in the real estate industry, taxes are such like a double-edged sword.

It is.

You know, because it's like you, you wanna show like for, for loans, you wanna show you have income. Um, but then as a business owner, you're always trying to reduce that income. Mm-hmm. So that you don't have to pay a ton of taxes. And so, but, but you have always said, Marie, that there are ways that you can have these expenses on your tax return that can get added back in, like for mortgage reasons.

Right. So there's deductions that you can expense to lower your taxable income that as a lender or banks that they'll look at to add, okay, we're going to add these deductions back into your bottom line to give you a little bit more income. So there's different ways of doing it. I think that you can't just be on a whim, I'm going to buy a house today.

Yeah.

You have to plan those things out. So when you have your team in place, in place, your bookkeeper, your CPA, your lender, whatever the case is. If that is a goal of yours, have those conversations early. Have like, hey, I'm looking to do this, what, what do I need to put in place today in order to have that goal?

Yeah, right.

Where do you know— I would say a lot of real estate agents get lazy when it comes to their expenses and they want to lump it into other or whatever. But no, you— we have to be specific on mileage, we have to be specific on, you know, if you're doing— if you have real estate that you have repairs, we have to be, you know, categorize them properly so then we can actually look at those. So you can show us income that you need to qualify for the loan, but also not be taxed on it if, you know, to take appropriate deductions on your tax returns.

Right. And a bookkeeper and a tax preparer would be able to help you. Mm-hmm. If you express to someone like Joanne, like, hey, you know, in 2 years, I'm thinking I might wanna buy a house, you know, you can help guide them on on how to do that.

Yeah. And again, I go to your bookkeeper or your accountant, your CPA. They're going to be part of your team.

Yeah. Yeah.

You need to be made aware of those goals because they can definitely provide guidance.

Right.

Marie is going to come to me as an example and say, hey, I need your numbers to get, to get her qualified to get that goal. The goal is to purchase that property. So they become such a part of your team. Again, a bookkeeper, an accountant's success is your success, right? It runs both ways, both streets.

Yes. And they're— and banks are trying to find different ways on a regular basis to find ways for people who are self-employed to qualify for loans. There's so many different ways than just using tax returns. So if we have looking at a P&L report or looking at your, your balance sheets and stuff like those are things that your bookkeeper will prepare. For us. That's something if you have in place, you're not having to scramble like, hey, I need a year-to-date P&L and it's, it's November and I need all the stuff on and they haven't done it because they haven't been doing your bookkeeping that whole year.

Yeah.

So then it's going to cost you money for them to do those services for you to do a cleanup job, right? Correct. So you're wasting money by not staying on top of it.

Yeah, that makes sense.

And listen, um, those cleanup jobs can get very pricey.

Oh, I bet.

So there's always a shortcut, but the shortcut is always the longest route down the road, right? Um, just having, having that, uh, okay, here we go. I'm hearing better.

You're good.

Um, so bookkeeping can just— if the earlier you do it, the earlier you implement it, again, it's going to save you time, it's going to save you money, because once you come with that full receipt box and disorganized mess, that takes time. That's going to cost you time when you hire that person, right? If you bring that shoebox to a tax preparer, now you're not talking about a tax preparation fee, you're also talking about doing bookkeeping and cleanup. They're going to charge you for that. So the earlier we implement that strategy, the more savings that you're going to do at the end of the year.

And even yourself, if you just, if you're just starting out, you know, it's a It is an expense that you're unable to do at the moment to hire a bookkeeper. Just being organized and stay and putting that time aside, time blocking a few hours a month to look at your books on a regular basis will save you a lot of money in the long run.

Yeah.

Until you're able to hire someone to do that for you.

That makes sense.

Mm-hmm.

So for the gals that are just starting out, um, do you have any like softwares or systems that you might recommend that people can kind of stay organized with to then present that stuff to their bookkeeper so that things can go a little bit more smoothly?

