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Welcome to The Health & Wellness Practitioners Podcast! Dr. Danielle and other guest experts talk about everything from getting your practice started, developing your clinical skills, growing your practice YOUR way, and dealing with the real stuff life burnout and work/life balance. Whether you’ve been practicing for decades or just started your journey, you’ll find something here for you!
DR. DANIELLE: I have Danielle Hayden with me today. She's the owner of a bookkeeping agency. And for those of you that pay attention to every single post that I post in this group, which I hope is like zero of you, I recently polled the group. It was just a few days ago and we asked, what are the top things that you want to delegate? If money were no concern, what would you want to delegate first? The top answer was social media management. The second answer was chart notes, and then the third answer was bookkeeping.
So I am happy to bring a bookkeeper here to chat with us today and basically just answer some of the most commonly asked questions about bookkeeping, when you need a bookkeeper, what to expect, what systems you need, et cetera. So Danielle, on that note, I am going to turn it over to you and just let you introduce yourself and share a bit more about who you are and what you do.
MEET DANIELLE HAYDEN
DANIELLE HAYDEN: Yeah. It's nice to meet everybody. Danielle Hayden of Kickstart Accounting Inc. Founded the company about eight years ago and my background was as a corporate CFO. So I am your traditional story of going from corporate to entrepreneurship world. However, my story's a little bit different in that I really wanted to take all the experiences that I had in serving my CEO there, the board of directors, investors, and take all that to entrepreneurship because as entrepreneurs, we need to make the same business decisions that they were making.
However, I didn't realize that most of us struggle with money mindset issues, and that we don't have the foundation set. And we avoid getting the foundation of bookkeeping set up because we have money mindset issues. So, I went from a very black and white corporate background of these are the numbers, this is how we make business decisions and over the years have used, have combined both experiences of using numbers to make business decisions, with understanding that as entrepreneurs, this is our baby and our life. And that we need to understand the numbers in a way that is gentle enough for us to be able to and be willing to embrace the numbers. So I am doing all this while also being a mama of two kids. Cheers to back to school time. Yes.
DR. DANIELLE: Awesome. Yeah. What else made you decide to start your own business? I mean, making the transition from having a steady income to going out on your own is not for the faint of heart. Like why in the world decided to do that? I've done it as well, but it was a little crazy.
DANIELLE HAYDEN: It is a little crazy. So I have kind of an odd story. I started off as a hairdresser and I went back to school because I wanted to own my own hair salon and tangled in this roller coaster. I became an accountant and ended up in the corporate world. However, there was something that still was behind there that I wanted to own my own business. And I wanted to be able to pour back into other people. I believe that we are all here to serve each other. And back when I worked at the hair salon, I would use all of our numbers and the things I understood about numbers to help the other hairstylists understand what they needed and to be able to grow their clientele and counter their paycheck. There's some dirty practices that happen there and be able to understand their numbers. And I knew that there was something about that that I wanted to be able to pour back into. So I knew that there was a calling to serve other people with that knowledge that I had.
DR. DANIELLE: Okay. Well that is a special skill set that not everybody has. And you've already mentioned, we talked a bit about this before we were recording too, that the numbers scare people, but the numbers are not scary, but people are scared of the numbers, I should say. People are scared of the numbers. People are scared looking at the finances and they're scared of looking at the money and you mentioned the word or the phrase money mindset.
And as I was sharing with you, I have a financial assessment that it's really impactful for the health and wellness practitioners in our community who are accepting insurance, or maybe also who are not, but they really want to look at their fees and make sure that their business is profitable and that it's all making sense. They're ready to look at it and be like really transparent about it. The financial assessment takes like less than 10 minutes if their bookkeeping is up to date, but for a lot of people, their bookkeeping is not up to date. And for some people, their bookkeeping is really not up to date. So then it takes forever for them to get through the assessment because they need to know what their expenses are and how much money they've been spending to be able to do the assessments.
So that's another reason why I'm excited to bring you here today because I think you can share some things that will help people feel less intimidated by even the simple, you know, the simple act of having their bookkeeping up to date.
DANIELLE HAYDEN: Yeah. You're not alone. You know, it's a similar story that we have. When I first started the business, my goal was really just to help people understand their financials and understand how to make business decisions. And then as I got started, we realized that we couldn't do that because people didn't have the bookkeeping in place and they didn't have on time or accurate financials. And we said, all right, we have to set the foundation first. We are not going to be able to make any business decisions or understand anything unless we have the foundation set.
THE RIGHT TIME TO SET UP YOUR BOOKKEEPING AND YOUR BOOKKEEPER
DR. DANIELLE: So when people are okay, well, let me take a step back because actually my first question is what is the right time to set up your bookkeeping for your business?
