Hey, friends! I’m loving these monthly recaps! If you’re new here, this is where I share a vulnerable and transparent behind-the-scenes of my business and how it’s operating. The hope is that this can be helpful for YOU – to know that you’re not alone when entrepreneurship gets hard, you can do anything you set your mind to, and sometimes the grass isn’t always greener on the other side 😉

Also, what better way to be held accountable than to publicly declare what my hopes and dreams are over here?! 😅

Let’s dive in!

How does my business make money?

We are a bookkeeping firm that produces financial reports for creative small business owners. We primarily work with online businesses – like brand & web designers, copywriters, VAs, OBMs, tech specialists, etc. 

We offer several different packages for DFY bookkeeping, a DWY bookkeeping membership and (occasionally) Gusto setups for our current clients.

Here’s the breakdown:

July 2024 Income: $16,535

Bookkeeping	$15,600
Membership	$900
Pay Yourself Spreadsheet	$35
Total	$16,535

YTD Income

January	$18,850
February	$16,454
March	$17,950
April	$14,795
May	$16,297
June	$15,347
July	$16,535
Total	$116,229

Expenses

Lead & Staff Bookkeepers: $6,770

Payroll Tax Expense: $599

Stripe Fees: $3,943

Gifts (new client gift boxes): $60

Meals: $73

Software Subscriptions (see breakdown below): $643

CPA: $200

VA: $800

Training & Education: $407

Travel: $424

Total: $13,919

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Profit: $2,654

Owner’s Draws: $4,600

(I drew extra that was leftover from last month – in case you were wondering how I paid myself more than the profit I made!)

Month Overall:

Professional

• I attended the Cheers to Your Next Chapter retreat in Charleston with Xanthe and Kaitlyn and it was INCREDIBLE. I have a clear picture of what I want the next 6 months to look like (personal and business) and a clear plan of what tasks need to happen for that to become a reality!
• We celebrated our Staff Bookkeepers’ birthdays!!!! Happy birthday to Taylor and Carrie – two of our fave resident nerd gals 😍
• My podcast episode with Colie James went live, and IT IS SO GOOD!! We talked about why Xero is the clear choice for accounting software for small business owners. You have to check it out!
• We signed one phenomenal new VIP client!
• Coffee Chats: 0
  • I was OOO for two weeks this month and had another week blocked off for Premium client quarterly calls!
• Kick-Off Calls: 1
• Premium Client Quarterly Calls: 11

Personal

• We attended the Chanhassen 4th of July celebration for the 3rd year in a row and the kids LOVED the carnival rides! Nolan is finally tall enough to ride some of them with Sadie (even though he’s been brave enough before now lol)
• My sister-in-law and her family came to Minnesota to visit! We did ALL of the fun summery things, like Mall of America (touristy but we love going), hanging out at lake beaches, going to the Chaska Fire & Ice Festival, hanging out in Excelsior for a random Wednesday night concert in the park… oh and lots of Carver Creamery! Our favorite local ice cream spot 🤤
• I got stuck in Charleston because of the IT outage and it was… not fun. But Karla from The Inspired Foundry and I made that extra full day fun together by eating and shopping our way through downtown Charleston hehe
• Books read:
  • Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson ⭐⭐
  • P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han ⭐⭐⭐⭐
  • Magnolia Parks by Jessa Hastings ⭐⭐
• Currently reading: Sandwich by Catherine Newman
• Pilates classes taken: 16

Hours Worked

Administrative: .75 hours

• Responding to emails
• Paying invoices
• Restructuring my weekly rhythms

CEO: 38.75 hours

• Bookkeeping and budgeting
• Chat with a designer about a potential rebrand
• Meeting with business coach
• Networking
• Group call with mastermind
• Running payroll for my team
• Team meeting
• Visioning
• Weekly intentions & planning

CFO: 4.75 hours

• Quarterly calls with Premium clients! SO FUN and so many takeaways!

Client Relations: .25 hours

• Listening and responding to client Voxers

Lead Bookkeeper: 2.5 hours

• Chat about sales tax accounting treatment and filing for new client
• Kick-Off Call with new client
• Gusto setup for client

Marketing: 10.25 hours

• Write content
• Finalize Reels: video editing
• Write and tidy blog posts
• Webinar work
  • Script ideas and outline
  • Write script
  • Begin designing slides

Other: .25 hours

• Running client payroll

Total: 57.5 hours

Next Month Goals (August)

New clients: 3

New followers: 30 aligned followers

Total income: $15,000

Software & Tools

• Later: for scheduling content
• Gusto: THE ONLY payroll software I recommend for running payroll
• Notion: for organizing education notes (read: preventing my courses from turning into a course graveyard)
• Zoom: for sales calls, kick-off calls, team calls and quarterly bookkeeping meetings with Premium clients
• Zapier: for automated task management
• Loom: for sending a quick video / screen recording message to cut down on unnecessary meetings 😀
• Slack: an instant messaging software for quick team communication and client work management
• Slack: for the membership students to ask questions and engage with my team
• Adobe: for signing / editing documents
• Xero: THE BEST ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE OF ALL TIME
• VidIQ: I use this for YouTube research and education. It helps me evaluate data based on my channel and my competitors.
• Intuit: This is ONE QuickBooks subscription that I pay for for our only non-profit client and it’s basically a donation to his business. Every time I see this expense I think about moving that client to Xero…
• ClickUp: project management software to keep track of the status of monthly client projects
• Dubsado: our Client Relationship Management (CRM) system, which we use to track leads, send proposals and contracts and automate recurring emails
• ManyChat: automating Instagram engagement to increase sign-ups for lead magnets, etc.
• Flodesk: our email marketing software
• 1Password: our hub for storing all sensitive client information
• ChatGPT: the holy grail for all sorts of email writing, content writing, brainstorming, naming new service offerings… P.S. the paid version is WORTH IT and so much better than the free version 👍