The Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast

221 ⎸ [Q&A] Pricing Cleanups, Marketing, and Cyber Insurance

• Serena Shoup, CPA • Episode 221

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Hey guys! This month's live Q&A was packed with real talk about the nitty-gritty of running a bookkeeping business. We covered everything from pricing cleanups (spoiler: diagnostics are your best friend) to getting cyber insurance (yes, it's non-negotiable), and I even got vulnerable about my experience juggling babies and business. If you've ever wondered how to market to trades, what reports clients actually need, or how to take maternity leave as a business owner, this episode is for you!

In this episode you’ll hear:

  • How to price cleanups without Getting Burned
  • Marketing Strategies that Actually Work for Your Niche
  • Cyber Insurance
  • Maternity Leave and Business

Resources mentioned in this episode:

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Welcome to September's Live q and a. it's so crazy. As a bookkeeper, I always have a hard time. Remembering what month we're actually in because of like working backwards. Right? save me in the chat if you can relate to that. so as per usual, these q and as are here to, I'm here to serve you guys. So whatever questions you have around building your bookkeeping business, if you're an entrepreneur watching and you have questions about finances, any old question if you have like particular client questions you need answered or you just need a little encouragement on like, am I doing this correctly? You've come to the right place. With that. so yeah, let's get started. Kathleen says, I'm in the process of reorganizing my onboarding process. I'm having a hard time figuring out how to charge for cleanup that clients aren't always upfront about needing when I onboard them and have already a set fixed monthly schedule. Okay, so Barry. Maybe not easy solution. Simple solution is to require a diagnostic. If anyone has existing books, and this is a process that I teach in my programs. This is a process that I actually just did yesterday where I had a sales call and on the sales call I say, okay, looks like you already have books set up in QBO and. My, for our first step for working together is I'm gonna do a diagnostic. I charge for them. You don't necessarily have to. I didn't charge for them from the beginning, and sometimes that's an easier sell to get access to their books. I charge for my diagnostics because I do them so thoroughly. I let them walk away with a report whether or not they work with us. and so I just let them know. On the sales call, the first next step is to do a diagnostic, so this is what's gonna happen. I'm gonna send you a proposal for that piece, a separate engagement letter, and I'm gonna get in the books and figure out how things stand. If you need a cleanup, I will then. Quote you a new proposal for the cleanup. If it doesn't look like you have very much to clean up or there's no cleanup, we will just propose you your monthly bookkeeping next. And that gives you a good look at how many actual accounts they have. Because even when we ask those questions on the discovery calls or on our intake forms. A lot of clients, fail to mention payment processors, which for us count as a bank account. They might forget to mention credit cards because they don't have them connected or whatever the case may be. So it's not until you get in there and do a diagnostic that you can actually really effectively quote, going forward and if there's a cleanup. So that would be my recommendation for you, is to implement a diagnostic process., So let me know how that feels to you. All right. And then Tanya says, can you please share tips for marketing and sales? This is what I'm struggling with the most. Okay. My question to you, if you can just answer me in the chat. Is, do you have a specific niche that you're working towards working with or currently working with? Because my recommendations for marketing and, and, well, marketing and sales are two separate things for one, but for marketing, my recommendations for that really depend on who you're trying to attract. So for anyone listening. It doesn't mean you have to have a niche, but it does make marketing a lot easier because then you can really figure out where is that business owner, that decision maker actually going to be hanging out, and that's where I wanna be. So if you are working with construction, for example, you are probably not gonna get a hold and get in front of the decision makers. Of a construction company on Instagram. So sit back and figure out, you first have to figure out who you wanna work with, whether that's an industry, a revenue range or a personality type. And then go to where those decision makers are gonna be. the other thing that is. Sometimes underrated and maybe not talked about enough. But if you have existing clients, ask for referrals. And then the other thing is talk in your network every time someone asks you what you do, whether you're at a play date or a school function, or if you don't have kids, maybe you're at the dog park. Wherever you're at and you strike up a conversation with people, you never know who you might be talking to. And they may not be a decision maker in a business, but they may have a friend who's running a business who has been griping to them about their bookkeeper. So you really never know. I just talk about it, talk about it, talk about it as much as you can., Trying to go for plumbers and contractors, right? So for you, Instagram is probably not gonna be a place where your time is best spent. You wanna get into trade shows, local networking events, maybe BNI, things like that. Local networking if you can because, or Facebook groups for trades. If there's a software that you're wanting to work with, like I used to work with hvac, Companies and they used a software called House Call Pro. And so I joined the House call Pro Facebook groups. And then there's one that's actually specifically for, it's called Lady Pros. So you can go join