DANIELLE HAYDEN: The day that you register your LLC is the day that you need an accounting system. It's a little bit of tough love, but I believe that we have a responsibility as business owners. So the day that we decide that we want to become a business owner, we have the responsibility to keep track of our finances because as you go and sign up for services and hire contractors or take money from your customers, you are agreeing to each one of them to be able to be in business, to continue to serve your customers, to be able to continue to do business with your vendors.
And the only way that you can continue to be in business is if you have bookkeeping in place and you can understand your numbers, otherwise you're not in it for the long game. So from day one, the day you accept money from a customer and hopefully beforehand, so that you have the systems in place. Cause it's going to get busy and it's going to get busy quick, you need to have those systems in place because you have to be responsible to those individuals.
DR. DANIELLE: Yeah. I'm totally with you on that. You know, a lot of us start our own businesses for the freedom and the freedom is a privilege that comes along with ownership of a business, but there's also a lot of responsibility and the responsibility, by the way, it doesn't have to always be a bad thing. There are lot of ways that people feel that small businesses are disadvantaged and that might be true, but the responsibilities, like you just mentioned, you know, like we're responsible to our clients, we're responsible to our vendors. That's a different perspective.
And a lot of people, well, especially health and wellness practitioners, you know, we go into these professions, even the hairstylist, like you go into the profession to help people cause you like doing what you do and you love the results and you love seeing people smile, you know, and feel better about themselves. And we don't see the exchange of money as a part of that, but it is.
DANIELLE HAYDEN: It is, it is. And your clients are depending on you, right. They're depending on you to be able to show up again for your next session and the next month, and maybe in a few years, as you continue to develop a relationship together. And so if we're not in business, we can't show up for our customers and continue to pour into them.
DR. DANIELLE: Okay. So in the ideal scenario, someone sets up their bookkeeping at the very onset of starting their business, the day that they've filed for their LLC. At what point do they know that is time to hire a bookkeeper?
DANIELLE HAYDEN: Yeah. So this answer depends on you, the business owner and your expertise, your comfort level and your risk tolerance. We have some people who come to us at day one who say, I don't know how to use QuickBooks, I want to make sure that this is done correctly from day one, my risk tolerance is pretty low, I want to make sure I'm not overpaying or underpaying on my taxes, I know that my time is worth being spent on building my business and serving my clients. And so those individuals will hire a bookkeeper much earlier because they know that they want to spend their time in other places and that they can actually generate more money by spending their money or spending their time in those places. And they don't have the expertise.
Now other people because look, there's no shame in this, right? So if you're somebody who's been in business for years, you're like, I don't, I'm not doing this it's okay. Right. We've worked with people who have been in business for years that don't have bookkeeping in place. So as soon as you are, as a business owner reached the tipping point that your time can be better served someplace else, or you're avoiding it.
So a lot of people, I refer to bookkeeping and accounting as the black cloud that follows you around. You know, it's just this thing that lingers on your to-do list that doesn't actually get done or gets done, but like Sunday afternoon, when you should be like your kids, you know? So when your tolerance runs out, right, we as business owners are going to tolerate things in our business until we're not. So when your tolerance runs out of maybe overpaying and taxes, because things aren't categorized correctly, or you have a risk of an audit from the IRS because you're not classifying things correctly or paying yourself correctly you have questions that you're not getting answered or you're just Googling them. When you're risk tolerance runs out and you are ready to say and accept help, that's the perfect time. Does that make sense? That's like a lot.
DR. DANIELLE: Yeah. Yes. I think it comes down to awareness, really being aware of the needs of your business, as well as your own needs too. We talk a lot, a lot, a lot about prioritizing our self care, taking care of ourselves and setting really clear boundaries. And one of the things that I often hear from people is that they're taking home a lot of work. That's if they have a brick and wear business still, and a lot of people in our community now have online businesses where you work, where you live. So the boundaries are even slipperier slipperier then, but yeah, they're taking home their chart notes. They're trying to do them in the evenings. They're trying to respond to emails and text messages after office hours and late at night and early in the morning and on the weekends and bookkeeping falls into that same category of tasks that they're just trying to squeeze into time that they really should be focusing on their own health and their family and their relationships.
DANIELLE HAYDEN: Yeah. Getting help can be a form of self care. We had a client recently who she's like, oh, I finally understand my number. So I actually started paying myself more so I can get a house cleaner. And it was this huge milestone for her, but it was a form of self care because she was driving herself crazy. So getting help can be a form of self care, whatever that might look like for you.
HOW TO FIND THE RIGHT BOOKKEEPER FOR YOU
DR. DANIELLE: Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So if someone knows that they need to start working with a bookkeeper, they're ready to hire someone, what do they do next? How do they go about finding someone that's the right fit?
