Why a Good Bookkeeper Can Change Everything

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samantha-eck_2_02-20-2025_120206: Welcome to the Creative Minds Smart

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Money Podcast, where we turn financial confusion into creative confidence.

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I'm Samantha Eck, bookkeeper and fractional CFO for creative entrepreneurs.

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Each week I'm sharing my financial expertise and actionable

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strategies to help you build a thriving creative business.

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Plus, you'll hear from industry experts who bring fresh perspectives on growing

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your business beyond the numbers.

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Because building a successful creative business starts with

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strong financial foundations.

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Your next chapter starts now.

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You are listening to the Creative Minds Smart Money Podcast, and

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today is all about why a good bookkeeper can change everything.

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We've talked about tons of topics, and it's been almost a year since this podcast

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has launched, so I really wanna touch on the importance of a good bookkeeper

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and why they can change everything and not necessarily just for me.

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But for other bookkeepers out there, because I wanna advocate for all of

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us, and I want people to know that how important the profession is,

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but also how important it is for you to eventually get to the point

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where you can hire a bookkeeper.

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A lot of people think hiring a bookkeeper is because either you're bad

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with numbers or you can't understand things, but a bookkeeper isn't about

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being good or bad with numbers.

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It's not about being good or bad with math.

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It's about building support and building confidence in your business so that you

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don't have to second guess your decisions.

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So.

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What I always tell my clients is that when we're working together, I'm gonna

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give you as plain as day the information in these reports and helping you read

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them and giving you opportunities where you can grow your business so that you

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can make decisions out of clarity and confidence instead of out of fear or

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outta scarcity, or because you're not sure, you know, you can make six figures.

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And still be completely confused behind the scenes and not know

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if you can hire someone and not know if you can afford something.

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Because if you don't have the clear picture of your business,

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you're not going to be able to grow it in a way that matters.

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I. So this episode is for those of you who have been feeling tired of guessing,

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you are done dreading tax season every year because tax season comes around

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every year and you're feeling disconnected from your money, but you wanna be able to

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understand it so that you can grow your business and make meaningful decisions.

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You don't wanna be a statistic, you don't want your business to have

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to shut down in two to five years.

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You wanna get past that.

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You want to be someone who has a long-term sustainable business because a good

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bookkeeper will not just track your past, but they help you shape your future.

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They help you understand your future.

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And I just wanna talk a little bit and touch a little bit on that

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as well of like how myself as a fractional CFO can also help you.

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So if you brain just goes completely blank every time you open your

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accounting software, this one is for you.

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And let's get into each other into it.

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So we wanna talk about what a bookkeeper actually does that most

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people tend to miss, first of all.

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It's not just categorizing expenses and reconciling bank statements.

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That is the utmost basic level of what a bookkeeper does.

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Like categorizing and reconciling bank statements is so basic, like that's

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not what bookkeepers do anymore.

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And we don't actually like, yes, we do categorize.

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We do reconcile your bank accounts, but it's not the baseline.

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It is not the baseline.

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That is the most basic baseline a bookkeeper can do.

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Strategic bookkeeping, which is what I offer and a lot of other

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bookkeepers do as well, is consistent tracking of your income and expenses,

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delivering your monthly financial reports, and then explaining what

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they mean, not just sending them.

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So if your bookkeeper right now is just sending you reports and saying,

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here you go, here's what your numbers look like, it's not good enough.

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And I'm not trying to shame someone or say like, leave your bookkeeper.

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I'm just saying that you need more, you need more support than that.

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You need to understand your numbers in a way that makes sense to you so that

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you can make confident decisions and not have to second guess a damn thing.

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You don't wanna second guess anything.

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You wanna be able to look at your numbers and say, okay, I can afford

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to buy this course this month.

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And if you are looking at your numbers and you can't figure that out, then

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you really need someone who's going to help open up that box for you.

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A good bookkeeper will also help you prepare for taxes

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all year, not just in April.

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For me personally, I help my clients prepare with quarterly taxes all year.

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if they're sole prop or a single member, LLC, I'm in their inbox at the beginning

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of the quarter when we are due our so quarterly taxes and I'm telling them,

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Hey, your quarterly taxes are due.

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Here's where you go and pay with them.

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I will give you an updated number a little bit later on

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closer to when it's actually due.

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So then a couple weeks from then I will say, Hey, I did your numbers.

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Here's the amount that I believe that you should pay.

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And they will go ahead and pay that.

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Like one of my clients paid exactly what I told her to you.

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Sometimes it can be a little bit extra, but, and I know that this is a bad

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thing 'cause you don't want to pay more money to the IRS than you need to.

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But at the end of the day, because we don't know how much

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your business is gonna fluctuate.

