The One About Asking For Money
We need more of it...
TL;DR
When I went to my very first accounting conference in 2021, I formed the beginnings of a dream that one day I wanted to use my time and money to help provide that experience to others.
It was that formative for me.
That first conference experience was like throwing gasoline on the little flame of my business. I wanted others to have the same blessing and benefits that I had.
A couple of years later, I literally wrote it as my biggest business professional dream on a “What If” board at a conference called “Appy Camp” (the 3rd accounting conference I ever attended). I wrote…
“What if we could have a scholarship for new business owners in our industry that would allow them to attend their very first conference because it is life changing to connect with your peers.”
And out of that one little sentence, a group formed to establish The Accounting Cornerstone Foundation, a 501c3 that sent 6 people to their first conference in 2023 and 12 people to their first conference in 2024. All expenses paid.
Our goal for 2025 is to have funding to select 16 scholarship winners.
To illustrate the impact, look at the message we received last this month from one of our winners in our WhatsApp chat.
This winner is facing terrible news of a layoff. But the budding side business combined with the knowledge and confidence gained from attending that first conference means the winner is not feeling despair.
Will you join me in helping more people like this winner?
The Accounting Cornerstone Foundation needs your support to make it happen.
There. I said it.
Just like those radio hosts on NPR on those Year End pledge drives.
If you have been to a conference for our industry before, we need your support.
And by support, I mean money.
And if you have not been to an industry conference before, then I want you to apply (when we open the 2025 applications in the early spring).
But I would take your money, too. 😁
If you have questions, please ask. And if you donate could you help drum up more interest for us by sharing this opportunity in any industry groups and on social media? Forget that anonymous giving stuff. Tell your fellow accounting friends to join you in supporting this cause! 🙏
Deals Deals Deals
💰 Bookkeeper Launch* (the course I took to get my business started) year end deal. 40% off. Promo code gift4me. Ends Jan 2.
💰 Gusto is paying out $500 for new businesses brought on to the platform through January 31 instead of their normal $300 referral fee. I have 2 people in my office hours group that will be needing payroll in 2024, so I’m going to hustle to get them set up.
If you aren’t a Gusto user, you will need to create your accountant profile first. Here is my referral link* for accounting pros (where you and I both get paid if you bring over 3 clients to Gusto in a 12 month period).
💰 Xero is offering a promo where they will do an extra year of your client conversion for free. Details here. And if you aren’t a Xero User yet, you will need to get your partner account here*.
💰 Will you be hiring help in the new year?Get 15% off all assessment tests from Accountests with code BSH15OFF. They have tests to assess bookkeeping, tax, QBO knowledge as well as personality and critical reasoning. All specifically designed for our industry.
💰 Level 2 QBO ProAdvisor Certification Companion Course* sale from Akadian (formerly Fast & Easy QBO) is on sale for $297.
Be There or Be Square
Items with a “+” are hosted by me. All these events can be viewed and registered for in the DESCRIPTIONS of each event on the Bookkeeping Side Hustle Calendar.
📅 +January 2: What Bookkeepers Need to Know about 1099s. Shannon Ballman Theis from Payroll Restoration is our teacher. RSVP here.
📅 January 7: 1099's in QBO. QBO Rock Star Alicia Katz Pollock teaches you how to confidently use the QBO 1099 Wizard to prepare, review, and file all the required copies of your federal 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC forms. She will walk you through each step: automatically gather their W9 info, specify 1099 categories, and use QBO to filter who qualifies. When you’re done you will be ready to send and submit. Sign up HERE*.
📅 January 8: Should You Convert Clients to FreshBooks in 2025. The final date for my webinar series! If you think FreshBooks is right for you, sign up! Every attendee will also be invited to 3 support sessions in Jan, Feb, and March 2025 to help you with your transition.
📅 January 10: Velocity. Justine Lackey is hosting a FREE planning and goal achievement training. Sign up HERE*.
Featured Posts
🌶️ Lexi V. asked about what apps you use for client communication that other team members could see. The post asked about Slack, but there were other suggestions in the comments.
🌶️ What do YOU call yourself in your email signature?
Help You Hustle
💪 Tax Ready Bookkeeper live stream with Nancy McClelland was a valuable discussion for both new and seasoned bookkeepers. I’m guessing it will be one of the more frequently watched streams on my channel for a very long time. Even if you (like me) might never touch a tax return, a good bookkeeper must be knowledgeable about taxes.
💪 The Unaccountable Podcast
Where do you get your industry news? Do you find the normal webinars with a speaker going through powerpoints slides to be a bore? Well, consider getting it from The Unaccountable Podcast. The two hosts are super smart guys, so it really is amazing how they sneak in so much education in their game shows.
They just had me on as their most recent guest on Episode 39. I’m in the middle part. They proceed to call me a “Gateway Drug” for folks with accounting knowledge looking to build their own businesses.
In my episode, they also did a quiz about 1099s. Go listen to that part and see how you would have answered those scenarios.
If you need CPE, you can get it by listening to these guys. The show has the vibe of one that could be rated R, but they actually keep it clean.