DANIELLE HAYDEN: I think there's always skillset, there's also personality. So I can't tell you how often we will. We'll take a call with a new, a potential new client. And they'll say to me, I have a tax account. I have a bookkeeper, but I never want to call them because they make me feel small. They make me feel like I'm not big enough or I don't deserve help or they never respond to me. So my questions don't get answered or when they do respond to me, the answer is short and I don't understand what they're saying.
So yes, you want somebody who has the skill set, right? They need to know how to do bookkeeping. That could look like they have their CPA. They might have their master’s. They might have an accounting degree. You can go to like bookkeeping school online. So you want to make sure that you're not hiring somebody who went to school online and doesn't have the right experience in entrepreneurship to help you understand the information because proper bookkeeping's just the first step. It's also having that team member, that person to help you understand the information.
So qualifications and then the ability to help you without judgment and shame and then personality. Right? Like you have someone want to be able to call this person. We encourage all of our clients to book monthly or quarterly calls. And if you don't like me, you're not going to book the call and I'm not saying I'm for everybody. You might not like me. So you got to find somebody who's the right personality fit. Who's going to explain things to you in a way that you understand. And if that's not the right person, you have to find the person who you will book or call with because it's transformational.
DR. DANIELLE: So you've got someone selected. You're feeling confident that they're the right person to work with. What can you expect the onboarding process to be like?
DANIELLE HAYDEN: Yeah, I won't speak for all accounting firms. They're not created equally. However, when we work with our clients, once they sign our engagement letter, our contract to work together, we schedule an onboarding call. And so we really like to talk to our clients, not all accountants want to talk to you. Some accountants tend to be introverts. So we schedule an onboarding call with our clients where we get access to, to all the information that we're going to need. So that is going to include all your business transactions, credit cards, systems, processes, get a full download of you, your business, your goals, how you're doing things, what way you're doing things. So it's a good hour onboarding call.
And then we set up our set up your QuickBooks or take the QuickBooks that you have in place today and we apply our strategic framework to your QuickBooks so that our mission is always to make sure that our clients can quickly understand their financial information. And so we apply a framework to QuickBooks to set things up in a way that's going to allow for that. So that is our onboarding process. Again, I don't know, in all accounting firms, you might not have a call with the individual. There might not be a QuickBook setup process, but that's our process, someone when we work with our clients.
And then from there, it kind of feels we have some people who will email us and say, Hey, I feel like I'm supposed to be doing something. What am I supposed to be doing? And we always laugh. We're like nothing. That's the point yeah. You know, from there you don't do anything. And we take care of the bookkeeping and our clients go back to running their business. And then we serve as the accountability partner to our clients by sending financial statements and key performance indicators. And that financial overview that you need in order to stay as a CEO.
THE BEST FINANCE SYSTEM AND HOW TO UTILIZE IT
DR. DANIELLE: What else do you want people to know about? Or what other questions do you get asked often about bookkeeping?
DANIELLE HAYDEN: A lot of questions are around what systems to use and then what to do with them. And when we work with our clients, we still use QuickBooks online for all of our clients. And know there's a lot of systems out there. We find that QuickBooks is still a superior product and most people thank us a few years later and say, thank you for making me go into this higher level program. Rather than like there's a free version of Wave, there's another system called Zero.
They're all okay, however, the long term with books provides the best long term financial reports and they have a feature in there called reconcile and the reconcile feature means, I know it's correct. Like it sounds something so simple, but by reconciling it's like reconciling your checkbook, you know, like the old style checkbooks by reconciling the information, you know, that your books are accurate.
And so we really like to use bookbook online with our clients and then that can sync with whatever point of sale system you're using. So a lot of questions are around systems. And then another question we get is what the hell do I do and when do I do it? You know, there's, there's a taboo term out there that says know your numbers. And you're like, yeah. Okay, well what does that even mean?
So we have three kind of intervals that we use with our clients for our clients who our spending a lot of money they're in high growth mode hiring we have something that we call our weekly strategic dashboard and that's a finance, that's a weekly report that goes out to our clients that includes information like cash credit card balances, credit card availability, how much money is coming in the door. So what insurance claims do I have outstanding that are going to be coming in the door and then who do I owe money to? So maybe I signed up for a big project, like a website rebrand or contractors, and those payments are upcoming you over the next 30 days. This is a weekly financial snapshot that helps you make business decisions this week. If I have low cash, my credit cards are running out of availability, my sales aren’t high this month makes making a business decision this month really easy. Like I can't sign up for the conference. I want to go to until I money report.