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Over the next, you know, six to nine months, I want you to get a refund from

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the IRS rather than owe them money.

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Do I really want you to overpay them?

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Absolutely not, but I would prefer that you get money back than

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having to owe them more money.

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Come April 15th.

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And then of course one of the last things they do, like I've been mentioning,

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is they offer you insights that lead to real important business decisions.

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And I want that to be clear.

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A good bookkeeper will offer insights that lead to real business decisions.

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So what I was mentioning earlier is that what I do for my clients

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is I show them their wins.

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I explain their books in ways that make sense, and then I give them

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what I like to call opportunities.

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So opportunities are things that.

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I think of that might improve their business and ways that we

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can implement things that might help them have a stronger business.

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That's not to say, okay, you need to do this.

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This is more being that strategic partner and saying, here's what I'm thinking.

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What do you think?

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And if they're like, yeah, that, that actually makes sense.

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And they do that for their business and it helps 'em then great.

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But if they're like, yeah, that doesn't really make sense

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for my business, then okay.

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But we base it based off of what you are shooting for in your business.

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Raw real example, I had a meeting with a client yesterday.

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I. Her goal is to hit $125,000 in revenue this year.

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She did not hit her target every month for the first quarter, so instead of

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being like, Hey, I'm just gonna continue going, she wanted to adjust her goal

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for the rest of the year to make, to see what she needed to make monthly

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so that she can hit that 125,000.

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So we updated the spreadsheet so that her goal was now whatever else

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was remaining so that she would hit that 125,000 by the end of the year.

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And that's what we wanna do, is we wanna help you to connect

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your goals to your business.

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And of course, again, this isn't just me.

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There's tons of bookkeepers out there who will actually help you do that and help

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you understand your numbers in a good way.

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So, of course we understand what a book, now that we understand what a bookkeeper

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actually does, what can a bookkeeper actually like make you feel like, how do

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they, how does it feel to have someone who is supportive and can help you

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grow your business in meaningful ways?

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First of all, you're gonna have that peace of mind knowing someone is

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watching the money side of your business.

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There's so much anxiety and fear and dread and like terror around money,

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especially as women business owners.

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We just we're scared.

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We're scared of talking about it.

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It's taboo.

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We don't wanna bring it up.

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We're scared of giving it off to someone else.

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We, but once you pass it off and you actually give it to someone

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and they actually talk about it, the peace of mind knowing someone

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is watching the money side of your business is just gonna blow your mind.

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You're gonna feel so at peace, you're gonna feel calm.

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You're not gonna dread when your CPA emails you and says, Hey Amanda,

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like, can I get your profit loss and your balance sheet, and all that

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good stuff so I can do your taxes?

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Because.

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Your bookkeeper ideally will be there to support you and be like, Hey, I got you.

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Here's your PL and your mail sheet.

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Sometimes they'll communicate directly with your CPA.

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Sometimes they'll give you exactly what you need to give your CPA.

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It depends on who, which bookkeeper you're working with.

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Then you also have the freedom of knowing what's working and what's not.

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So let's trade.

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Say you tried a new ad strategy, your bookkeeper is gonna be able to tell you

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if that ad strategy is actually bringing you in more clients if they're not.

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Because if we're gonna say, okay, like whoa, like your revenue went

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up like six times this month.

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And I noticed your ad spending was also up.

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So there's a correlation there.

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Like we can see that that's connected, whereas.

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You know, I'm not saying that you can't do this as a business owner and look at that,

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but you might not see that correlation, and that's not to say that you're blind

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or you, you don't understand your numbers.

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It's more to say that your brain works differently.

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You know, your zone of genius is in a different area than

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a bookkeeper zone of genius.

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You are gonna start feeling safe with your money instead of confused or ashamed.

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Because a lot of times when I have clients that come to me, they say that, oh, I'm

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so ashamed I have all this mixing, I have all this going on in my business.

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I'm just so confused.

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So when we actually start to get into it and we actually talk about

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it and we really like connect.

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They start to understand it on a deeper level.

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And then of course you're gonna make more confident decisions with pricing,

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hiring, investing, because it's all gonna become clearer when you can

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look at your numbers every month and say, oh, hey, yeah, I understand that.

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And when you can sit down and ask like, Hey, Samantha, do you know

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if I can afford to hire someone this month because I really need, I

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really need a contractor this month.

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Whatever it is, because I have a client right now who, she's been talking about

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hiring a contractor for a long time, and I told her and I said, Hey, like

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you made a lot of money last month.

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You have a lot of money left over after you paid yourself after your expenses.

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If you wanna hire a contractor, you wanna hire a va. Now is the time.

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You know exactly you, you know, this is exactly what you have.