this. and it's all . Women run, or women co-owned whatever, there's a woman involved in one of those trades that uses Housecall Pro. So it's a group of all women. there's lots and lots of things like that. So that's your homework, is to go join those groups, search in them for the word bookkeeping, and just start adding value and commenting. Do not just pitch yourself right away. Go in there, add value, give them tips, give them pointers. you don't even have to say. If you want help with this, I can help you. Like don't start there, just add value and continue to add the value and respond to things. And eventually people are gonna recognize your name like this girl comments all the time and give so much help. Who is she? And then they go to your profile. So then my second. Piece of advice is to make sure if you are gonna be interacting in Facebook groups, or maybe for you also, like Alignable is a really good option. Make sure your profiles are optimized and they direct people to your website or wherever they best can book a call with you or work with you. Make sure your information is available so people can reach you. I can't tell you how many times I've gone to like, oh, like, who is this person? And like, I would wanna work with them, let me kind of creep on their profile and there's no website. If they have a website, there's no way to like book a call or even a phone number or an address. Like, I don't even know where they're based. So everybody optimize your profiles. Okay. Um, hopefully that's helpful. Sonia says, how important is cyber insurance for a bookkeeping business? Very, very important. Please get cyber insurance. I actually just recorded a podcast episode with my insurance broker. I've had him on before. We've, briefly talked about cyber insurance before, in previous podcasts. His name is Jock Walls, so if you search the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast and his name should pop up. he's coming on again I think next week or the week after. I can't remember which order I have things in, but he's coming up shortly, on the podcast and we are diving deep into cyber insurance and the importance of it and what to look out for when you get it. So honestly, my recommendation for you is like, don't even wait for that episode. Just contact Jock and get on the phone with him and he'll walk you through your specific situation and. What policies would be good for you with your budget, all those things. Very important. Very important. Okay, Michael says, I want to pilot asynchronous video for monthly financials for a few of my smaller clients. Have you tried this with Loom or another tool? Did it feel successful? Any good tips? Also open to ideas from anyone in the chat. Michael, please come to the workshop. Alyssa and I are doing next week on September 30th at 11:00 AM Pacific. I'm gonna drop the link for that in the chat too. it's ambitious bookkeeper.com/advisory and, I discovered this morning that you don't need to put www or https or any of those paths, otherwise it won't work. So hopefully you could just click on that link and it works. Probably eating my words right now as I say that, but, if you can't get into that, just shoot us an email. Also just check Instagram and all of the Facebook groups, they're all, all the links are in there. you'll also be getting more emails if you haven't already. We are definitely, I'm gonna be going over my process on how I use limb videos. So to answer your question, yes, very successful for some clients. Some clients still don't watch them. and so we do a couple different things to make sure all of our clients get all the information that we think they should have, depending on their style. So, that's what I did a live with Alyssa yesterday morning on Instagram, which is also very, very valuable. You can go watch that. In it, I talked about, how that's how we, we've developed different packages for our clients because we were including a Loom video for everybody when I stopped doing meetings for everybody. So like the first iteration of my accounting practice was meeting for everybody. And then I was like, nobody's booking their meetings, but I still want them to have this information. So then I did a loom video for everyone. And with Loom you can see if people have actually watched the video, which is really nice. So that's one reason I like Loom. For that reason, you can also make the videos private without having to like download them and put 'em in a Google Drive folder and then send the link, like you can just send a private link to one specific person, which is your client. And I highly recommend doing that to keep all that stuff. Secure and private. and then we realized people were not, not everyone was watching the Loom videos. so we include reports and bullet points in an email for those people that aren't gonna watch the Loom video that wanna a summary. And then we'll say like, I go deeper in the video around this and I have some questions, so make sure you watch it like we do things like that. So, yes. I highly recommend trying that out. When I, the, the way it came about, I talked about this on the live yesterday, so I'm probably kind of repeating myself. If any of you watched it, The way that came about is, like I said, I had, I had meetings included in all my packages for clients and most of them, like I had just had a client that like wasn't booking her meeting and I was like, I really need to get this information to her and, and chat through some things. So, I was like, here's Aloo video I recorded for you, since we haven't been able to like sync up on a meeting. And she was like, actually love the Loom video. Please keep doing those. And so I was like, maybe I should keep doing those for all of my clients. And so that's how that was born. and I call it five minute financials, and I don't actually do them anymore myself. My team does them, so. that's something we're gonna be talking about on the workshop on September 30th, is you know how to create a process that is duplicatable and not only for yourself, so you don't have to