Yeah, definitely. So listen, ladies, everybody has heard about QuickBooks. I love QuickBooks, I use QuickBooks, but it is maybe not the only option now out there. And there are better options that help for those starter businesses, for those people that are just starting. One of the apps that I like is Wave Apps, wave like the hand wave apps. This is a very good app that will help you get track of your income. It helps you keep track of your expenses. It has a little app where you can scan receipts and upload them. It's a very nice place to start for starters. Now, this is not for medium size or growing businesses, but it is for those individuals who are starting. It gets the process going.

Yeah.

And then let's keep it basic. Excel, very basic. You're just starting off. Keep it basic. Download an app for scanning receipts. There's a ton of them out there. There's a lot of them that are free, by the way. Scan your receipts. Why we scan receipts, and I say that is because now you have a place where those are stored, right? We're not losing them in our car, we're not losing them in transition, the ink is not smearing all over the place, right? They're actually scanned in and they're saved and stored for us somewhere to show records of that. Yeah, so the whole thing is to show records on it, um, and do something that is going to work for you, okay? Um, I can tell you implement this strategy, use this nice software, use this— there's There's a lot of stuff out there, girls.

Yes.

But if it doesn't work for you and you're not gonna do it, then it's pointless, right? It's kind of like when we hire an organizer to come and organize, right? They have to think about what system are you actually gonna do to keep it in place. Otherwise it's just gonna turn to a mess. Keep it simple. Keep it with Excel if you're starting. Do a little app to scan in your receipts. Make sure you have that in there. If you like, dive into the Waves app and kind of play around with that and the reports that it can give you. And I would say start there, start there, time block it once a month and say, okay, I'm dedicating an hour or two to my business finances and reviewing where I'm at.

It's just part of the business. It's just like you're making— if you're making a product, you put time to create your product, create time to look at your books.

I don't like that part.

I know you don't.

You hate it. I don't like it at all. I'm just— I think I don't like it because I'm bad at it. So I'm lucky I have a very nice bookkeeper, um, that helps me with working moms. Thank goodness. Because at a certain point I had a business coach that was like, what do your books look like? And I was like, what do you mean? What books? And he was like, you're keeping track? And I was like, there's money in there, you know? So I think we're fine.

Yeah.

Um, and so, but I just feel like I'm just not good at it. I tried to do the QuickBooks myself. I thought I was doing it right. Of course I wasn't doing it right. And then my bookkeeper had to go in there and be like, what are you doing? And so, um, Keeping it simple, I think for people initially is a great tip. And then after that, you need someone like Joanne to just do it for you. If you're like me.

Okay, so we go back to being an entrepreneur, let's say.

Yeah.

We are CEOs of our businesses, right? That doesn't mean we know it all. It doesn't mean that we can do it all. Yeah. But a CEO does what? He puts the right people in their team.

Right?

I'm not good at real estate. I'm not going to sit there and sell my own house, right? For sure. So I'm going to put Marie to jump in and connect me with the right people to get this transaction going.

Yeah.

Let's think about growth. There's no CEO, the girls alone, right? You put the right bookkeeper, you have her handling your stuff because one, you don't have the time, you don't like the subject, and it's something that you don't like to do. So you put that right person who is getting it done for you. And what is she providing? You're forgetting peace of mind, right? It's getting done, first of all, right? You're saving money because she's accounting for what's going on in your business, right? And you have what? Somebody to turn to for advice when you do have to make those decisions.

Exactly. So, Janet, are there any, like, if someone's looking to interview a bookkeeper to figure out what's a good match for their business, are there any key questions that you would advise maybe a working mom to ask bookkeepers?

Speed date.

That's a great one. Date.

Speed date. Those interview questions are very alike, so let me tell you. Um, first and most, uh, their industry. You know, what experience do you have with my industry? Do you understand my industry? Do you serve clients in my industry, right? We're bringing somebody in as part of our team into our home. Our business, our personal information, which is very vulnerable. So it's important to have somebody that understands, one, our industry, two, understands our business and personality, right? Do they match my personality? Do they understand who I am? Are they that mom that speaks to that mom? Do they know that I have soccer and ballet and I didn't have 3 hours to dedicate to scanning receipts in, right? Because I'm handling all of that, right? Do you feel comfortable with their personality? And third of all, do they understand my goal?

