The Un/Sexy Side of Entrepreneurship: 3 Money Systems you MUST Have

Navigating life's challenges with a dash of entrepreneurship and a pinch of personal growth, I, Angela Christian, invite you to a heartfelt conversation on this week's Unconventional / UN-CEO podcast.

You'll get the inside scoop on why financial systems are the backbone of any successful startup.

Get your free list here.

This episode doesn't shy away from the nitty-gritty of financial stability as we explore the delicate dance between cash flow and profit while dropping three solid strategies to keep your entrepreneurial ship sailing smoothly.

I'm thrilled to introduce my 6 week bookkeeping accelerator service, crafted to ensure your business's financial health is nothing short of robust.

Or book a 1:1 with me here.

Either way - it's a HUGE discount as my least expensive CFO package begins at $4800 / month. 

Join me as we also delve into the importance of a positive money mindset, and I'll point you toward resources that promise to transform the way you think about and manage your business finances.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Society told us who we should be. I tried that. It's not for me, and if you're here, I'm guessing it's not for you either. So welcome to the unconventional UnCEO podcast with your host, angela Christian, where my mission is to help you break free from the matrix once and for all to live a life of freedom, joy, wild abundance and fulfillment on your terms, unsubscribing from the status quo because you don't fit into someone else's box. Are you ready? Let's do it.

Speaker 2: 0:35

Hello and welcome back to the unconventional UnCEO podcast. I'm really trying to be consistent, so I am trying to figure out the best day to release these episodes. I used to do it on Tuesdays, which might still work, but I'm thinking probably Wednesday, but I didn't want to miss this week, so it's Friday, happy Friday. I didn't touch on some things during my last episode because I was so excited to get it out, so I'm just going to like share a few things and then get into this episode. So if anyone is listening and you have had a child with ADHD and you've treated them naturally, I would love to talk to you because my four-year-old son has ADHD pretty badly. I had to just pull him out of school and between me and a nanny, you know we're taking care of him because he just can't really sit in a traditional classroom and I'm not going to force him and I'm not going to give him medication. So I am picking up a neurofeedback machine on Monday and I'm really hoping that's going to have a significant impact. I'll be doing it for 30 days, so I'll definitely keep you guys posted, but my intention for him and my hope and goal is that you know he'll be able to regulate his emotions a little bit better, because it's so funny. This is what I teach and this is, you know, what has helped me so much in my life. But it's really hard to apply that to a four-year-old. Right, I do to an extent, but I also have my Emotion Code, danielle Taylor, doing Emotion Code work on him often, because for your kids you can have it remotely done where they don't even have to be present and actually I don't have to be present either. She just does it remotely. So if that's something you're interested in, I will link her information in the show notes and just mention me that you found her through my podcast and you will get a free session with her and a discount on ongoing sessions, but only if you mention moi. And I definitely have seen a difference.

Speaker 2: 2:54

One of the issues is that he just gets very he'll go from so happy and if I say you know, oh, we can't do that, it's not safe. I've tried so many different ways and I actually have an RRT children's expert coming on here soon on the podcast. So stay tuned for that if you're a parent and anyway. So that's one thing I've been working through because it has impacted my ability to work longer hours because in school, you know it was more flexible. I only have a nanny 40s a week and four, four hours, so trying to cram a lot into that, but yeah, so that's one of the challenges I'm facing right now. But I just look at it like, okay, I'm going to help him with this and then I'll be able to help other parents that have children with these. You know, I hate to say issues, but it's kind of an issue because he's not able to stay in school. And you know it's not the end of the world. If I were able to have a full time nanny, like with me, homeschooling him, that would be fine.

Speaker 2: 3:58

So anyway, today we're going to be talking about unveiling the unsexy side of entrepreneurship financial systems. So don't worry, I'm not going to get very technical in here, but if you're an entrepreneur you're definitely going to want to listen, and I've been. As you know, if you've been listening to this podcast for any amount of time, I have been working in the Silicon Valley startup world for over a decade. I've pretty much seen it all. I have seen all the mistakes and I've worked on companies of all sizes, from like helping a client, I helped one client for five years. They started out with zero in revenue and you know I stayed with them when they were making multi millions of dollars.