💪 If you are looking for some help to set goals and plan for 2025 - Velocity might be just what you are looking for. Velocity is a free, half day virtual retreat where you will learn how to clearly articulate goals, break them down into projects and tasks so that you can actually GET velocity instead of spinning their wheels for another year. Register HERE*
Jobs
Check out the BSH Job Guide - a few jobs we added to the guide!
Don’t forget the standing opps on my Find A Freelance Job article. 1099 and W-2 opps.
My Family Circus (43F, 40M, 13M, 11F, 10M)
🎪 Birthdays when you don't bake
Are you (like me) challenged in the domestic arena? Or can you foresee seasons in your life where you know you will be too busy to really shine in that arena?
Well, one way to partially relieve some stress is to simply declare a tradition of panCAKES with birthday candles on a birthday morning instead of baking a birthday cake. It has the word CAKE in it, people!
From very early on in my marriage and motherhood, I could feel that birthday cakes were going to be out of reach for me. Sure, I have made some occasionally. If it was a year we had a birthday party, I would buy a box of Duncan Hines and make some cupcakes. I remember making a Tres Leches for my husband one time. I crushed it on that one, including the presentation.
But in general, it is not my skill set nor my interest. I’m more of a “teach kids to mow” and “build a chicken coop” type of wife/mom.
And birthday cakes are extra problematic because, if you do have a party, do you have a cake for the party and then another for the actual birthday? Gah. Ain't no way I’m baking 2 if 1 seems like a huge feat.
But I believe that 20 years from now, if you ask my kids “how did y'all celebrate birthdays when you were little”, they will say “we had a candle in pancakes served on a special plate on our birthday morning.” That is my hope, anyway.
(We made the plate together when mine kids were very tiny at one in those paint an over-priced ceramic as an activity stores)
Pancakes are a piece of cake. 😉
Kate Builds In Public
🎢 Hustle-ish
Remember last edition I talked about my firm income for the year wondered if I should hustle to hit a $100k revenue target? Well, I am not hustling too much, but I did decide to do one clean up job for my Christmas break. We are only going to be visiting family for 4 days, but I have closed my calendar until the kids go back to school Jan 8. So I know I have the time. This client is a simple, solo-operator with 2 bank connections. She paid $275 for a diagnostic review, $2570 for a 20-month clean up, $140 for an additional hour of training and $69 per month for my FreshBooks Office Hours group
🎢 Disappointing results for my first paid webinar
I have told y'all about my brand new attempt to provide training to accounting pros about FreshBooks. It has always been the dream way back when I decided to niche in the software.
The first training is “Should You Convert Clients to FreshBooks in 2025”. I think it is an important and valuable topic. I thought my peers were asking themselves that question.
I decided to offer 3 different days of the same training (my thought was to catch more people but not have to create new material) and also give participants 3 additional Q&A days in Jan. Feb, and March to ask me technical questions on the clients they converted.
Well, I had 7 people on the 1st training. And only 1 person on the 2nd training (I gave that single person the option of moving to the third rendition of this training since she was the only one that had signed up and she took that option so I didn't actually deliver the second training).
So now I am facing my third webinar date in January and have to get more people or it will just be me and the one person who graciously was willing to change to that day after I explained my disappointing registration results.
Is it the time of year? Is it the price? Is it me? Are people wanting to spend their own time answering the question instead of paying a little money and having an expert answer for them?
I don't know. It is discouraging, though.
But why should it have been easy?
Everything in business is hard and slow at first. I was bad a bookkeeping, then I was good. I was bad at FreshBooks, then I was good. I am currently bad at selling professional development to accounting pros. Will I let myself be bad at it long enough to get good at it?
🎢 Non-work
In the last 2 weeks, I’ve done the following things that would have been so much harder or impossible if I didn’t have the freedom of being my own boss:
Substitute taught 2 days for our Upper School PE teacher
Hosted my in-laws 2 days
Volunteered at the 4th grade hot chocolate party (hot chocolate is gross, by the way)
Celebrated my (smoking hot) husband turning 40
🎢 Merry Christmas
Amidst the busy-ness of this time of year, I’m grateful for the moments I’ve had to pause to remember and discuss what I believe is the true reason for this season- a remembrance of the birth of Christ. What an indescribable gift. Always happy to discuss these beliefs with anyone reading this.
“And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name.” 1 Chronicles 29:13 (from the Johnson Family 2024 Christmas Card)
From The Vault
If you are travelling for the holidays, but still need to work - let me introduce you to my mobile office. I shared my setup when I was sitting waiting for my kids, but this could work if you need to escape a crowded house, or hop on a call before a Christmas concert. I’m using this set up to write my newsletter from a south Texas country house full of siblings and little cousins.
Letters To The Editor
✉️ This feedback encourages me to continue sharing everything with y’all. I hope it encourages you to share all parts of your business.
Kate, my friend, you are an inspiration and I want to be more like you in 2025: more open with my successes and struggles, more supportive of those around me, more active in sharing additional opportunities. - Megan
Classifieds (Clickable)
Keep hustling!
Kate
-Chief Hustler-
I am down right rabid about transparency and full disclosure. If a link has a * beside it, it means it is either an affiliate link where I might receive compensation if you make a purchase, at no additional charge to you. Or it could be a tracking link that another business provided me to see how many readers click on that link.
So much good information in here!