Right?

We all start our businesses. We all have different goals. Do you understand it? Do you align with it? Interview ladies, date 3 or 4, you know, do the speed dating thing, 3 or 4, you know, until you find that right person for you. You're again, you're bringing somebody into your personal space and you have to be comfortable with that person and you have to align with them. So very much like dating.

Right? Yeah.

Um, and when you know the right person is right, you're gonna know the right person is right. You'll feel it.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, for sure.

I love the speed dating part.

Yeah.

The dating.

Well, and you mentioned having them align with your goals. So I'm curious, when clients discuss goals with you, um, you maybe have some advice on the right ways to attain those goals and that kind of thing. And then what about when maybe someone like me strays away from those goals with the actions that they're doing in their business? Do you ever have kind of like tough conversations where it's like, hey, look, you kind of said you you wanted to do this thing, but what your behavior is, it's not going to allow you to do that thing in the way that you want. Do you ever have those kind of conversations?

Oh, absolutely. You have to. You have to because, again, as an accountant, I'm coming into your team. I'm making sure that you are staying aligned with the goals that you want to. If things change in between that, great. We have to change strategies, right? We have to change directions. That's why we're going to meet. That's why we're going to say, hey, That's why somebody's on top of that, looking at that and say, hey, Marie, you know what? Slow down. What do you mean? I thought your end goal was to grow this business and you're not growing it because you're buying a Camaro. Yeah. You know, kind of thing, right? Yeah. Again, go back to you have to have the right person in place to have those conversations, right? A lot of people don't like to do that, but guess what, ladies? There's no one coming. No one is coming to do your finances for you. Nobody's coming to make those decisions for you. No one is coming to make you get out of bed and grow that business. Yeah, it's all on you. At the end, it's only advice. At the end, it's only, um, just words coming out of my mouth. It's up to you to put it into action, right? Absolutely. There's a thousand roads to Rome. You have to choose one. Based on your goals.

But I think by having a bookkeeper in place at least gives you— and for— it gives you the, the information you need to make an educated decision on things. Like, you're not just flying at the seat of your pants, right? I'm just gonna buy— like, there's a— there is a— in one of our groups, they were talking about, you know, um, buying product. Don't— do you know if you need product? Yeah, you're just buying it to buy it because someone came in and was selling stuff. You don't know if you need it, so you're gonna have excess of product where you could have used those funds to hire a bookkeeper, do something different with it. So maybe having someone to help, help you keep track of what you have as far as your assets and your, and your monies and so, so forth. Well, at least give you the information on a regular basis that, you know, like I do have these funds to spend. I can veer off a little bit of my goal because I want to purchase another microphone for the podcast room or whatever the case is. We want to change out the decor, whatever. Yeah, you know.

No, for sure. And I think just having someone to kind of just knowing that someone is going to be looking at all that stuff I know for me, keeps me a little bit more accountable. Mm-hmm. Because I know that my bookkeeper might be like, hey, yeah, what's this thing that you bought? And you know, you really wanted to do this other thing. I mean, not like in a rude way, but just, I know she's gonna look, you know?

Yeah.

Well, someone to let you know, let you know.

Or I can't tell you how many times I've pulled out my business card and been like, oh no, my bookkeeper's gonna see that. And that's not a business expense. And so I'm not gonna do that.

But look how cool Erika Don't you think it's so nice? You know, starting a business these days can be a very lonely road. Yeah, right. And there's tons of decisions that come your way from, you know, can I afford advertising, right? Can I afford the free subscription or can I upgrade? Right. Just simple stuff like that. Isn't it so cool that you have someone to turn to?

Yeah.

I mean, can't you just say, you know what, let me call my bookkeeper, let me call so-and-so. Hey, you know, by the way, they're selling me a marketing plan, you know, 5 grand versus 3 grand, which package should I go with? What do you think? Just to have that extra person to go to, that's a blessing in itself.