Speaker 2: 4:45

I love working with entrepreneurs. I'm an entrepreneur, but I just, I really do love this. This piece of it is like the Virgo, like Capricorn earthy piece of me just really loves systems and like getting things organized and like efficiency is definitely my kink. So I am all about efficiency and so I want to talk about some of the most common issues, and actually, one of my clients that I worked with at a firm that I'm working with now he's going to be coming on my podcast, so stay tuned for that and he'll probably talk about this, but when he came to me, a family member had been doing his books and it was just like a mess and so it took a long time and it was very expensive to clean all of that up. So I have resources for you and if you're, you know, an entrepreneur influencer creator, this episode could be very helpful.

Speaker 2: 5:38

So the most common issues and mistakes costly mistakes that I've seen originated from one, not being organized when it came to their accounting and money systems and two, not monitoring cash flow. Cash flow is different than profit. So, from budgeting to accounting to forecasting, like all of these terms, mastering your accounting and finance systems really does ensure stability and growth for your business. Again, this is probably the least sexy thing to talk about when it comes to entrepreneurship, and in my one of my masterminds I'm in Dan Co's mastermind One of the guys there was like, yeah, it's so boring and it is boring, but it can get messy really quickly if you don't stay on top of it. So I have three strategies I'm just going to touch on today, and then I have a free resource for you guys as well. That's just going to share my favorite systems and so you can see that in the show notes.

Speaker 2: 6:40

So, number one get your books in order, and so, even if you hardly have any expenses or income, start now, because it's a lot easier to start now than trying to get caught up later. I actually had a client call last month and she was doing it in a spreadsheet and I recommended that she go check out wave, which will be on the list In the show notes, the document I'm sharing with you guys. Wave is free, so you don't have to pay. I don't get any, you know, kickback or anything, it's just a free program and I actually did try it out because I wanted to see what it was about. It's very similar to QuickBooks Online, which is what I prefer, but you have to pay for QuickBooks Online. But with wave, I will say if you're going to be sending invoices out through your accounting system, you might as well just go to QuickBooks, because wave has a much higher fee, from my experience, than QuickBooks. So that's just something to note. But I will give you a list of different options and some pros and cons.

Speaker 2: 7:47

So establishing an accounting system should be your top priority. It will track your income expenses and it will prepare you for taxes. Not only that, but it'll help you create accurate information for cash flow forecasting, which I'll talk about in a minute. But again, waiting to do this will end up costing you more and you might not be prepared for taxes and all of that. And if you need a tax accountant, I have one. She does my taxes, all my clients' taxes. So email me, angela at angela-marychristiancom and I'll introduce you to her.

Speaker 2: 8:21

And so if you need help with this piece, like if you're like, yeah, I really need to get my books in order, but I just don't even know where to start. I'm actually about to launch a six week bookkeeping accelerator service, so I've been thinking about this for a while, because some people can't afford me. I'm a controller and a CFO and so I understand not everybody can afford that level of accounting and finance services, right? So this six week accelerator, we will get on one call a week for 45 minutes and so, like the first week, I'll ask you questions about your business, I'll get a better understanding, I will make recommendations and then, if we have time, on that first call, I'll actually start helping you walk through, like you all have. You pull it up on your screen and we'll be on a Zoom call and I'll help you start setting up your chart of accounts. And then on the following weeks we'll continue to set up your chart of accounts. We'll connect the bank account, I'll show you how to like, enter the transactions, match them.

Speaker 2: 9:27

Usually around week four, week five, I'll show you how to reconcile your books and then in week five, week six, I'll show you how to create a budget or a cash flow forecast, and any of these calls can also include business strategy. So it just depends on the, on the business. We might get through it all very quickly. But I usually like to help someone for at least a full cycle, which is, you know, a month, to make sure that everything is going smoothly, and then, if any mindset things pop up, we can also talk about that. Or, you know, I can give you a discount to my upcoming new program called the code, which is all about it's just like an introduction to unconscious reprogramming. So, as you can tell, I have a lot of things, a lot of exciting things happening.