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And if you are wanting to plan for the future, that's where that CFO

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level service comes in because.

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Bookkeeping looks at the past.

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CFOs fractional CFO and CFO work will look at the future.

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So it's connecting the two of them and kind of bringing them full

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picture so that you can really like transform your business.

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I would say as someone who is a bookkeeper and a CFO, like you, a fractional CFO, you

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need many people on your financial teams.

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Like you don't just need one person, you need a CPA, you need a

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bookkeeper, everything like that.

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And I know a lot of people are saying like, you know.

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You need two separate services, everything like that.

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I don't think you do.

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You can have someone who is a bookkeeper and someone who is tax

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prepar in the same firm, as long as it's two different sets of eyes.

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I think that that's important to notice that I think that two

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separate people, or multiple people should be looking at your books.

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It shouldn't just be one person because we're all human.

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So me as a human could miss something that someone else might see.

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And then let's talk about how a bookkeeper can support your growth.

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So this is me advocating really hard for why you need a bookkeeper, but

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of course this is very important because a bookkeeper is something

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that's very vital for your business.

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They help you track trends so you can pivot intentionally.

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Like with my clients, we don't just look at the profit and loss.

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The single profit loss, like we look at a profit loss on a year over year basis.

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We look at a profit loss on a year to date basis so that we can really see

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the trend that their business is taking so that they can make those pivots.

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Before it gets too far, you know, they help you plan for taxes, they

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help you plan for big investments.

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They help you plan for slow seasons.

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So if we're, while we're looking at these trends, we might say, okay, last

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year, you know, you had a dip in March.

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I don't know if that's expected again, but we should probably plan to see

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if maybe we'll have another dip in March and do any bigger expenses in

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February so that we are not kind of going back into that dip in March.

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They keep you in the loop of what's really happening in your business.

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There have been many times with my clients where I've lo noticed

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software subscriptions and I've said, Hey, you know, like you have this

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software, but did you know that this other software can do the same thing?

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And to them that's like, whoa.

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Like I didn't even realize that.

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Like, thank you for telling me Now I just save $15 a month.

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And you might be like, okay, well that's just $15 a month, Samantha.

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But imagine that compounded over the course of two to three years, you know?

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So.

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It just helps to have someone there.

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It gives you visibility, which allows you to have more power in your

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business, which allows you to generate more profit again, because you are

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sticking to your zone of genius and the bookkeeper is sticking to theirs.

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It's just gonna give you that better visibility.

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And when you know your margins, you know your numbers, you know your burn rate,

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you know everything that's going on behind the scenes, you start to lead like a CEO.

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So you're less stuck and caught up in the behind the scenes and you're more

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into what's going on as a business owner.

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So I already talked about this in a separate episode, like signs they or

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times and signs that, you know, it's time to hire a bookkeeper, but let's just.

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Do the highlights.

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Let's do the highlights and talk about this.

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First of all, you're making money, but you don't know where it's

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going, and if you can't confidently make decisions from it, then you

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absolutely know you need a bookkeeper.

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You're avoiding your software, your accounting software, like it's a plague.

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I just zoomed in on me.

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My camera just zoomed in on me for no reason, but that's okay.

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You're avoiding your accounting software.

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Oh, it's 'cause I'm using my fingers.

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You're avoiding your bookkeeping software like it's a plague because.

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You know, you don't wanna look at it.

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It's the monster under your bed.

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You're not setting an aside enough for taxes or you're

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unsure how much to set aside.

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'cause you, again, you've never been taught this, you don't

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know what you're looking for.

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You're spending emotionally instead of strategically because you feel

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like you have that extra money.

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You wanna grow, but your finances feel like chaos behind the scenes, and you

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wanna feel supported and stop carrying this alone because you're just not you.

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You don't understand your numbers, and you need someone to explain them

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to you in a way that makes sense.

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Okay.

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And I love that.

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I feel like that's so important.

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And I know this was an episode just basically zing up what a, a bookkeeper

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is, but that is, it's the core essence of what a bookkeeper is and it's so important

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to understand that and why it's important for you as a creative, and not just you

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as a creative, but use a business owner.

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So whoever's listening to this is a business owner, why it's important

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because bookkeeping isn't just a service, it's a relationship.

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And when you find the right person to walk with you, it'll change

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everything in your business.

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If you find this episode helpful, please leave the show a review

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and share this with a friend.

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And of course, if you need a bookkeeper, I'm here for you.

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Reach out and let's have a conversation about how I can assist you.

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If you, as always, if you have any suggestions for the show or you wanna

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see something else, another topic talked about, please, please, please fill out

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the form in the show notes and let me know what you wanna see on the show.

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Otherwise, I wish you all the best and we'll see you next week.

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Farewell fellow Travelers.