It's kind of like your ChatGPT in person. Yeah, you use it as a tool. So your bookkeeper can be that extra brain power that you need to help you make those decisions. They can't make it for you, right? But it's just someone that they are— that can— you can at least bounce ideas off of and like, you know what, you're doing really well, you're tracking X amount a month. If you wait 2 more months, I think you'll have the funds that you need without having to dip into a credit card or, or whatever the case is. So at least you'll have someone to bounce those ideas off, as you would do in your personal finances with your spouse, right? You talk about finances and where you're at, you know, hey, can we, can we afford that vacation this summer? Do we need to wait for next summer? You have the same thing with your bookkeeper in your business.

So yeah, absolutely.

Anything and having more info. I mean, I love numbers, you know that. I love digging into people and I have these conversations with people when they're like, When they're buying a home, I ask them, hey, where do you want your payments to be? You don't want to be house poor. You want the house to be a blessing, not a burden. So where are you comfortable as far as your budget? Because I only see certain things when I look at your finances. I don't look at everything. I don't know your savings goals. I don't know what your growth in your business want— you want it to be. So I don't know where you want to spend money. So when someone says, I have X amount of payment to keep me within my budget, I try to help them stay within that budget because that was a goal they expressed to me. Now, if they— I give them a range, like, hey, you can go up to this amount, but it's going to dip into your, your goals of saving, or whatever it is. But it's their decision always to make. So same with your bookkeeper, they can always just advise.

Yeah, for sure. Um, Joanne, is there anything else that you wanted to touch on, um, in terms of just bookkeeping and topics and different things?

Let's talk about working smarter, not harder.

Yes, let's talk about that.

We like that. Yes, yes. I work really hard and I feel like I don't get anywhere sometimes.

All right, so let's talk about automation. The days where we used to sit down, and I had this conversation with Marie earlier, the days where our mothers used to sit down with their checkbooks and have their pencil and kind of go through their expenses.

Your ledgers.

And the ledgers. Do you remember those big green ledgers? Yes, yes, yes. Did you ever get to see them?

I did. I was at my very first job in high school. I actually, um, worked for a small jewelry company, and he— they worked at their home, so he hired me for a couple of hours. And I, I didn't know what I was doing, but I was, I was bookkeeping. I had a big green ledger, and I had to write out all the expenses and the invoices. And I didn't know what I was doing at the time, but that's what I was doing.

Yeah.

So, yes, those days are long gone, ladies. Please, no green ledgers, none of that. All right, guys, we are coming into an era. This this is the stage of our lives that we have to implement automation. Automation is our best friend, right? Um, however, that comes with a certain responsibility too, right? ChatGPT is a great tool, it's not always correct, as an example. Yes, right. So let's talk about automation and how we can implement that in bookkeeping. First of all is using those apps. There's a lot of apps out there for free for scanning receipts. How amazing is I go back to that. They're not sitting in your back pocket of your jeans. They're not sitting wasting ink and smearing or anything.

They didn't go through the washer.

Exactly, a couple of times, right? Ladies, we don't even keep our money in the washers anymore. My husband doesn't leave a dollar 'cause he doesn't have cash anymore. He uses a credit card, right? That's right. Those days are gone.

Those days are gone.

So we have to come up with doing things differently, right? And implementing those stuff that are gonna make things easier. One of the good things is software. There's a thousand options for software. One of the most main ones to know is QuickBooks, and it has really cool features where it already includes that little scan app. It already includes tracking mileage. You should see how cool that app is to track your mileage. I mean, you turn it on, you say, I'm going on a business trip from here to my client's house, it automatically calculates mileage. It keeps a report for you. It tells you at the end of the year, so you're just printing that baby out and giving it to your accountant at the end of the year. How cool is that?

Well, that's a deduction I can add back into your income when you qualify for a house. Just say, track your mileage.

Yeah, are you sitting there writing it on pencil and paper and a ledger?

No, right?

We have this new stuff that are helping us, um, for sure, uh, accounting software, right? We connect our bank accounts to these softwares, ladies. So that means that anything that's coming in or out of that puppy is getting recorded.

Yes.

And it's doing it automatically for you.