like, rethink, what am I talking about every time? but you have like a structure and then handing that off to someone else and helping them infuse personality into it and all that. So. Hopefully that helps. Michael, I hope to see you on that workshop. if you're already in Elevate, or Alyssa's, growth seat mentorship, you've gotten an email in your inbox with a coupon to attend that for free because it's stuff that we are both teaching in those programs. We don't want people who are have already paid for those programs to have to pay for the workshop, but there is gonna be new stuff that I don't teach and elevate. On that workshop, so, still very valuable to attend. Let's see. Any plans for one-off course on how to use or getting started with Upwork? No, I have that as a small, like a, a lesson slash bonus inside of BBA. And I'm currently sort of testing out using Upwork again, just to see how things have changed because my bonus in that program is a little outdated. that is how I got my clients to begin with. But instead, I'm going to direct you to my, if you go to my YouTube channel, Where if you're watching from YouTube, I'm like, go, I'm like looking at my little YouTube screen over here. No one's watching on YouTube. At least I can't tell if they are. if you go to YouTube, I have a playlist of guest appearances on other people's channels, and I did a interview on the bookkeeping side Hustle channel. A year or two ago with, Michael King and we both talked about our approaches with Upwork. I would say that is the most valuable place that you can go and it's free. So, If you're watching the replay, I'll link that in the show notes., Kelly says, I have a client that uses accrual accounting for book and cash for tax. Additionally, they have capitalized some digital development costs for a future product that will be sold at some point in the future. The tax CPA will probably expense them. They also have a handful of intercompany transactions. How do you ensure the tax. CPA is totally tracking all of the book versus tax differences. I have memos written, but I'm wondering if you review the client's tax return for your clients to make sure the tax CPA has everything they need and hasn't missed something. I do not review client tax returns because that would be, then I would be stepping into that tax role. and that's not what I'm engaged for. Also, probably would open up a little bit of liability I don't wanna mess with, so that's a no for me. However, it is important to have like a, some sort of a reconciliation of book to tax if you have clients on accrual, just to make sure that that's all good, that client's tax preparer should have some sort of book to tax reconciliation from their software. So I would try to reach out to the Tax Pro and see if they can provide that and, . And yeah. what was your other question? Handful of intercompany transactions. Yeah, those should still be on the tax return I would think. especially if they need to have a balance sheet and the tax pro should be like checking all of that too. But you know, not everybody is as diligent as we are. so yeah, the most, the best you can do is write the memos like you're already doing. Reach out to the tax pro or the client to ask them for depreciation, journal entries, book to tax reconciliations, all that kind of stuff. and then just do your due diligence at your end with the information that you're preparing for the Tax Pro. Like we do a tax package where. We, we keep notes all year long in Asana for that client based on in the like task for the tax package. So that at year end, when I'm doing the tax package, I remember to mention certain things in that final email, like, your tax pro needs to know this, this and this. Here's the workbook. If they have questions, they can reach out to us. And then our contact information is also in the Excel file that we give to our clients to send to their tax pro. So, yeah, that would, that's really all you can do. and otherwise next year when the Tax Pro gets the books, they're gonna be like. none of this stuff matches up and then you can be like, oh, it's 'cause you never gave me journal entries. And then they're probably gonna be like, we gave 'em to the client and the client probably didn't give them to you. So sometimes communication is a little, rough around the edges with tax preparers, but, just con communicate with your client and ask your client for the information or ask them if they, if you can just work directly with the tax Pro. Most of the times clients prefer that. but they'll have to like sign a release with their tax Pro and if the Tax Pro is doing things correctly. Okay. Allison says, I hear you have a separate engagement letter for diagnostic versus cleanups versus monthly services. Yes. Do all these have basically the same clauses but it's the service provided that gets edited? I don't know why I'm struggling. Big time in finalizing my engagement letter. I see there are sample ones, but wondering if there are ready made ones for different services We mostly focus on on as bookkeepers. Yeah, they're mostly the same. and the big thing that you want to highlight is. What we're not doing for you in these types of engagements. So, I use a diagnostic, engagement letter template that I've. Revamped over the years, but originally it was one from QuickBooks, like they used to, I don't know if they still have it, but as a pro advisor, they used to give you engagement letter templates to like, as a starting point. And so I started with that and then, kind of combined it with my existing engagement letter to include all the things about like our data security and all the other stuff that we're not handling and stuff like that. So, I would start there if in doubt, honestly, I know people get a little like. Freaked out about having like big long contracts and engagement letters with their clients.'cause they're like, I don't wanna like confuse them and stuff like that. But it's better to have a long engagement letter and cover everything than to have an engagement letter that sucks and doesn't cover you. So