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How to Use Money Mapping To Give Back
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How to Use Money Mapping To Give Back

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How to Use Money Mapping To Give Back

By Angela Keller|2020-06-17T17:40:33-07:00June 17th, 2020|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: business donations, business in community, community business, donations, fundraising, giving, money mapping, money systems, philanthropy|

At this moment, we are being called to give money to many different places. Community organizations need resources to respond to COVID-19, and so do many different non-profits, scholarship funds, etc. On top of that, the worldwide movement for Black lives has sparked a renewed need for donations. Last week, I discussed how a business owner can leverage their business to rise to this moment. Today, I want to talk about giving. Specifically, how to use money mapping to know how much to give!

Money Mapping: A Crash Course

If you’re not familiar with the term money-mapping, it’s essentially a visual way to track and create a system for your money. When I work with my clients, we create these systems for their business together. By figuring out how much money you need to cover taxes and business expenses, you’re then able to see what’s left over. How you allocate that money is up to you. Typically it’s split between profit and pay for the business owner. In this article, I’m going to discuss how you can carve out a chunk of that money for donating to organizations you want to support. Earlier this year, I wrote a series on how to implement money-mapping for your business and personal finances; read that here. Here’s a diagram to give you a better picture of what I’m talking about.

Factoring in Giving

There are several different ways you can factor giving into your money map. If you’d like the donation to come directly from your business revenue, perhaps you decide that the 5% in the profit account will go to a certain organization. Depending on your flexibility, you could also simply choose to add another account altogether, and split up your revenue five ways instead of the four outlined in the diagram above.

If you’d prefer to give from your individual finances, your options are similar. Perhaps you can carve the donation from your savings allocations (perhaps replace “new mattress”). Or, you can choose to make room in your living expenses, provided you have that flexibility.

Sticking to a Timeline

When using the money mapping system, it’s good to use a timeline to know when it’s time to examine your accounts and move or use money that’s collected there. In my work with clients I usually suggest that they move or use the money in their profit account on a quarterly basis. If you’ve decided to use this money for donations, perhaps you can set up a system in your business to switch up where those donations go every quarter of the year.

Why Use This System?

Using money-mapping and seeing your donation as a percentage of your overall income strengthens the power of your giving. It helps you see exactly how much you can afford to give, and helps you make mindful choices about amount, rather than purely emotional ones. It can be helpful for people who are prone to over-spending and those prone to over-saving. Looking at your money as a full system also helps you assess your values and re-structure your priorities if needed. If you decide you’d rather donate to Black Lives Matter than eat out in the month of June, referring to your money map can help you make and track that choice.

If you’re looking for places to donate money to in order to support the movement for Black Lives, please consider checking out these organizations:

Happy giving!

Angela

Image By: Milada Vigerova

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The In-Depth Guide to Mapping Your Money, and How It Can Fortify Your Business, Part III
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The In-Depth Guide to Mapping Your Money, and How It Can Fortify Your Business, Part III

Personal Savings, Personal Spending, Small Business, solopreneurs

The In-Depth Guide to Mapping Your Money, and How It Can Fortify Your Business, Part III

By Angela Keller|2020-01-17T22:12:46-08:00January 20th, 2020|Categories: Personal Savings, Personal Spending, Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: financial decisions, flow chart, mapping, money mapping, pay yourself first, percentages, personal expenses, profit first allocations, visual learning, visual tools|

In the last two parts of this in-depth guide to money mapping, we’ve talked about why it’s helpful and how to get started. We’ve also touched on creating a system of accounts to set up a regular paycheck for yourself and an assurance of profit. Creating your own money map based on these ideas takes a lot of evaluation of your finances. You need to assess your operating and tax expenses and analyze your living expenses and savings goals. Once you’ve assessed these amounts, they translate into the percentages you put into each account.

What’s Your Percentage?