Yeah.

While you sleep, those things are being accounted for. Those things are being there. They're creating records for us. Mm-hmm. So when we open these nice little softwares, bam, there's all of your transactions. I went to Costco 15 times, 15 transactions are gonna be there for you, for your accountant, right? We're no longer having to spend hours and hours of doing that and going through receipts and going through bank statements because they're there is automation to do that. Now, is automation going to set up itself? No, you have to implement it, right? And you have to use it. So use those tools, ladies. There's tools for mileage tracking, there's tools for expense tracking, there's tools for your accounting. Um, the accounting software is now— you can connect your bank accounts automatically to it, you can connect your credit cards automatically to it. Please set up all of your bills on auto payment. Please, please, please, Like nobody, I don't think anybody should be paying bills just out of the bright of their minds because you know we're busy, we're mamas and we have brain fog. It's seriously real. You're gonna forget to pay bills. So set up as much automation as you can to make you more productive.

Automation.

Yeah, that's one thing I have a hard time with is the setting up auto bill pay.

I think people get scared because they're not sure if the funds are going to be there.

It's a control thing for me. I don't like to just I want to press the button to pay it. So in my, um, I have a million, what do they call them? Planners. Yes. Oh my gosh. I keep, I'm the kind of person that thinks that I'm gonna buy a new planner, it's gonna change my whole life. So I just keep buying 'em. But, um, in my planner I have like all my bills and like what day they have to come out and like I'll physically pay them and check them off like a, like an old school person.

It feels good. And I, I, I'm of the same vein.

But you're right. I should be automating them because I don't really have time to be doing that.

Exactly. Erika, I mean, seriously, you know what bills are going to be paid. More than likely they're not going to change, right? They're the same amount of bills. You know you have to have the funds in there to put it in there, whether you pay them on your own or then automate. But how cool is it that that's going to save you time? Maybe it took you 15 minutes. At 15 minutes, you can do a lot, girl. You can take on a phone call. You can sign somebody up for a membership. You can plan a, you know, an event at your place. Like, think about that's being done for me. Therefore, I'm using my time wisely to, to invest in business, right? All right, so let's implement that. Let's use that to our advantage.

Well, just using the tools that you have, you know, and a lot of it's free. Obviously, paying bills, setting up that automation is free, you know, with your bank or whatever the case is.

So it helps.

It will just save— I think it saves us time to think about it. Like it's a, it's, it's a step in our business that something is being done for us.

Yeah. You know, and we talk about it and we've talked about it on other episodes as well. Like the mental workload that women have, um, sometimes isn't a physical workload. It's all, it's remembering I've gotta do the grocery shopping, I've gotta get the bills paid, I've gotta do, it's all things that are weighing on us mentally. Mm-hmm. That if you can automate some of that stuff, why not?

I guess cuz it's being taken care of.

Right.

I think if there's anything else that we can go into bookkeeping for, I, I think it's great. I mean, I think bookkeeping is— it helps me make good decisions, you know, when I, when I sit down and I go through our finances. And we have a couple businesses that we, we have, so looking at it, make sure, like, can we make, you know, this decision to buy this tool? A lot of times is what we're looking at when we, when we look at my personal businesses. Um, and what I see in my line of work as a loan officer, I see where bookkeeping, um, was not done properly and it wastes a lot of money. Not just in how much money they're not saving or they're paying in taxes, or they have back taxes now because they didn't do it properly the first time and they have to amend their taxes. Or some— they— and a lot of business owners don't understand what they're looking at when it comes to their finances. They don't, they don't know. Yeah, so they just assume someone's taking care of it for them, and they might not have. I had a case this past year where I felt horrible. This couple submitted documentation to— didn't have a bookkeeper, they just submitted receipts and stuff to a CPA to do. The CPA was not very familiar with their business, and in the long run, because they needed to close on a loan, the taxes were filed incorrectly. They had to go back and amend it. Their— they had to pay out. So they had built a home, it cost them almost $20,000 more.

Yeah.