a client that is ready to work with a bookkeeper should understand. That contracts are necessary things, and if they have questions about it, they should ask you, but it is their responsibility to read them. Think of how many times, like in the past month, I've gotten like a gazillion emails from different softwares that I use. That's. Say our terms of service have changed. Here they are. Click on them to un to read them. But if you continue to use our software, you've automatically agreed to these terms of services. Like most of us don't actually read those and like our clients probably aren't reading our engagement letters either, but you can give them bullet points of what things mean or just let them know. Like, if you have questions, just let me know. This is just all the legal stuff that that helps both of us. If there's ever any. Question. so they should be okay with it. Like, if a client is like, this engagement letter is too confusing, I'm not gonna sign it, then you don't wanna work with them anyways. Sorry, I'm feeling a little spicy today. Kathleen says, do you charge for onboarding? I had one professional advise me to, and another mentor tell me not to because that's just admin work thoughts. I can tell you what I do personally, and you have to choose what actually feels the best for you and ignore what everybody else says. Like if a coach tells you, you should do this or you should do this, like. Maybe it's another professional. If anyone ever says like, you should do this, unless they're telling you you should have an engagement letter. Like everything else like that, yes, you should do. You should also have insurance. Everything else is like, if it's a, about a way that you're approaching your service or doing your job, that's your choice. This is your business. So if you don't feel good about charging for onboarding, then don't. If you don't feel good about not charging for onboarding because you know how much work it is, then charge for onboarding. I personally don't charge for onboarding because here's something that I take into account when I'm making decisions. These aren't. These aren't unintentional decisions, these are decisions made with awareness and intent because I have considered charging for onboarding because I've been charged for onboarding to onboard with a social media, manager. And I get that there's a lot of work upfront. that's part of, that's just kind of part of how certain businesses work. I get that that is a layer of protection for someone. If things don't work out for a business like social media management, it's a little less sticky than bookkeeping. So I trust that once we get someone onboarded, we are gonna keep them because that's what my history has shown. And so when you look at it in that regard. I just walked someone through this yesterday on a strategy call. What is your minimum fee that you charge a client? Let's say in this example, hers was $350 and she had been in business for two years. So 350 times 24 months. Oh, other piece of detail. She had been in business two years, has never lost a client yet, so we know from history that we have a client retention rate with this particular student of mine. Of at least 24 months, right? At least. So if you take the minimum fee that you would charge a client, and this case was three 50 times that by 24 months, your client lifetime value, or this person's client lifetime value so far is $8,400. So if you are going to charge someone for onboarding, I would look at that as kind of like. If I were to pay money to acquire a customer, this is, this is why I was walking her through that, like, how much would you pay to acquire a customer that you knew over the lifetime of working with you is gonna be worth at least $8,400? We would pay a lot of money for that, right? Would you pay a hundred dollars? Would you pay $200? Would you pay $300 for that client? I would. So if you were gonna charge an onboarding fee, what would that fee be? And would it be equal to what you would pay to acquire that customer? So these are the thought processes that I use when I make decisions like I practice what I preach, y'all, we preach to our clients that they need to make decisions based on their numbers, and I do the same thing, and that's a decision you can make based on numbers. So go look at your client retention. For us, it's like our client retention is like five plus years. So if my minimum fee is 400, my minimum is 450. And I multiply that by, I don't even know how many months, five years is, hold on, let me, 60 months. I can't do math in my head, you guys, I have a calculator. and I times that by four 50. My client lifetime values are $27,000, so I'm not gonna charge for onboarding and I also don't charge for migrations. That could be controversial, but this is why I don't, because the value of keeping that client and the value of having them on a zero, on zero on a software that I prefer to be on because it makes all of our processes so much more simpler, more seamless, sorry, that was bad grammar, more simple, more seamless. That has value to me and I would rather. Win the client and, and know that if I can win a client, I can keep them. if there's a difference between winning a client because I might charge them for a migration or onboarding or anything, and then I lose that client, that's riskier for me. I would rather win the client and then prove. That we are an amazing firm to work with and I will be able to keep them. So that's how I look at those things. Sorry, that was a really long explanation, but there you have it. but you, on the live yesterday with Alyssa, she was always like, but I always caveat things with, but you do, you boo and I'm gonna say the same thing you do what feels best for you. Diane says, can I add a question to Allison's? I use RAMP for proposals, but I'm not doing anything specific for engagement letters. My understanding. Is that Ramp sends or includes one, but I've never customized it. But I think I need to appreciate any advice. Yes, you absolutely need to customize your engagement letter. It's great