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[00:00:00] So when I knit, I love the creative aspect of it, but I absolutely hate winding yarn. I don't know why it's so difficult, but I am terrible at it. It is slow, frustrating, and it makes it so much harder and it takes so much longer. So I finally broke down and I bought a yarn winder. And it's not because I can't do it the old way.

It's just not worth my time and it's delaying getting to the part I enjoy, which is the actual knitting. In business, it's often the same. You can do everything yourself. You can do everything manually. But at some point, there are tools that can help you grow or you just stay stuck. So today, we're talking about knowing when it's time to invest in better tools, whether it's software systems or support of people, and how your accounting can help you make those decisions with confidence, not guesswork. 





Thank you all for joining us today. We're excited to talk to you about growth. We're going through it. Our clients are going through it. We assume the rest of you are going through it, [00:01:00] or intentional not growth, that's fine too. I'm sure you can still learn something today. But I know Seanna and I have been feeling it lately and we thought it was just timely to talk to you guys about it.

Yes. And I am also seeing it so much in our clients right now because we are recording this in January. And if you listen to some of the past episodes, January is like the crunchiest... not in a crunchy food way, is the biggest crunch time in accounting. People usually go, "isn't it April?" And it's like, well, January is the hardest in my opinion.

And you know, the 1099 season. Because you get one month to crank some stuff out because it's all based on numbers that flow through through December 31st. But to get back on track from that, because this month is so heavy and it's not just heavy for us, it's heavy for clients because there are final requests coming through that [00:02:00] they have put off all-year-long.

I am seeing where some investment in tools or support would've helped them, and they already have accountants on board, so I'm excited to talk more about this and share more of my thoughts on that. Yeah, me too. Because also, it's a crunch because maybe clients who hadn't asked for statements or reports from us earlier in the year, they're goal setting right now too, and they're like "um, no, we need those."

And we're like... so there's just this crunch all around, I think, of what does 2026 look like and how do we get to where we're going? And I know when we hear tools, I think tech might be our first thing. Like, "oh, the tools are in the tech, right? Like, I just need a new software. I just need a new AI bot that will do it for me."

But that's not the only tool that we at least want to refer to. Right. We want to talk in this episode about team, systems, software, workflows. And the example I was just talking about, a lot of times what I see is, you know, [00:03:00] people will invest in an accountant, us, but they don't have any admin support in their business.

So there are still questions we need answered in order to provide high quality financials to them. Like, we are not mind readers, we don't know if your trip to Spain was personal or professional. Like, we need answers along the way. And sometimes business owners are just so bogged down that they can't get those answers to us.

But you know, who could? A highly-trained admin. And to be fair, this is something you and I have learned firsthand in our business, for how long we kept trying to do it all ourselves, manage our inboxes, and everything. And then we hired an amazing admin, and she jumped in, and hit the ground running. And it has been amazing.

It really has been, honestly. And I thought, I was like, "oh, we just need part-time support." But we really needed the full-time support. And what [00:04:00] we didn't do was double dip. And I do see business owners do that, is that they will post that they want a bookkeeper-admin combo, because there is some admin work to bookkeeping in terms of collecting the receipts, knowing that that trip was personal, tying it back to the calendar, that kind of thing.

Yep. But they're not the same job. So you have to identify the exact support you need and you really have to watch for not trying to stretch the dollar so far that you're hiring for what is really two positions. Yes. I also see people make the mistake of thinking like, "well, it will take so much time to train that person that

I might as well just do it myself," right? Like even, I know I've had some of that thought process in email management. Like, how could I ever train somebody to help me manage my inbox? Well, first of all, i kind of get off my high horse because CEOs... Much bigger, more important CEOs, and stuff around the country do that.[00:05:00] 

So it's just finding the right person, and being willing to share your knowledge with them, right? Like they do have to learn you. There does have to be a process. But when you start to get that little breath of fresh air from putting the right tool in place, the right person in place, bam, it's good. It is.