I help clients figure out what their percentages could be. We assess the needs of their business, and we figure out how much they actually need to live on. We discuss their life goals, and how those relate to money. There are good benchmarks for each percentage, which are suggested by Profit First. For your reference, the suggested percentages are: 5% profit, 50% owner’s pay, 15% taxes, 30% for operating expenses. This breakdown applies to most solopreneurs (anyone under $250,000 in annual revenue).If this doesn’t feel doable for you right now, don’t sweat it. It takes a lot of work, evaluation, and good financial habits to create a sustainable money system.

Applying the Model

Let’s look at an example of all of this mapped out. In this example business, the owner is using the ideal benchmarks and keeping a cushion in their Owner’s Pay account. What they do take out is then subdivided, with 20% of their pay taken off the top for three savings goals (I like to call this “paying yourself first.”). The remainder of this money goes to living expenses. While this model might be unrealistic from where you stand, keep in mind that this is something my clients work towards. I’ve included it here so you can start to picture what your own money system looks like.

If you enjoyed this guide, I recommend also checking out Part I, and Part II. And, try going to the Tools page, where you can play with an allocations calculator. Plug in your revenue and your preferred percentages to see what your amounts are! Then you can start filling in your money map.

Money mapping is an important tool, and one that I enjoy walking clients through. If you’re interested in working with me, check out my services page to check out my packages, and schedule a call.

Angela

Image by:

Estée Janssens

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The In-Depth Guide to Mapping Your Money, and How It Can Fortify Your Business, Part II
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The In-Depth Guide to Mapping Your Money, and How It Can Fortify Your Business, Part II

Personal Spending, Profit First, solopreneurs

The In-Depth Guide to Mapping Your Money, and How It Can Fortify Your Business, Part II

By Angela Keller|2020-01-17T01:48:43-08:00January 17th, 2020|Categories: Personal Spending, Profit First, solopreneurs|Tags: charts, decision making, financial advice, flow chart, money mapping, owner's pay, personal spending, Profit First, solopreneur paycheck, visual learning, visualizing|

Last week, I talked about money-mapping, why it’s helpful, and how you can get started. Today, we’re going to dive into more money-mapping using the Profit First methodology. Profit First posits its own money system, pictured in the above map. Its goal is to ensure that you as the business owner get paid.

Solopreneur Paycheck

In order to ensure that you actually get paid by your business, you need to portion off a certain percentage of your income, and then designate that for your personal finances. This portioning off is exactly what the Owner’s Pay account is for in the Profit First system. The Profit First system advocates for creating separate accounts for all your different pots of money associated with your business. If you can’t do that or don’t want to, I advise using a spreadsheet. You can use this to keep track of how much money is designated for Profit, Owner’s Pay, Taxes, and Operating Expenses.

So, back to that Owner’s Pay Account. Once you put a percentage of income in it, you then transfer some portion of that to your personal account, which serves as your solopreneur paycheck. When I work with clients, we work to figure out what portion should go into this account. That amount depends on how much the business makes in revenue, and what portion of their personal expenses they want to cover using income from their business. If income in their business varies month to month, we decide on an amount that they transfer to their personal account, leaving the leftovers to act as their cushion during slow months. This way, the business owner receives a steady stream of income, even if their business varies from month to month. This is the solopreneur paycheck.

The Function of Profit

Cordoning off funds for operating expenses and taxes may seem practical enough, but the Profit account is what makes the Profit First system unique. The profit account accumulates and then is distributed quarterly. Business owners are encouraged to use their Profit Distributions to reward themselves for their hard work. This keeps the owner excited about and invested in the business. It also discourages any tendency to reinvest everything back into the business, or over-save. Rewards can range from a day out to charitable giving, to really anything you want!

In part three of this series, I’ll discuss what applying this model to your business can look like, and integrate all the info we’ve gone over so far. If you’re enjoying this and would like more, check out part one! You can also head to my services page and schedule a call with me. Money mapping is one of my favorite subjects. Come talk about it with me!