that you at least have one because some people actually don't even use engagement letters and you'll get a discount on your insurance if you use one. If that's not enough reason to use an engagement letter, I don't know what is. maybe legal protection. Maybe that's enough, but definitely use an engagement letter, and definitely customize it because there's gonna be things in there that you probably wanna add. And my other piece of advice is to have a lawyer in your state actually review that for you and make sure it doesn't have any clauses in there that aren't really enforceable in your state. Or anything like that, or maybe beef it up so that it's more enforceable in your state. And also like, just make sure it includes what you're not doing and what you are doing. Those are like the basics. I go through in depth in the beginning, in the first module of BBA. On how to, like, what needs to actually be in an engagement letter for it to be effective. And so we walk through that together. It's, it's boring. That's not my most exciting lesson, but it's really necessary stuff. So, take what you have, read through it, at least understand what it is that you're asking your clients to sign and have a lawyer review it. You can find an affordable lawyer on upcounsel.com. It, it's like Upwork, but for for law for lawyers, and you'll find someone that can review it for your state specifics and make sure that it's all good to go. Kimmy says, I'm starting a bookkeeping business. I have an accounting degree. And have done AP and AR in the past. I work in contract auditing. What trainings do you recommend I take to get started? I'm currently working on a QuickBooks certification and I've taken your introductory class, but it still feels like there's so much to learn to get started. Your insight would be appreciated. Yeah, it's a lot. There's still so much that it's like the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know. I think they call that the curse of knowledge or there's some saying there's some title or name for that, but. I, I still feel the same. I still feel like I'm, there's constantly more that I could know, more that I could learn about growing a business. And, so don't try, try not to choose overwhelm. as far as trainings to take, you have your accounting degree, you've done AP and ar. Those are great starts. If you wanted to try to just go out and get a client where you do AP and ar. To start, do that and then as you get in, like take over bookkeeping and stuff, you understand the accounting cycle because you have an accounting degree. I don't know if you've gotten other experience closing books or anything like that. But if not, the QuickBooks certification probably isn't enough to teach you the, the accounting cycle. I think it's more designed to teach you how to use QuickBooks. so my recommendation would be to, to enroll in the Acadian programs. I actually just put out a YouTube video about this. So, I'm gonna direct you to my YouTube channel to watch. I broke down five, five things. It's more like 20 things. It's like five things with sub categories, like five main categories, and each category has a list of things that you need to start your business. So go watch that and then enroll in. Acadian actually has a workshop happening today. So if you go to their website, let me actually find the link real quick for you. they have a workshop that they're doing today and they have something called a QBO gym where you actually get practice doing everything in QBO. and they have this program called Bookkeeping Fast Track, and. I think that's probably your best next step because it's going to talk through all the things like that you might not know yet, about closing books and things like that if you don't have the experience. So their programs are designed to actually give you hands-on experience, so when you're done with them, you don't just have the knowledge, you have experience, even if you haven't like worked for someone, if that makes sense. and Katie Farrow's become a bookkeeper is a lot like that too, but it's on zero. So hopefully that helps. Kimmy, Ingrid says, what reports are you sending monthly, if any, versus yearly? Yes, I send reports every month. That's one way that we're gonna talk about on that workshop with Alyssa, on September 30th. That is one way to stand out from competition. I say competition, but like. There's really not competition. There's so much, there's so much available for all of us. But, people tend to like understand that when it comes to standing out, like there's, you're still like, you're still somebody's option among options. So if you wanna stand out. Send reports. my, if you were here at the beginning of the live, I talked, to Michael's question about sending loom videos with reports and things like that. So we send all the basic financial reports every month to all of our clients, unless they're on a quarterly package. And that is, income statement or p and l balance sheet, cashflow statement. And if they have AR and ap, they get those agings as well. That is the minimum that we give all of our clients. we go further than that. But that's a really good starting point. Point, and I would love to have you on the workshop with Alyssa on September 30th. Go to ambitious bookkeeper.com/advisory. just type that directly into your browser without Ws, without https and all the things. yeah. Okay. Cheyenne says, I have joined a networking group and it's strictly no sales pitches, but more what can I bring to the table, barter or collabs and et cetera. Any advice on what I can bring to the table? I'm guessing it's a networking group, not just bookkeepers. It's all businesses. and I would honestly, if you're, maybe, even if you're not comfortable with it, one of the best ways that I've found to be getting clients in the last. A couple years has been speaking let me say that again. Speaking, I feel like I like joked on that word or something, and maybe nobody heard it, but, maybe you guys did hear it. But that is one of the best ways to get clients and there's multiple avenues