Stellar Solopreneurs: How Aby’s Upholstery Does Money

Custom upholstery adds amazing pop and custom flair to any space. This special skill is a great way to add to a space or refresh a furniture piece, and with the right money management techniques, it can also produce a thriving business.

That’s just what founder and CEO Abigail Figueroa-Vera has done through Aby’s Upholstery, the custom upholstery shop in San Jose she founded in 2003. The business provides beautiful custom upholstery services for residential and commercial spaces in the Bay Area of Northern California. Along with excellent craftsmanship, her business has also financially sustained itself for 20 years. She has some great tips to share on her own business money system, and how other small business owners can adopt her successful habits.

What are some financial habits you use in your business that help you stay calm and confident about money?

When business is great, aside from saving, I have worked to maximize my credit to gain access to capital. This way when times are slow we have the necessary cushion to help us ride out the waves. When you are paralyzed in financial fear it really deters you from focusing on what you can control today.

How do you make decisions on what to spend on for your business, and what are some things that help you do that?

We spend on what is needed to facilitate our jobs. If a tool or device allows us to be more efficient we don’t think twice about the purchase.

How do you prepare for taxes in your business?

I think one of the key elements is having the right people on your financial team. Working with a bookkeeper is what has ultimately helped the company stay up to date monthly. Doing so facilitates my CPA in helping me better prepare for tax payments, etc.

 

Are there any tips for financial record-keeping you want to share with other small business owners?

Every business expense is on a company card or corporate account so that we can track every transaction.

What are some financial goals in your personal life that your business income has helped you reach, and how do you make sure that’s happening?

Here are a few: children having a private education, financing club athletics for my kids, driving safe vehicles, purchasing a building for the company and purchasing a home.

My next personal goals are to scale my company in such a way to make these dreams possible for my staff. I also want to own a company that can function without me being at the center of it all in order to create a solid infrastructure. Setting new goals for your company will always assure that your personal goals are met!

What’s something you wish you’d known about the financial side of running your own business when you got started?

The importance of knowing how to create your financial team – the investment is worth its weight in gold and even twenty years later I am still learning – each chapter will lead you into the next!

Want to connect with Aby’s Upholstery? Check out the website to see her menu of services, from pillows and cushions to full custom projects,  and join her mailing list. You can also take a visual tour of La Casita, her showroom, and connect with her on Instagram to see more beautiful images of her work.

If you enjoyed Aby’s thoughts on business finance, you might also like to check out our free resource, Reach Your Life Goals: A Business Owner’s Guide. Click here or below to get your free download.

By |2023-09-27T13:46:49-07:00September 20th, 2023|Categories: Bookkeeping Business, Small Business, solopreneurs, Taxes|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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Stellar Solopreneurs: How a Digital Marketing Consultant Does Money

Digital marketing is a valuable and sought-after skill, and with more and more businesses trying to reach their audiences online these days, there’s usually plenty of clientele. But how do marketing consultants turn bustling businesses into a money systems that sustain and support their lives?

In our second installment in Stellar Solopreneurs this month, we’re hearing about just that from Tracey Lee Davis of ZingPop Social Media. Not only does Tracey deliver professional excellence (I can personally attest to this as a happy former client), but she also has a lot of wonderful words of wisdom for solopreneurs looking to build confidence around their money systems in their businesses. She is one of my bookkeeping clients, and one whose sterling money habits I continually admire! Check out what she has to say:

What are some financial habits you use in your business that help you stay calm

and confident about money?

VERY early in my career, a cohort in a networking group shared with us that she owed over $10K in taxes that year, and she didn’t have it. That absolutely terrified me. I already had a plan for saving for taxes, but that moment solidified that I would never “fudge the numbers” with that account. So every week, I make sure that I am dividing up my income based on paying me, paying my taxes, and paying my business. I have never had an issue paying my taxes in my almost ten years of business! Whew!

How do you prepare for taxes in your business?

I used to painstakingly create an Excel spreadsheet that was many tabs in total. I would scour through emails and receipts to make sure I got everything listed correctly. And I relied heavily on my calendar to track medical appointments and volunteer miles. It took me hours to do all of this. Now that I am using Angela’s services, it is ridiculously simple to do my taxes every year. I really just need to keep track of my mileage, which compared to what I was doing before, is a breeze!

Are there any tips for financial record-keeping you want to share with other small

business owners?

While I am so happy using QBO for my bookkeeping, I started out using an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of my invoices. That early system really helped me with divvying up my income, and honestly, I couldn’t wrap my brain around how to easily continue to do that without that spreadsheet when I started using QBO. So I still use it, more for making the math easy and keeping track of my invoice numbers rather than for official bookkeeping purposes. Having that redundancy gives me an easy way to keep everything straight; I can leave myself notes, and it makes moving money into different accounts on my weekly money day so simple.

How do you make decisions on what to spend on for your business, and what are some

things that help you do that?

I am a very frugal person by nature, so I generally am very cautious when it comes to spending money. One of the biggest considerations is, “Will this investment ultimately save me time in the long run or make my life easier in some way?” So getting a bookkeeper, getting a VA, getting a CPA, all of these are smart investments for me because they do their job so much better than I can, and they do it faster, too. So it frees up my time to work on the things only I can do and the things I love to do. Also, if I am spending my free time doing something business-related because I don’t want to take away from my time for client work, it is absolutely worth investing in having someone help me with that task. Our free time is so valuable!

Another thing that has made a difference in making decisions on what to spend was getting a business credit card. I functioned for many years in my business without one, and that was fairly limiting if I didn’t have enough cash in the bank for a big purchase. My business credit card has definitely made a difference in that regard!