Angela

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The In-Depth Guide to Mapping Your Money, and How It Can Fortify Your Business, Part I
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The In-Depth Guide to Mapping Your Money, and How It Can Fortify Your Business, Part I

Personal Savings, Personal Spending, Profit First, solopreneurs

The In-Depth Guide to Mapping Your Money, and How It Can Fortify Your Business, Part I

By Angela Keller|2020-01-17T01:49:14-08:00January 7th, 2020|Categories: Personal Savings, Personal Spending, Profit First, solopreneurs|Tags: allocations, automation, business expenses, decision making, financial advice, mapping, money mapping, percentages, personal expenses, visualizing|

Keeping track of your money and where it needs to go may feel like a difficult task. That’s why visually mapping it can be especially helpful. When I work with clients, I help them create a visual flow chart to show where every dollar goes. Today, I want to walk through why I do this, and how you can get started on your own money map.

Simplify Decision-Making

The goal of money mapping is creating a clear visual guide of what to do with every incoming dollar. If you’re confused about where to put incoming money, your systems can quickly get out of whack. By drawing out the paths your money can take, you make it clear to yourself where everything needs to go. You also simplify the decisions you need to make, because you have everything spelled out right in front of you! This way you’re able to take action to put your money in the right place quickly and easily.

For extra points, you can automate some of these transfers each month, so that you don’t have to move everything manually. If that sounds interesting, you might like to read “Pick One of These 5 Tips to Automate Your Wealth”.

How Much Do You Need?

In order to create that map and streamline your decision making, you need to do the math up front. It’s important to think about how much you need for your own pay, business taxes, and operating expenses. When I work with clients, I help them determine these numbers in the process of creating their map. If you want a DIY version, you can check out my articles on financial self-care, which will help you determine your personal expenses and understand how they relate to your business finances. Going through your records and averaging your operating expenses can help you get a good idea of what that percentage might be.

The above image is an example map from Hadassah Damien at Ride Free Fearless Money. In this example, you can see that she’s fleshed out the necessary percentages of income that need to be set aside for savings, taxes, business expenses, and personal expenses. In part 2 of our discussion of money mapping, I’ll talk about Profit First and what these percentages are according to their theory.

From Income to Final Destination

Above all, the goal of money mapping is to know where your money is going every step of the way. From the moment you receive income, to the moment that money is saved for taxes, invested for retirement, or put away for a savings goal – you’ve got a plan. Consequently, this is an opportunity to define those final destinations. Creating a tax savings account and an operating expenses account come in handy here. You can also think about creating savings goals for yourself, and making a plan to contribute regularly to those.

If you found this article interesting and helpful, I invite you to download the first 5 chapters of Profit First! The book has its own suggested money map that I’ll also talk about in part 2 of this series. If you’re into this kind of thing, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the book.

Angela

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How to Get Organized and Reduce Money Stress in Your Business
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How to Get Organized and Reduce Money Stress in Your Business

Bookkeeping Business, Financial Clarity, Profit First, Small Business, solopreneurs

How to Get Organized and Reduce Money Stress in Your Business

By Angela Keller|2022-09-06T10:57:21-07:00September 6th, 2022|Categories: Bookkeeping Business, Financial Clarity, Profit First, Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: bookkeeping tools, financial accuracy, financial clarity, financial habits, financial organization, money system, money time, money tracking software, money tracking tools, organization, record keeping|

As a business owner, you are responsible for the finances of your business. That responsibility can come with a lot of stress. However, with proper management, the financial side of a business can become a seamless system that sustains you and your passion. The key here? Get organized.

What does getting organized look like when it comes to your business finances? It looks like solid record-keeping and the ability to look back at financial data easily. It looks like a good awareness of the money coming in and out of your business. It looks like knowing you have enough to pay yourself, pay your taxes, and run your business.

All of this can be done without the chaos, by implementing a few changes to how you do your business finances. What you need will vary depending on the type of business you run and its current financial conditions. Today, I’d like to share a couple tips on getting your business finances organized that seem to come up most often in my work with clients.