you can take with that. You can do podcast interviews. that could be a potential collaboration you could offer if there's a service offering that you are wanting to test out. For example, loom videos. you could say, you could offer to the group, Hey, I'm testing out this format of sending reports to my clients, who, if anyone would like to be my Guinea pig, let me know. I would love honest feedback. So anything like that, or if you're interested in offering advisory services and you are a little afraid of pitching that or. Pricing it or whatever you can offer that as well. Just be like, Hey, I'm thinking this is how I developed my CFO day. I went to my current client, who I knew could use what I wanted to offer, and I said, Hey, I'm about to, I'm working on like formatting a new offer for people. It's called a CFO day. It's kinda like a VIP day. It's only half a day, but it's where we, I give you a little bit of homework. We meet for a couple hours. Then I develop a three-pronged financial plan for you based on different scenarios based on how we met, like when we met, what we talked about, what their goals are, all that kind of stuff. Basically, it's a, A budget. so that's how I developed the CFO day. And I went to one of my clients and I said, would you be interested in doing this with me? I think it, I think it would really benefit you. And I'm, I don't have it like sussed out yet, and so you're gonna be my Guinea pig, and so I'm only gonna charge you like a hundred dollars an hour. And she was like, heck yeah. And then I got some really valuable feedback from her and was able to confidently launch that service offering and charge what I actually wanted to charge for it, because I already had the feedback. So that's something you could do as well. and another example of when I've done that, I recently put out a call on threads and was like, if anybody currently doesn't have any bookkeeping and they are, you know, wanna be ready for year end, I'm willing to set up your entire 2025 books and do a catch up for you for free if you let me, if you agree to let me use the videos in my membership. Program for other DIYers. Obviously I'm blurring out sensitive information, but I still wanted somebody as a Guinea pig so that I could demo a setup and a catch up. So, Did that for free, still working on it. I've put in probably like 20 hours, but only because I'm also recording like**** takes way longer when you're recording things and like planning things out., Obviously a catchup the catch up is not what's taking the time, it's me developing the videos, but that's just another example. So hopefully that gives you some ideas. But being a speaker is. something that I know a lot of us introverted bookkeepers are afraid of, but that's what's gonna set you apart because people know that our personality is so introverted and they're gonna be like, wow, if you can get up in front of, whether it's on a podcast or a workshop or anything, like, I do them live too. And it's nerve wracking every time. Still, I get nervous, but I do little workshops in town for our young professionals group. I'd give free advice at networking events. Like I just, just do it. Make, get practice, put the reps in. and people will remember you. And when they, they hear of someone needing a bookkeeper, or they themselves need a bookkeeper, you're gonna be the person that comes to mind because they heard you talk about the thing. So hopefully that helps. iPhone has a question on Upwork rates are show very low, but when submitting proposals, do we match what they want? so I, I ignore what their rates are because most of the time I've, I've placed an ad on, Upwork for like a contractor, like a job. I've placed a job, job request on Upwork for contractors and the process of creating the job description and everything and choosing a price like. It's overwhelming, and I'm just like, I don't know what people are paying for this. So you just click a number or you just plug something in. And so I operate on that assumption that they're doing the same thing for bookkeeping. So I ignore whatever their price or their budget is or whatever, and I call that out at the beginning of my proposal. Or somewhere near the beginning and I say, I see you put blah, blah, blah for the budget. I'm just going to assume that you probably just don't know what it costs to do the level or you know what people are charging whatever to do the level of work that you're asking for. These are my prices with love to still chat with you, blah, blah, blah. So I ignore those. Long story short. Gloria says, agree with Serena on that. I don't know what you're agreeing with 'cause that was like 20 minutes ago, but thank you. How do you know when it's time finally to hire an employee versus contractor? I'm starting a new feel that in order to get the dedication I need, I need to switch from contractors also. Any tips or resources on how to manage a team properly? Tony, I'm so glad to see you. Tony's been in my world since like 2020. Oh gee. Okay. if it's time to hire an employee versus contractor, what really should be dictating that is where you're located and honestly, pretty much everywhere at this point is very, very strict on whether you're classifying people as an employer or a contractor when it comes to offering a. How much control you have over that position, if they're doing a service that you're offering as part of your business. So for example, if you're in the business of offering bookkeeping and you hire a contractor that is doing bookkeeping for your clients, they should probably be an employee. In most states. and even that's kind of the, the guidance on the IRS nowadays. So, it's probably time to just make them employees, especially because of what you said about, getting the dedication. And that's something that I've found too. I have been very lucky with the contractors that I've had in the past, and one that I still have being very dedicated. But I understand that like the majority of the time when someone is a contractor. Unless they are operating more like a freelancer, like