And it removes that bottleneck, right? The bottleneck of like me having to hand wine my yarn, and always making more knots than ever existed to begin with. If you know a tip, please like reach out to me, but like at this point I have caved. I'm like buying these things to like hold the yarn and wind the yarn because...

inevitable. i know Nothing of what you speak. Oh, it's crazy, Seanna. But there's like something where you can put your skin of yarn on and it'll hold it in like a nice pretty circle, and then you attach it to a winder and then it'll wind it into a ball like seamlessly. Whereas, for some reason, no matter how careful I am, the minute I like do the first unwind so I can put it into a ball, it is a huge knot. And I spent like three hours last night like trying to wind it.

Then that was three hours I could have been knitting, which is what I enjoy. [00:06:00] Right? So like, I don't enjoy going through my email. I like talking to clients. I like training our team. Yep. Can someone else just do that part for me so I can get to the part I like? Yes. And I think that's the piece that we say over and over, even in selling accounting services, right? It's like, okay, there's a level of expertise that you, as just a business owner don't have unless you were trained in accounting, sure. There are a lot of things that you could do yourself, but that's not what you're good at. That's not what you created a business around. So why spend the time there, when you could grow faster if you just invested?

And this is not a sales call, so not trying to make it that way. Well, right. But like sometimes accounting is just the first step. So now we've come in, like we convinced you, like outsource your accounting. But now we also want to convince you like, "Hey, you still have bottlenecks. And you still can't make the perfect, not perfect, but the best decisions because we're still held back by your admin bottleneck.

So can you clear that up? [00:07:00] And now what can we help you with?" We can show you that you actually have the capacity, fund-wise, to hire two more people. And if you hire two more people, can you go do three times the sales calls? Whatever the math works out to be. Yeah. It's just, accounting's one of your first steps

I think as a business owner. For us who are are accountants, the admin was one of a first step of like, "okay, cool, now we actually need some more staff accountants, and once we get those, well then, seanna and I can free up time to sell and to train and to do these other things." Yep. And this brought to mind a conversation, I've probably had it on the podcast, but I have it a lot in-calls with potential clients,

with clients, and it's this whole profitability margin That increases. It's like, it ebbs and flows, or crests and troughs, or whatever analogy you want there. But as you see that profit margin increase to whatever is high for your industry. I don't want to put a number there 'cause I don't wanna put it in a [00:08:00] box, but... we don't want you to take it as like gospel, that's the thing.

Yes. But whatever is a high margin for your industry, your business, your size, kind of thing, you're there and everybody's tapped out. You're tapped out, you have no time, you're stressed. All of that. And it's like, "well, yeah, it makes sense. Because you've got that high profit margin." So what we've got to do is say like,

"you can open up some of that for investing in the business, people, tech, tools, whatever those are. Your profitability margin is going to drop a little bit. You're going to see that happen until the sales catch up. The person gets up to speed and they're really taking stuff off your plate and you're able to sell more, whatever that looks like for whatever bottleneck you're in, but you're gonna see those ebbs and flows and they're not bad."

I think that's the thing is people go. "ugh, well, this year was worse than last year. My profit's not as high." Yeah. But how is your life profit? You know? How much... how's your [00:09:00] team? Yeah. How does your team feel? Are we all stressed? Are we all doing a lot better? Like, it's not all about money.

And I know that was, think we harped on that in a recent podcast episode, but I don't know that it can be said enough, Because there are so many people out there that are just telling you to look at profit margin, look at sales, higher the better. That's not always true. No, it's not. And I mean, we're having those conversations.

Great. You hired these people. That is why profit margin was lower this year compared to last. Even though maybe sales were upper. I'm having the discussion of like, we did all that tax planning in December, so of course you're posting losses. We purposefully did that. But that psychology is so ingrained that every coach I talk to, every person on Instagram, they're saying that this is bad, and we're having to reframe that

"no, it's good and it's purposeful and intentional." Yep. "And I'm with you." Like, if you're running these super high profit margins, but everyone's exhausted, no one wants to come to work, what was the purpose? Right. What was the purpose? Yep. like, [00:10:00] great, you took home some more money. Or you were able to sock it away for a rainy day, but like how long until your body gives out? Or how long until you don't have hobbies anymore and you don't have these other things?

