Taking charge of your finances as an entrepreneur is one of the hardest things to do when building your business, but it’s the most important!
This week’s episode of Good Girls Get Rich is brought to you by Uplevel Media and CEO and founder, Karen Yankovich discusses her thoughts with special guest Dawn Brolin on how to take charge of your Finances as an Entrepreneur. In this podcast, the discuss many mindsets on how to manage your money as a solopreneur or entrepreneur and give key resources on how to do so.
Dawn Brolin is a CPA, CFE and CEO of Powerful Accounting LLC. Dawn is a nationally recognized accounting tax, forensic and fraud and IRS representation, as well as a quickbooks consulting firm. Dawns list of professional accomplishments include speaking and consulting for prestigious companies. She was named top 100 most influential people in accounting in 2018 by Accounting Today, top 25 most powerful women in accounting from 2012-2017 by CPA practice advisor, top 10 managing partner by elite great accounting firm leader in 2017 by Accounting Today, top 40 under 40 in 2009 by CPA Technology Magazine.
#GoodGirlsGetRich
We want to hear your thoughts on this episode! Leave us a message on Speakpipe or email us at info@karenyankovich.com.
About the Episode:
You can be the best entrepreneur in the world, but if you don’t know how to manage your money and where that money is going to, you will never be successful. That is why I brough Dawn Brolin on the show today. As an established CPA, CFE and CEO of her own business, Dawn had many amazing tips to share on how to take charge of your finances as an entrepreneur.
As an entrepreneur, you’re in the business to make money, not to breakeven.
In order to take charge of your finances, you need to understand you’re here to make money. Many entrepreneurs get into the mindset of wanting to help customers so badly, that they often cheat themselves out of profits. Many underlying ways you might be doing this is through:
- Too many free programs
- Offering discounts to every client
- Spending too much time focusing on non-profit based systems
You deserve every penny that you earn, AND you deserve to keep it. Take the necessary mental steps to ensure you are willing to receive money in exchange for your services. The basis of what Dawn teaches all of her clients is off of the Profit First mindset by Mike Michalowicz, so I highly recommend taking a read!
Here are 4 expert tips that Dawn recommends every entrepreneur to start out doing when putting together their finance plans:
Know Your Numbers
Taking charge of your finances as an entrepreneur means you have to know every aspect of your business. You need to know
- How much in taxes you will owe at the end of the year
- What portion of your profits goes to payroll
- What are your operating expenses, etc.
Getting an idea of what your numbers are will allow you to move forward with the next important step…
Put Your Money into Buckets
And by buckets, Dawn means bank accounts. This is where you can really take charge of your finances. Making separate accounts, for separate expenses, that are untouchable is the best way to control where your money is going. A breakdown of your buckets may look like this:
- Operating expenses
- Payroll
- Profits
- Taxes
Be Proactive With Your Cash Flow
Just because you see money coming into the accounts, doesn’t mean you have to do something with it right then and there! As business owners, and even as normal human beings, we can easily get into the mindset of “oh, I just got a big check, what can I do with this money??”
There’s no need to react quickly just because there’s money in the account! As long as you are on track on your bills in each bucket getting paid, you are set! It’s ok to let money sit there until you decide what you want to allocate it towards.
Have Processes in Places
This tip comes from Dawn’s experience working on fraud cases. As an entrepreneur, you are going to be responsible for handling a ton of financial information from your clients. You want your clients to know that they can trust you with their information.
Not only that, you want to make sure your finances are being handled properly as well! Unfortuantely, fraud is present almost every day in some form or fashion, but having processes in place in your business can help further you being taken advantage of, as well as your clients.
Below are a ton of resources in which you can develop processes on handling clients you’re your money, documenting expenses, as well as securely storing payment information, receipts and tax documents.
Episode Spotlights:
- Recap of last weeks episode (1:00)
- Meet Dawn Brolin, CFE, CPA and CEO of Powerful Accounting LLC. (4:30)
- What Dawn tells all entrepreneurs and small business owners at the start of their work together (6:31)
- How to get out of the entrepreneur mindset of being “paycheck to paycheck: (9:46)
- The Profit First Mindset and Model (14:05)
- The importance of knowing the numbers of your business model (22:15)
- What made Dawn decide to be an entrepreneur (27:05)
- Dawns experience working with fraud (28:51)
- Ways to securely track and store expenses and documents (33:23)
- A tool for entrepreneurs to store receipts and store info incase of an IRS audit (38:47)
- Where to find more information about Dawn (42:42)
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
- Free LinkedIn Tips Series By UpLevel Media
- Profit First by Mike Michalowicz
- Right Signature, a way to document credit cards
- Docusign, a way to implement electronic signatures
- SmartVault, an online document storage and secure file sharing system
- Receipt Bank, a way to store receipts
- QuickBooks, the accounting software Dawn implements for clients and herself
- Dawn’s business Powerful Accounting that helps service businesses accounting needs
- All the information you need about Dawn Brolin and how to work with her.
- Dawn’s upcoming Fight Against Fraud project to educate business owners
- Free Facebook Group to discuss LinkedIn strategy and building your business
Help Us Spread The Word!
It would be awesome if you shared the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast with your fellow entrepreneurs on twitter. Click here to tweet some love!
If this episode has taught you just one thing, I would love if you could head on over to Apple Podcasts and SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW! And if you’re moved to, kindly leave us a rating and review. Maybe you’ll get a shout out on the show!
Ways to Subscribe to Good Girls Get Rich:
- Click here to subscribe via Apple Podcasts
- Click here to subscribe via PlayerFM
- You can also subscribe via Stitcher
- Good Girls Get Rich is also on Spotify
- Take a listen on Podcast Addict