with that mindset, if they're a contractor in general, they have other businesses that they're supporting. And so it is hard to get their dedication. but you can also end up coming across that with an employee. So it's more about. creating a culture and, hiring for values of dedication and being very upfront about how important communication is and loyalty and all of that kind of stuff. I'm gonna direct you honestly to check out Alyssa's Breakthrough Program. I don't know if it's in your budget at this point, but that would be, a great next step because it's not only gonna cover that. Culture piece, but it's also gonna cover like the actual hiring process and infusing that culture into your hiring process. And that is honestly how I have landed the most amazing team ever is following those guidelines. also I'm gonna recommend a book to you. It's called Make 'em Beg to Work for You. Um, I don't have it nearby, otherwise I would grab it. but yeah, it's, bye. Dr. Laurie something or other, but it's called Make and Beg to Work for You. That's a really good book. another good book is Teamwork by Natalie Workman. Actually, that's not her name anymore. It's Natalie Dawson, but. The book is called Teamwork. Those two books really, really helped me when it came to figuring out who I wanted on my team. Like it's gonna co, it's gonna take you some real inner reflection on like what has worked in the past, what absolutely doesn't work. And with that contrast, you're going to be able to develop who like, kind of like we do with our ideal clients. Develop an ideal employee profile, basically of the values that are so important for you to have on your team. so yeah, that's where I'm gonna say to start. Kathleen says, great clarification. I feel I was charging the onboarding fee when really what I needed and was missing was the diagnostic. Yes, absolutely. you can charge for that. I charge $500 for my diagnostic. I just had someone agree and , pay for that this morning. And so we're gonna start the Diagnostic Pro process this week. And the way that I, kind of make it feel safe for them to pay is I let them know when we're finished with the diagnostic, if there's a cleanup, I will apply that $500 to the cleanup fee. If we are going to move forward as your bookkeeper, I will apply that to your first invoice. So either way, it's like an incentive for them to like, and it's a really low risk option for them, especially if they know things are probably not right and they want someone to look at it.'cause either way they get a report at the end whether they work with us or not. So they still have something tangible as well. So it's like worth it. So that's how I position it. iPhone says I also have a degree in accounting and a lot of experience in different areas. should I go straight to marketing? That's the area I need help with. yeah, absolutely. If you're comfortable in your accounting skills and you know, you kind of have an idea of what your process is gonna be, I do want you to kind of suss out what your process for working with people is gonna be and figure out. Where like who you wanna work with. That's first step before you do marketing. Like, you've gotta figure out who is it that I want to call in as a client and attract as a client. so I would do some like Googling on, like how to develop an ideal client avatar, things like that. I also have a great resource, it's called the Bookkeeping Client Closer. I walk you through step by step how to develop that perfect fit client for yourself. I talk about the sales process and how to close that client once you get them on a call. So, that's a great resource as well. but yeah, if you're comfortable in your skills, go get clients. Focus on that. Allison says, sorry if I missed it. Did you mention the reports you provide on a yearly basis? Same thing. And then a trial balance. So I covered that inside of, the confident compliance bundle, which is actually gonna be available for sale, in November. So it's not available right now. I only open it up. At year end, but I show you my whole year end process, for the tax package, for the client presentation.'cause we do a Canva presentation for each client at year end, and present their financials. All of that's in there. so keep an eye out for that email whenever you hear something about the Confident Compliance bundle, it's all in there and if you already have it, then go watch it. Yeah, same reports and then the trial balance basically. Then Andrea says, this might be a little outside of what we normally talk about, but I'm thinking about getting long-term disability insurance because I know my job used to offer it. My husband has it, and if something ever happened to me, I think it would be wise to have the cushion. Do you have any resources on the topic? I asked a question in a local group and got a bunch of just sales comments from insurance agents. Of course you did. I don't have any resources on that myself, but I do have someone who I refer people to when it comes to health insurance and that type of stuff, and she can probably help you. Her name is Carissa Martino and She helped me find a health insurance plan as a self-employed individual because I was paying way too much on the exchange. Um, which is a good problem to have, I guess, but once you had a certain income, it just doesn't make sense to pay for a health plan on the exchange. So, She has helped me, create a health package that works for me based on my health situations and my family. And so that's what She'll do with you when it comes to that as well.'cause she, I remember her, we did talk about long-term disability, but I, I didn't wanna add that so. Yeah. Hey Melissa. You said you're sorry you're late. You don't have to be sorry. You can watch the replay. I'm realizing Keeper works great for QC of QBO clients, however, I'm mainly a zero firm now, and I notice the only parts I like from Keeper now are seeing intercompany balances on one screen when I review each entity. And I also like how keeper groups customers, and vendors during the review of the balance sheet. P