Speaker 2: 10:15

But you can definitely try it on your own too. So in the free document, in the show notes, it'll have a list of these accounting systems and you can certainly try to do it on your own. But if you're just wanting like guidance and know that you're doing it right because certain things need to be in specific categories, for example. And so because I work with a tax accountant, she does the books for my clients, she does their taxes, I know what needs to go where, and so if you don't know anything about accounting or bookkeeping, I would not attempt to do it on your own you could do the six-week accelerator with me, where I'll answer all your questions, all of that. Or you could hire a bookkeeper, and if you need a bookkeeper. My firm also does that.

Speaker 2: 10:59

So next, we need to establish accounting systems. So this would be in your software, so no more spreadsheets. In your software you need to have a way to track your income, expenses, investments, all of that. So you'll either want to use one of the software recommendations or hire a professional. You want to make sure that you're regularly reconciling your bank statement, and that just means today's March 1st, so you could pull up February's bank statement, and if all of your transactions are entered in your accounting software, you'll just be able to reconcile it and make sure it zeroes out, meaning everything cleared for that month, and that's something I would walk you through as well. And also just taking a look at open invoices, any reimbursements like receipts, any expenses there's so many systems out there. Again, I will have a free reimbursement system linked in the show notes as well. It doesn't cost you anything and it's a great reimbursement tool. It's actually the easiest one I've ever used.

Speaker 2: 12:08

And then, obviously, we want to be monitoring our profitability and performance. So you can do this by looking at your financial statements, your income statement, your balance sheet, your cash flow statement. All of those are produced inside your accounting software and that's how you can really start assessing your business's financial health. And you can look for KPIs, which stands for Key Performance Indicators, to really figure out your areas of strength and opportunities for improvement. But if you're brand new, that's probably. I mean, yes, the reporting is necessary, but the KPI stuff that can wait a little bit.

Speaker 2: 12:48

So when you have solid books, that's when we would also start creating a forecast and we can start a budget. I usually create a budget after I see at least some historical data, because it's really hard to create a budget just guessing. So this is something I do with my clients is create a budget, create a financial forecast that shows us when, if we didn't work for three months, we might run out of cash. It'll show you exactly when you would run out of cash, when you might need to bring on more clients or when it would be smart to hire someone, so we can play around with those numbers. And then when you're reconciling your bank account each month, it is a good idea also to just kind of monitor your budget versus actuals, to figure out OK, I budgeted $150 for software, I actually spent $300 what happened, and then kind of adjust as you need to.

Speaker 2: 13:47

Keeping accurate records also helps manage your expenses wisely. So minimizing expenses and costs in the beginning is very important. If cash flow is tight, right, so that's something we can keep track of with the accounting software. And then staying compliant with taxes right, so keeping accurate records of all of this will help the tax preparation and filing go a lot smoother. And then the final thing I usually do for people is the cash before-cast, which I already kind of mentioned, but it projects your cash inflows and outflows, usually over a year.

Speaker 2: 14:27

And then all of this organization will really help you too. If you have any plans to secure financing or investment. They're going to want to see your financials, so this really sets you up for a strong foundation. So by prioritizing these financial strategies, getting your books in order, keeping them organized and keeping an eye on cash flow, entrepreneurs and content creators can establish a really solid financial foundation. It does take some focus and strategic foresight, but this allows you to navigate what can be sometimes complex in terms of business finance, but it really will help you sustain success in your journey.

Speaker 2: 15:11

So again, I can help you. We can do a one-on-one call. I'll link that in the show notes. You can join my six-week I'm calling it six-week MBA Master, your Books Accelerator, where I'll help you get everything. It's for the first five people.

Speaker 2: 15:26

Because it's a new program. I'm doing it for $4.99 for the whole time, so it looks like hardly anything for how much time we'll be spending on this $4.99. And then after that it's going to go up to $6.99 for the next five people and then it will probably go up to $9.99 eventually, so you can get it now for 50% of it. So I probably won't be doing a lot of these kinds of episodes, but I felt like I had to share at least one because it is such an important piece and it's something that I'm realizing a lot of entrepreneurs need help with. So I know that a lot of you are entrepreneurs. So if you're listening and you're like, yes, I need help, you can reach out to me or you can just enroll for the six-week MBA program and I will help you get all organized and set up. So have a beautiful weekend. Bye.