Yeah. And the reality is like, the dip might not be that long. It might not even be long enough for it to show through on an annual set of financials. Yeah. But that's just the part that gets scary for people like, "I don't want to take a pay cut. I don't want to, you know, X, Y, Z." It's like, well, risk and reward.

Yeah, tail as old as time. Right. And without clean financials, without a profit and loss that makes sense. Without balance sheets that are properly categorized, i'd be scared too. Like, that's the other piece you have to keep in mind. Where's that data coming from? And if you're like sticking your thumb, finger in the air, whatever it is, to try to check and be like, "okay, I think this is the time we're going to invest."

That's not going to help. So you have to get the house in order. You have to get the house in order so that you can make those very important decisions. Yeah, I mean, we just sat back and we knew we wanted to hire one [00:11:00] position, but really, what we want right now is two. Yeah. And we were like, "does it make sense?"

Like, do the numbers make sense? And we were able to just take and break that down, make sure we're setting enough aside for taxes, making sure we're still paying ourselves and our team well, that are already part of the company. And the numbers tell you like, "yeah, it's going to be okay. Like you're going to see a dip,

but there's enough there. It's fine. And you'll get to the other side of it and you should see growth and everybody should be able to grow in a happier way where we're not all sending each other memes of being on fire or something." I swear if like by March, our l10 meetings... so we have these weekly l10 meetings, it starts with like over half the team still saying they're stressed and frustrated, like, I'm going to be so sad.

That was how it was these last few weeks, and We don't want it to stay that way. No, and I mean, I do think that's just, again, it's part of January. That's part of talking to a CPA in the [00:12:00] very kick-off to tax season, right? And that's where we're at. So sorry that we're bringing that energy to podcast call, but hopefully it also gives some inspiration. Like we're in the fire of it all, and still looking for ways to grow and making those business decisions. It doesn't stop just because you're busy, right? Like we got to run the firm regardless of what's going on elsewhere. Without a doubt. And you all will have your own busy times, right? And so if your team is showing up for weeks and weeks and weeks on end and like that they're telling you, they were telling you the problem, you have to fix that as the owner.

And again, when those financials are clean and you understand them, like, for seanna and i, having that discussion, "okay, where do we pull from just to make sure this all works with some cushion?" The obvious answer, well, profit margin's going to go down, so we're gonna pay less taxes. So guess what? We don't need as much going into our tax account right now.

Cool. Let's redistribute that to where it needs to be. Yeah. You have to know the numbers, and you have to understand those numbers, or have someone on your team with you to explain it all. Yep. And [00:13:00] help walk you through that. but when you do it and you get to the other side, which is where we're headed.

You get capacity. You get to breathe. You get to stop feeling so stressed. And so it really can be worth it. Yeah. So if you're listening to this and you're going like, "gosh, some of that resonates." Here's a little checklist that it's probably time to look at your, like set of tools, whether that's people, softwares, et cetera, and maybe upgrade something.

You are dreading your routine tasks. I would also say like you have the Sunday scaries, like there's something that needs to change. You didn't go out to start this business to have Sunday scaries. Yep. You are constantly in the weeds, which means you're not leading the business, you're not looking at the forest.

You are so deep into it, that you don't know where your next 3, 6, 12 months is taking you. You don't know what things really cost. So again, you're running on that emotional feeling of like, "gosh, all of this feels this way." Whether that's the [00:14:00] truth or not. And then again, we're making decisions on those vibes and not on that data.

Anything you'd add, Seanna? No, I think that's a really good list. Perfect. Yeah. So, we'll wrap it out. Buying tools is not just about convenience, but it is about growth. It's hard to feel confident investing when you don't know what's coming in, what's going out or what's actually moving your needle.

And that is where good accounting will always come in a good teammate on this. The right tools will change your workday. The right numbers will change how you run your business. So if you're tired, for me, of winding yarn by hand, guess what? There's a tool to fix that and we can help you check that budget.

So, listen in. We'll talk to you guys next time. Thank you so much for being here.