Create a Supportive Money System

Last year, I wrote a full series devoted to money-mapping, a practice you can use to visualize the flow of money in your business. Creating a money system, and a visual way to understand it, can help you recognize where the income you receive through your business is needed most, and how your personal and business finances integrate. By creating a money system that tracks every dollar (including cash) of income that you receive, you set yourself up for success. A good money system gives you an idea of the profitability of your business, so that you’re not guessing at how much you’re really making.

My work around money mapping integrates the Profit First system’s allocations idea, to help business owners set aside money for various uses in their business. These include the important things, like paying your operating expenses, getting paid, paying taxes, and saving a portion of that money in a profit account. You can read the series on money mapping here: Part I, Part II, Part III, and a follow-up article on keeping your money systems simple.

Get Prepped for Taxes

One of the big themes in my guide to getting prepped for tax time is just simply keeping your documents organized in one place. Keeping all your paper documents in one physical spot, and saving all your digital documents to a designated folder, can save you from a lot of digging and stress when March rolls around. Creating a simple organizational system for tracking these things is a great preparation step for tax season, and a definite stress-reducer.

Show Up

They say that 90% of success is showing up, and this rings true when it comes to keeping your business organized and stress-free. If you’ve been reading this blog for a bit, you’ll know I’m a proponent of having weekly “money time,” which is for you to review your financial situation and do any financial admin work that needs to get done. This time is extremely important for financial self care. Perhaps even more important than what you do during this time, is simply scheduling it in and doing it. When you make a regular habit of revisiting your finances, you will naturally start to shape them to be more organized.

Use Helpful Tools

These days, we are lucky to have many tools available that can help us stay organized in our businesses. Here are a couple that I frequently help clients integrate into their finances:

MoneyGrit.(R) is a great tool for either personal or business use.
Mint has fewer features, but can be really helpful for solopreneurs with few transactions, or personal use.
QuickBooks Online is a classic and excellent for business use.
YNAB is a tool I personally have less experience with, but a few other coaches I know use it often and recommend it.

If you enjoyed this article, you’ll probably appreciate a copy of my free e-Book, the Cash Flow Reboot Guide. Click here or below to get your free download!

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How to Create Your Own Paycheck Using a Money System
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How to Create Your Own Paycheck Using a Money System

Profit First, Small Business, solopreneurs

How to Create Your Own Paycheck Using a Money System

By Angela Keller|2022-04-11T12:05:06-07:00April 11th, 2022|Categories: Profit First, Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: banking, money mapping, money system, money systems, pay yourself first, paycheck, personal finances, Profit First, savings strategies, small business, solopreneur paycheck|

I know you like being your own boss, but do you ever have paycheck envy? Do you ever wish you could get a paid vacation? Do you get tired of the feast or famine in your personal income? Especially with creative or freelance work, this can be a real issue for some of us. Fortunately, when you create money systems around your business income, you can create a solopreneur paycheck, by paying yourself first.

The System

Setting up a paycheck for yourself is simple. Every time you collect income, set aside a portion in a separate account just for your pay. Then pay yourself out of that account, but leave a portion in the account. The balance in this account will build over time so that you eventually have a cushion built up to even out dips in income, or even pay yourself while you take a holiday.

Determining Amounts

How much should you pay yourself each round? A good place to start is keeping track of your personal expenses and ensuring you cover those every month. After that, it’s a simple question of what to do with any extra income you may have made that month. You may choose to leave it all in the account to build up your balance, or take out an extra allowance if you’ve earned a reward. Setting up reward systems for yourself can be another motivator to keep your money systems consistent, organized, and ensure they meet your needs.

More in-depth information on creating a solopreneur paycheck can be found in my money mapping series. Part II discusses setting up a solopreneur paycheck in the context of your larger money system.

If you liked reading this, you might enjoy my free eBook, the Cash Flow Reboot Guide. This resource gives you a bunch of actionable steps to take to ensure that your business can thrive through times of financial uncertainty. Click below to grab your free copy!

