The One About Tax Savings
TL;DR
You know what makes me angry? Every time I hear some DumDum business owner (who is probably broke) or “Fake Financial Guru” (borrowed from Lorilyn Wilson) talk about buying things to “save on taxes”.
Surely you have you heard some of these same fools on the internet (or at the Thanksgiving table) talk about all the things they are buying because “they need the write off”. Sure, let’s spend $100 so we save giving Uncle Sam $25? That’s some genius-level math right there.
I hope that none of you readers are prone to tell you clients such nonsense.
Now, if you buy something for your business that you truly need, that is a different story.
I believe a better way to think about it is to ask “is this purchase so critical for me that I would I buy this even if I received NO tax deduction”. When someone answers “yes” to that question, that is something they need to purchase for their business. And the payoff doesn’t have to have a direct monetary ROI. It could be for your health or joy. But it should never be primarily “for the tax deduction”.
So, yes, this Thanksgiving/Black Friday edition of this newsletter is going to feature a round up of a TON of deals for our industry right now. After all, one of my stated missions for this group is to get you deals (here is my complete mission statement for the Bookkeeping Side Hustle Community for you to save for later).
But I only want to help you get deals on the things you actually need.
There is not a single thing on this list that is going to be the magic pill that guarantees your success in building your dream career in the virtual bookkeeping (or tax, or advisory, etc) industry. Sure, these tools could help you. Several of these have helped me personally. But YOU are the secret to your success. So don’t be swayed by ads or slick marketing copy to spend your money on things you don’t need. Your hard, hard, hard work and your increasingly bigger brain are what matters most.
And now that I’ve saved you a ton of money by telling you not to buy things you don’t need, I do want you to open your wallet to give to The Accounting Cornerstone Foundation between now and Giving Tuesday.
I will personally match all donations between now and November 28 (up to $1,500).
See, I want lives and families to be changed because people are building wonderful, flexible careers in our industry, whether via entrepreneurship or working for someone else.
Starting my own little virtual bookkeeping “side hustle” several years ago changed my family’s entire financial trajectory. And going to my first in-person conference was a huge milestone event for me in this career.
I believe with all my heart that going to in-person industry conferences is life-changing for budding virtual bookkeepers. So much so, that I put my time and money behind building this non-profit whose sole purpose is to send people to their first industry conference.
Your donation is tax deductible. Bang on that graphic to donate. (See, I told you there was tax savings in this edition 😉).
Deals Deals Deals
💰 So many deals are happening right now. Some last until December, some end next week. View my round-up article HERE. I worked hard on this!
💰 I wasn’t able to add every great deal to the round-up, but the BSH Community shared other deals that they have been watching. Go add the deals you’ve snagged and see what everyone else has been eyeing.
Please always send me any news of deals that you hear of that others might benefit from.
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.
📅 +Monday Morning Co-working Hour: Join me Monday morning at 11am EST on Zoom for co-working hour. RSVP to get reminders to join. I would love to see you there on 11/27 and 12/4.
📅 +Nov 28: Boost Your Bookkeeping with Payroll Services - RSVP and learn how to increase your revenue by offering payroll services via full-service payroll provider OnPay.
📅 Dec 6-8: Virtual Conference Host event*. I’m speaking at this one! I’ve you’ve ever thought about hosting a virtual conference as a way to build your business, grab your free ticket and learn more.
📅 December 12-14: Advanced Nonprofit QBO Virtual Miniseries.
Featured Posts
🌶️ Tiara H. asked a great question about accepting gifts from clients - perfecting timing with with upcoming holidays!
🌶️ Brooke R. shared about some QBO changes related to the “Modern” vs “Classic” view and y’all had some thoughts, but some insight, too. Go read the thread if you are a QBO user.
Help You Hustle
💪 The “Year End Payroll Playbook” teaching session from Onpay was incredibly valuable. And it was not just about OnPay. Not at all. This session helps breakdown a bookkeeper’s role in assisting clients with payroll, and our instructor explained how payroll doesn’t have to be nearly as scary as it sounds. But, also, I highly suggest that most bookkeeping entrepreneurs shouldn’t “do payroll”, but only “record” payroll. There are full-service payroll providers who specialize in making sure the details get handled.
💪 Intuit just announced major changes about who gets listed in the ProAdvisor Directory. Pretty big deal. It has something to do with how there is now a minimum amount of points you have to have? Since I’m not gunning for more QBO clients, I’m not really paying close attention to it, but I know that the QBO Locker Room* Facebook Group is staying up on all the developments. That is where I’d go poke around for the details.