So that's a best case scenario is weekly. And next we have our monthly reports. So a lot of people say, what do I look at? And when? So next would be monthly is your profit and loss statement. And that you would look at on the end of each month and if you're doing your bookkeeping yourself, you can still do look at all these this information. So if you are in QuickBooks updating this data yourself, you can still update a weekly dashboard. You can still pull your financial statements. You can still pull your profit loss each month and look at it. So you can use these action steps of what to do when no matter where you're at in your journey. So monthly, it'd be your profit and loss. And there's a few different ways. I put books to run that you can compare it to the previous year, which is always fun. See how much you've grown, seeing seasonal trends or trends in your spending. There's your profit and loss by month. And we usually run that for the previous 12 months. That's not a fun one. So you can see, oh wait, last July, I had an insurance payment that was due and so I really need to get prepared for that or wow, my salary or contractor expense or direct costs aren't lining up with revenue and why. So it gives you an opportunity to be able to ask yourself a lot of questions. What's working in my business and what's not working and, and why.
And then we have on a quarterly basis is our last kind of touch point that I'll mention and quarterly, the financial statements can be really overwhelming for people. And so I don't want you to look at every single statement every single month. On a quarterly basis, you can look at your balance sheet and your cash flow statement. The balance sheet is where you're going to, where you're going to see who owes you money, what cash you have in the bank so where do all those balances sit, and then who do you owe money to. Post-pandemic, we see more people with debt than ever before - so who do we owe money to? And do we have a plan to repay that.
GROWING YOUR TEAM WHEN YOU’RE AT YOUR LIMIT
DR. DANIELLE: I have two final questions for you. And actually this next question is completely, I want to say completely off topic, but it's not. But having looked at your website before speaking with you today, one of the first things I noticed was there's a big team working with you. There's a lot of people. And I would love for you to share a bit about what your journey has been like in growing a team of essentially service providers, right? Because most people here in this community are service providers. And one of the biggest things that they struggle with is they get to the point in their business where they're providing all the service that they can provide without it killing them. And sometimes it kind of is killing them slowly. And they don't know what to do next. So yeah, I would love to hear from you, like, how did you do it? What was that process like for you?
DANIELLE HAYDEN: So I was right there with you. I totally understand that motion and that feeling. And I was feeling it this was about seven years ago. I was about a year, year and a half into the business and I read a book called Built To Sell and the book, have you read it? Have you heard of it? Oh yeah. Put it in the list. I love this book. It transformed the way I was thinking about my business. I was trying to be all things to all people. So any client that came in the door, I was saying, yeah, we can do that. No problem. We can do that. Yes, we can do that. And then I was drowning because I couldn't actually do everything and I didn't have a system or a process for the way we did things.
And so we hired our first team member. She's actually still working on us. And we started to create standard operating procedures and we niche down what we did. So we don't file LLC paperwork for clients anymore. We don't register them in states when they're ready for payroll. We said, this is what we do. We set up QuickBooks, we manage bookkeeping and we provide financial reports and answer client questions and help business owners understand their numbers. And we don't serve every single business owner out there anymore. If you're hitting a million dollars in revenue probably are ready for somebody internally.
So we also decided who do we work with and how do we work with them? And then I poured into my team. So I created, we created together the standard operating procedures of how I was going to take everything in my mind and put it into her, right? Like that's essentially what I did during those years. And she helped me put that onto paper. So we decided, how do I need to mentor you? And first of all, what do we do, right? So what do we say, how do we answer questions? What is the process we use? And that's why when I say where, where it's like our strategic dashboard or our proprietary process of how we set up QuickBooks, I had to have those things in place so that I could teach her that.
Now we have a full mentorship program that every employee goes through. It's both a set of SOPs, so standard operating procedures in which they go through a training via member all. So they go through a training on each step of the standard operating procedures. And then the people who I mentor directly mentor our other staff members. So as you continue to grow, you can pour into individuals who can be pour into additional individuals.
DR. DANIELLE: So now that you have such a big team, what does your day to day in the business look like?
DANIELLE HAYDEN: A lot of my time is still spent training my team. So I don't ever want to lose that piece because it is so important our brand and our core values is the most important thing that we have as an organization. Our process, our procedures, the way we talk, the way we do things is still the most important thing that we do. So for example, I spent an hour and a half on small group training this morning. And then I had touch points with two of my other team members. So a lot of my day is pouring into my team and then doing a lot of this - pouring into you as other entrepreneurs to be able to teach and inspire. So my whole day is pouring into other people teaching and inspiring.
DR. DANIELLE: Awesome. Thank you so much for everything that you've shared. If people want to learn more about your business, where is the best place for them to go?
DANIELLE HAYDEN: The website KickstartAccountingInc.com. The Inc is really important. You can listen to our podcast there, Entrepreneur Money Stories. So if you are struggling with your money mindset, or any of these topics that we talked about, you can find more details there. My team is putting together really funny Instagram reels and yes, apparently accounting can be funny. I didn't know. So you can check out the Instagram reels @KickstartAccounting as well.
DR. DANIELLE: Awesome. Thank you.
DANIELLE HAYDEN: Yeah. Thank you.