And extending their lock and paying interest on the loan for the builder they needed to pay off because it took so much longer to get it done. Had they had a bookkeeper in place and not just trying to fumble through at the end of the year trying to get the stuff done, because now they, they're past due and so forth, it just costs a lot of money.

Yeah.

I mean, we have an experience even personally where, um, my husband when we were younger, was on contract in Afghanistan as a firefighter. And there was a gentleman there that like knew all about sort of like expatriate taxes, right? And you know, 'cause like a certain amount isn't taxed and then after that it is and whatever the circumstances were in this particular gentleman was like, everyone was like, go to this guy, go to this guy. And so we went over there and then when we came back home, both he and a friend of mine had their taxes, or had their taxes, I'm sorry, redone, uh, and resubmitted. And the guy really didn't know what he was doing and they ended up actually being able to keep more of the money that they had hard earned, you know?

Yeah.

And so it's important that somebody know, really does know the industry that you're in, even if it's sort of like a unique situation. Sometimes you may be advised like, hey, this person really knows. It's like, but do they, you know, you need to really make sure, um, that they know the industry.

Yeah. And let's talk about, um, bookkeeping and goals. When you started, Erika, your business, did you start with the goal in mind? Like, was this working mom a part of your goals? Probably not, right?

Right.

No, right. So most, most business entrepreneurs, they start without any goals in mind. If you ask them, very few will be able to answer.

Just make money.

Exactly.

We just want to make money. We need money.

How many clients? Okay, so how much money do you need for to survive that first month? What does success look like to you?

Yeah.

Success in business looks like very different from Marie to Erika to me. Sure, yes. For me, success would be cleaning 2 clients a month. For Erika, that might not be success, right? Everybody has a different goal. How do you get there? You need your bookkeeping to get there. You need to make those decisions to get there. You need to rely on that data to get there, right? Yep. And you need someone, I wish when I started, I know I wish somebody would tell me, Okay, you decided to fly solo and open your own virtual accounting. That's a new concept, ladies. The virtual accounting is completely new. That happened after COVID. If you were to tell me before COVID um, that I could do my career from my home, I would tell you you're crazy. Like, you would have to go and sit with your accountant face to face and discuss these things. People these days want to be in automation. They don't have time for that. They want to jump on a Zoom call. They want to jump on a call, make it quick, make it easy, correct? Um, so how cool would have been back then that I would have had some guidance to say, okay, you're starting this firm. What's the goal for this firm? How much money do you need for this firm? You know, are you at a point where you're flying solo or are you able to hire somebody? Okay, we need to make X amount of money. What does that look like for us? Does that mean we need 20 very low-paying clients, or maybe just 2 high-paying clients? Those are decisions that your finances answer you. Your finances are literally a map to your business.

Yes.

Right. So aligning those goals with financing, ladies, it all intertwines. Yeah, right. And then the very last piece is follow your taxes.

Yeah, don't wait, don't wait, don't wait 3 years. Please don't do that.

Yes, and now we're kind of getting into that time, I guess. So I'm sure you're busier than ever.

I have a lot of shoeboxes to go through.

Yes, oh my gosh. I hope not too many. Well, thank you so much, Joanne, for being on here. This has been really informative. It's not—

It wasn't boring.

Oh no, no, no, not at all. Honestly, this was a sort of a finance conversation that I found really interesting, which for me is saying a lot. So thank you again for being on. Can you share with our listeners how they can reach out to you for all of your services?

Oh, absolutely. So you can find me on social media, Facebook and Instagram, and www.myvbsbooks.net. Ladies, shoot me a message, DM me if you have any questions, just send that message through and somebody, myself or somebody on my team, will get back to you guys.

Okay, perfect. And we'll put that in our show notes so that way it's easy for them to click and just get right to you. And then I'll also thank our listeners for tuning in to this week's episode, and we will catch you next week.

See you guys next week.

¡Gracias! Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. We hope you loved today's chat and found a little inspiration to take with you into your week. If you have a podcast topic suggestion or a question you'd love for us to cover, definitely send us an email at hello@workingmomsofsanantonio.com. We'd love to hear from you. And until next time, see you in the community.