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How to Develop Good Money Tools So You Can Be As Generous As You Want
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How to Develop Good Money Tools So You Can Be As Generous As You Want

Personal Savings, Personal Spending

How to Develop Good Money Tools So You Can Be As Generous As You Want

By Angela Keller|2021-06-17T11:52:31-07:00June 17th, 2021|Categories: Personal Savings, Personal Spending|Tags: donate, donation, donation plan, generous, generousity, get organized, give, give back, giving, giving hack, giving plan, money, money tools, saving, savings, savings plan, spending plan|

I know many kind and generous people who wish to give money to organizations or causes they support, or simply other people in the community who are in need. However, sometimes being clear on how much you can afford to donate is difficult.

To clear this up, you need to develop a solid financial base for yourself. I’m talking about using a spending plan, a savings plan, and money mapping to get clear on where your money is going. Let’s look at how each of these three tools can help you give more easily:

Spending Plan

First, you need to know how much you’re spending and where it’s going. Take a walk through your income and expenses and figure out how much you’re saving, if you are saving. The point of developing a spending plan (also known by the less-fun-sounding-term “budget”) is to get clear on what your spending is like right now, and how it compares to your income. When you look at this, you can see what your spending priorities currently are, and you can start to think about that critically. Do you really want to eat takeout food every week, or would you rather be able to donate that $35 to a conservation campaign like Protect Juristac? Looking at your spending and weighing your priorities can make room for the giving you want to do. To develop a good spending plan, check out my article with ideas and strategies here.

Savings Plan

Saving money gives you serious options, whether you’re saving for an emergency fund or a big purchase. You can also decide to dedicate a portion of your savings directly to giving. Maybe, you decide to save 5% of your income every month and donate it to the COVID-19 Hopi Relief Fund at the end of the year. Whether the giving comes out of your savings or your spending plan, having both gives you a fuller picture of how you can spend, give, and save for your goals. You can read more about creating a savings plan for yourself here.

Money Mapping

Once you’ve got the spending and the saving figured out, you can put it all together into a money map! Money mapping is a visual tool for organizing your own money system. It’s super helpful for both your business and personal finances. I’ve talked about the how-to of money mapping quite a bit on this blog, so I won’t go into detail. I recommend reading my full series on money mapping, and especially How to Use Money Mapping to Give Back. The big pro of money mapping is that you can visually parse out how you will allocate for giving money. Whether it’s coming out of your business finances, your monthly living expenses, or you’re saving a big sum, creating a money map helps you see that and stick to it.

Want to Give? Get Organized!

The bottom line here is that donating money from a solid financial base requires getting organized. You need to go over your financial priorities and see what kind of money you have to work with. From there, you can make an informed and generous decision about where to put your money, without putting yourself in dire financial straits. I hope you found this article helpful. Currently, I have a few openings in my practice for some personal finance coaching clients, so if you’d like to work closely on your personal finances and develop a giving plan with support, reach out to schedule a free consultation!

Happy giving!

Angela

This blog post is a re-publishing of the original article, “How to Make Donating Way Easier on Your Finances,” published in November 2020. For more articles on this topic, check out the “giving” tag.

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The 4 Components of a Restorative Money System
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The 4 Components of a Restorative Money System

Financial Clarity, Money Mindset, Profit First, Small Business, solopreneurs

The 4 Components of a Restorative Money System

By Angela Keller|2021-03-09T11:48:00-08:00January 26th, 2021|Categories: Financial Clarity, Money Mindset, Profit First, Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: avoid solopreneur burnout, get organized, meet your needs, money system, money why, needs-fulfillment, profit distribution, profit first book, restorative, restorative business practices|

The purpose of your money system is to help you meet your financial needs and keep things organized. A good money system is financially and emotionally restorative. It helps you keep your money going where it needs to go, and it keeps you from stressing. It helps you integrate your personal and business finances seamlessly and without worry. There are many different mechanisms to a money system that help us achieve these objectives. Today, let’s talk about the 4 key ones:

A Spending Plan Aligned with Your Values

Having a clear spending plan that helps you align your expenses with what you care about most is an essential part of a restorative money system. Take the time to assess what you value most in your life, what feels best to spend money on. Oftentimes, there are things we’re paying for regularly that we don’t really value, or that don’t add value to our lives. Discerning the underlying desire beneath your expenses can help you better define your values. For more thoughts on this concept, I recommend reading
The Soul of Money by Lynn Twist.