and LI know you don't use Keeper, but do you think I can accomplish the same level of review without Keeper and Zero? If your review mini course or Elevate talks through it, just let me know. Yes and yes. Yes. It's in Elevate. Yes, it's in the review course. I don't use a tool for qc. I use the tool of analytical skills and I've actually also been able to teach that to someone else on my team who also uses those skills. So it's not something you necessarily need a tool for if you're finding that the tool you have doesn't work for it. I personally. Have not tried. Keeper for qc. I did back in the day. It's been a while. It's been probably a year or two since I've looked at it, but I tried Zenit in the past as well for QC and I found it actually overwhelming and for me. it's just easier for me and my team to, to just do like a manual review and analysis on the financial statements to catch things. So I'm old school guys. Not saying those programs don't work, but for my brain, I'm one of those people that I'm like, if I like, I feel the same way about cashflow forecasting tools. Because I have to spend so much time validating the information that it's giving me that I may as well have just done it on my own in Excel. So I feel kind of the same about the review tools. Ingrid says, do you have any advice for someone who is working a corporate and first year running their bookkeeping business? In terms of maternity leave? I'm expecting my second baby this December. Congratulations. Do you think time off from the business is a given? Yes, I would. I can, I, I can vouch for this. I don't know how far apart your kids are in age, but I started my business when I was pregnant with my se, with my, technically my third, but it was like my second baby in a row. I have a, there's a huge age gap between my oldest and my two little ones. So I was like starting over. I was pregnant with my last baby when I started my business and my middle child, I guess. Yeah, my middle child was like 1-year-old when I found out I was pregnant. But I, and like I had already just started like doing my CPE and getting back into things and starting the business and so I was delusional about how much I could get done because. Every child is different. And my middle child, the one that was one, was such an easy baby that I was like, I'm ready to start working again. When she was like a year old. And then I found out I was pregnant and I was like, it'll be fine. I'll have another easy baby. This will be a cake. I can just continue doing what I'm doing. Third baby is born. They're 20 months apart. And I, for the life of me, could not do anything. Like, I just couldn't really function other than taking care of the children. And your situation may be different because like I said, all babies are different and their personalities are different. But the my. My final baby. My third one was so not needy, but like kind of needy. Like just always wanted to be held. And then when he started getting mobile, there was just like conflict between him and my toddler. and there still is today. They just haven't changed. It's crazy. They're like, they just come out that way. So there was always like this competition between the two of them for my attention and, whereas my middle one like didn't really want attention until the baby was born. So, everything changed and so I basically took off a year of like, I let go of the freelance clients I was working with. I think I was down to like one, I kept one and then, I didn't even like really pick my business back up until my third child was. A year old. That's how long it took me to come out of the fog. So I just wanna be transparent about that. a lot of people, especially for first time moms, first time moms are always like, I'm just gonna go back to work. And I'm like, no, you're not. You're not even gonna want to because you have a baby now. Like, I don't know. So, I would definitely schedule some maternity leave and if you can partner up with another bookkeeper or just let your clients know that you're not gonna be doing meetings for three months or whatever it is. But you can still do bookkeeping. Like bookkeeping. You can do it whenever it works for you, like. Let's be honest, but I would still take some time off. you're gonna want to spend some time with your baby. They're only babies once. they'll be five years apart. So good. So you'll have a little bit more of a, like, you won't be juggling like I was literally, this is probably TMII was literally still breastfeeding my second baby whenever my. Third one was born. And so they were like, they would compete for that too. It was really funny. But anyways, okay, we are about at time. Thank you all for ha for hanging out with me. This has been wonderful. Make sure you're on our email list. Go to ambitious bookkeeper.com/subscribe to make sure you're in the know of all things happening, dates, times, links, all that stuff. And, also go subscribe to my YouTube channel and check out videos, especially if you're new. because I'm, I'm revamping, I'm ramping up, I guess. I've had my YouTube channel for a long time and I've just been publishing the podcast to it. But now we are, I am being very intentional about creating YouTube specific videos, tutorials around zero, video podcasts. So if you're a podcast listener. it's okay if you don't watch the YouTube. It's all right. I wasn't a YouTube consumer until like this year, so I get it. but for anyone who does like to watch video, I do add some things like on screen when we air the podcast, like text and stuff. And so, they're fun, I promise. subscribe to the channel and let me know if there's videos that you wanna see on there. And Andrea says, do you have content on Xero and how to use it more efficiently? I'm working on building that up, so, stay tuned. Make sure you subscribe so you get alerted when those videos come out because when those come out, those are not going on the podcast. Alright, everyone, thank you so much for tuning in. We will talk to you next time. Bye.

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