💪 In December, I’m speaking at a virtual conference about how to host a virtual conference. So meta.
It is called the Virtual Conference Host event. This immersive event will help you learn to craft, plan, implement, and love your virtual conference.
I’m one of 18 expert speakers who are excited to share our areas of expertise with the attendees as they build their businesses with a virtual conference.
You can access a free ticket via my speaker link*.
💪 Interested in serving non-profit clients? Non-profit clients are not for beginner bookkeepers, but it is all learn-able. Perhaps you should attend the Advanced Nonprofit QBO Virtual Miniseries to learn all the quirks and pitfalls related to serving this niche. CPE eligible.
Kate Builds In Public
🎢 As I write this, I am currently on a 6-day trip all over the state of Texas visiting different family member’s houses. We’ve burned brush piles, shot at (and missed) some white tailed deer, had cousin sleep overs, and let young children practice driving. Much to be thankful for, and so grateful to be living in my home state again! And for a business that lets me take the entire week of Thanksgiving off when my children are out of school.
🎢 I took Twitter and Facebook off my phone about 4 weeks ago now. My life is better all around. It takes some getting used to. The amount of reading I’ve been able to do has been one of the biggest benefits. I find I’m also (slightly?) nicer to my children.
🎢 In the last week, I’ve gotten 5 meetings booked for new prospective clients without lifting a finger. All I have is a button on my website that instructs people to book a free prospect call. When they do that, they get a link to Calendly to book a time. Then, they are sent a short Google Form to answer questions about their business so that I can cancel the meeting if I read their answers and don’t want to meet with them (i.e. if they aren’t a good fit for FreshBooks, which is all I work in). I’m going to really have to decide on some boundaries and goals for myself or December has potential to spiral out of my control if I’m not careful. I want my business to serve me. I do not want a life where I am at the constant service of my business.
Here are some ideas I have to maximize the number of clients I’m able to serve but also not get overwhelmed with more projects than I want to handle:
I can start to charge a little something for consultation calls (ugh…my website says “Free 15-minute consultation everywhere, so I’d have to go change all of that). Calendly has an easy setting that allows you to charge for paid meetings.
I can stop offering Paid Diagnostic Review reports (because they take me actual time to do, and even though I charge $250 for them, I haven’t been able to get the deliverable completed in less than 2 hours, so I really have started to resent doing them anyway because I like to make at least $125 per hour as my “effective” hourly rate). Instead, I can just tell prospects that I’m not offering Paid Diagnostics right now because I’m getting too many inquiries at year-end. But I would still require that people invite me as an accountant to their FreshBooks file so I can quickly peek around to look at how bad things are to come up with a price for a clean-up.
Related back to the first bullet about charging for a prospective client call, if I charge for an initial call, I could let these paid prospect calls be longer than 15 minutes, and actually let them screen share their books with me while on that call and teach them a thing or two during the paid call, but really what I’m doing is looking at the few places inside FreshBooks where I know to look to see how bad the file is.
I have relationships with 2 other bookkeepers that I trust to touch FreshBooks that I can outsource some clean ups to. They are much better at accounting fundamentals AND at managing their tasks and projects than me. Since my own systems and processes are pretty cut rate, I’m sure that I’d (and them and the clients) would feel some pains from my lack of SOPs that are needed when you have a “team”. And, let’s be honest, these other 2 bookkeepers have Christmas coming up, too, right? I’d likely only do one outsourced project at a time to each of them (assuming they would want the work). But I have to decide if it is really worth going through all of that just because this is the hot time of year for bookkeeping work?
BUT all of these ideas above aren’t worth the metaphorical paper they are typed on if I don’t ACT on them. Will I act on them? That is the question.
I’ve been pretty disappointed in my own action-taking abilities the last 6 months or so. But if I don’t take any decisive action, from now until the end of January, my calendar will get littered with free 15 minute prospect calls because I’m currently the only one IN THE WORLD with a FreshBooks YouTube Channel.
The lesson: When you get to the point that you aren’t thirsty for prospects, you have to get better at gatekeeping.
From The Vault
⚡ Learn more about the Accounting Conerstone Foundation! Please donate! I’ll match your donation! Perhaps you should also apply to be a scholarship winner?!?!
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Keep hustling!
Kate
-Chief Hustler-
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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.
I totally agree Kate! We are a consumer culture always wanting more, more, more. Great job on explaining Not buying just for tax benefit!
PS. I took FB off my phone too & have found more time!