Once you’ve assessed your values, it becomes easy to cull what doesn’t truly align with you from your spending. From there, you can make the moves to create a spending plan that will keep you on track financially, and in alignment emotionally.

Clear Income Target

Another wonderful thing about creating a spending plan is that going through the process means you get a good idea of what your monthly cost of living is. This means that you have what you need to create a clear income target for your business that corresponds to your tangible needs. Having an income target grounded in your financial needs and goals is a restorative element of your money system because it keeps you in touch with your reasons for putting in the work to take care of yourself financially and run your business. It’s much more powerful than the grand-but-vague “have a 10K month!” approach, because it’s personalized. Your income target reflects the amount of money you need and the amount of work you need to do to live a life aligned with your values.

Your Money Why

Absolutely key to a money system that seeks to restore and enrich your life, your money why is the purpose of your income. This is especially important for business owners, because whether your business is your side-hustle or your full-time income, your income needs a purpose. Vague goals like, “make extra money” tend to have vague outcomes. Your money why is a clear goal or intention you plan on using your income for. After thinking about your values and desires, identifying your money why is simple. For example, maybe you value adventure above all else, and you want your business to make enough to support you and pay for a grand cross-country trip. One of my values is family, and I started my business to support my daughters as they went through college.

Your money why is connected to your values, but it’s goal-based. It ensures that you have a goal connected to your money system that will lead to fulfillment and financial growth. It could be paying off debt, a big purchase, or supporting your family. Whatever it is, your money why keeps you focused and helps you create a good life for yourself.

All Needs Met – Especially Yours

A restorative money system helps you stay organized and save to meet needs – yours and your business’s. This means having a system that helps you save for taxes, pay operating expenses for your business, and pay periodic expenses in both your business and personal life. A restorative money system also prioritizes its creator – you. Your money system should not only account for those important expenses, it should also provide a regular paycheck for you as the owner of your business, even if you have fluctuating income. My ideas around this aspect of a money system are based on Profit First. This system also calls for a way to collect a portion of your income as profit, and distribute it to you, the owner, as a reward for your hard work every financial quarter.

If you enjoyed these ideas about a restorative money system, you will probably also like my series on money-mapping. Here’s part 1, part 2, and part 3 of that series. If setting up a system sounds like the thing to do right now, but you’d like to work with an expert accountability partner, check out my offering, 4 Week Refresh, which is designed to help business owners review 2020 and plan for 2021 from a systems perspective. I’m offering this through the end of January and I invite you to join me!

Angela

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The Key to Reducing Money Stress in Your Business
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The Key to Reducing Money Stress in Your Business

Bookkeeping Business, Financial Clarity, Profit First, Small Business, solopreneurs

The Key to Reducing Money Stress in Your Business

By Angela Keller|2022-01-12T10:37:03-08:00January 12th, 2021|Categories: Bookkeeping Business, Financial Clarity, Profit First, Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: bookkeeping tools, financial accuracy, financial clarity, financial habits, financial organization, money system, money time, money tracking software, money tracking tools, organization, record keeping|

As a business owner, you are responsible for the finances of your business. That responsibility can come with a lot of stress. However, with proper management, the financial side of a business can become a seamless system that sustains you and your passion. The key here? Get organized.

What does getting organized look like when it comes to your business finances? It looks like solid record-keeping and the ability to look back at financial data easily. It looks like a good awareness of the money coming in and out of your business. It looks like knowing you have enough to pay yourself, pay your taxes, and run your business.

All of this can be done without the chaos, by implementing a few changes to how you do your business finances. What you need will vary depending on the type of business you run and its current financial conditions. Today, I’d like to share a couple tips on getting your business finances organized that seem to come up most often in my work with clients.