What are some financial goals in your personal life that your business income has

helped you reach, and how do you make sure that’s happening?

Travel is important to me. I have friends all over the world and seeing them in person is balm for my soul. When I finally took the plunge to get a business credit card, I made sure to get one that gave me travel rewards. This has allowed me to take a number of trips that I wouldn’t have been able to afford otherwise.

What’s something you wish you’d known about the financial side of running your own

business when you got started?

I started my business in December/January. I didn’t think at all that a lot of annual costs would need to be renewed in those months. I also didn’t know they would be the slowest months in my business. So while I wouldn’t change when I started my business, I am glad to be able to let people who are starting to think about opening their own consider when you will have other big expenses in your life and when your business will have natural lulls. There have been a number of years when the holidays, my recurring business costs, and slow business have been a bit uncomfortable, but hallelujah for that business credit card!

Want to connect with Tracey’s wonderful digital marketing services? Check out her website and join her mailing list. You can see a full list of her offerings, from webinars to memberships to 1:1 coaching, right here. I highly recommend her membership – my business benefited greatly when I was in it!

If you enjoyed Tracey’s thoughts on small business finance, you might also like to check out our free resource, The Cashflow Reboot Guide. Download your free copy here or by clicking below.

By |2023-05-25T11:58:26-07:00May 25th, 2023|Categories: Bookkeeping Business, Small Business, solopreneurs, Taxes|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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Stellar Solopreneurs: How an Herbalist Does Money

Have you ever wondered how an herbalist makes money? This month on the blog, I’m running an interview series called “Stellar Solopreneurs!” We’ll hear from a couple different small business owners about their own financial insights and how they set up their money systems for financial success.

Today we’re hearing from Madeleine (aka Magic), who is the Head Content Creator for At Peace With Money, but also the herbalist extraordinaire of Roots in the Cracks Herbal Hub! Magic teaches online and local classes on herbal medicine making and identifying medicinal plants, and also runs an online educational membership, The Autonomous Herbalism Learning Community. Check out what they have to share about the financial side of their business:

Are there any tips for financial record-keeping you want to share with other small business owners?

I run a very simple business that’s service-based, so although I sometimes purchase supplies, I don’t typically have many transactions. I do all my financial record-keeping in a spreadsheet with a couple different tabs. Maybe I’ll outgrow this at some point, but for now, it works really well. I want to share this because I want other people to know you don’t have to overcomplicate things. As long as I stay on top of my record keeping and do it regularly, this very simple spreadsheet system works for me.

How do you prepare for taxes in your business?

My main strategy for this is that I have a tax savings account, very similar to what’s suggested by Profit First. I make sure that I factor in how much I need to save for taxes into my prices. This has been especially helpful when I’m preparing a new class series and figuring out how to price it. I know that a certain percentage will get taken off the top for taxes, so I price with that in mind. It’s really helpful to have the money on hand when it comes time to pay and helps me avoid emergencies.

How do you make decisions on what to spend on for your business, and what are some things that help you do that?

One time Angela gave me the advice to think about spending decisions in my business by asking the question “Will this help me make more money?” It seems like a simple question but it’s really helped me prioritize and think about what to invest in.

This advice helped me make the decision to hire PedX Courier & Cargo, a local bike courier co-op, to put up flyers for me, because paper flyering seems to be the best way to market my classes. Doing this increased enrollment and also freed up a lot of time for me because I wasn’t the one pasting up flyers all over the county! (I highly recommend PedX for people in the Santa Cruz area, by the way!)

What’s something you wish you’d known about the financial side of running your own business when you got started?

I wish I’d known better how to price my classes and membership. In the last year or so, I’ve had to reconcile with the fact that in some ways, I was running my business at a deficit to myself.

Now I try to ask myself questions like “Ok, how much am I getting paid to teach this class/run this membership? Is that enough for me to sustain myself and not feel scarce or burnt out?” Pricing is a much bigger part of the process of producing each class I teach, because I put a lot more time into thinking about how I can be financially accessible but also sustainable. There’s a lot of math involved, but it’s worth it because I get to still offer classes on a sliding scale, something that’s really important to me.

Want to connect with Magic’s herbalism work? Check out their website and join their mailing list, Herbal Magic Notes, to receive free recordings of the herbal workshops. If you liked their thoughts on small business finances and want some more ideas, check out my eBook, Reach Your Life Goals: A Business Owner’s Guide! Click here or below to download your copy.

By |2023-05-11T12:06:24-07:00May 11th, 2023|Categories: Small Business, solopreneurs, Taxes|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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How to Get Organized and Reduce Money Stress in Your Business

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!

By |2022-09-06T10:57:21-07:00September 6th, 2022|Categories: Bookkeeping Business, Financial Clarity, Profit First, Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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3 Tips to Financially Prepare Your Small Business for the Holidays

It’s important to be proactive when it comes to the holidays. They bring a host of financial challenges and opportunities for small businesses. Let’s talk about three ways you can prep your business for the holidays, so that you’re able to have a profitable and satisfying holiday season, without stressing out.

Reflect on This Time In Past Years

Look back to your records to see what happened in your business in past holiday seasons. Which events, specials or sales, and products were the most profitable? If something didn’t go the way you planned, how can you improve on what you did the last few years? This will give you good data to help you focus your offerings this season.

If your business is relatively new, you can simply reflect on the past year and what’s been most profitable for you. Chances are you know what your best-selling products or services are. How can you make sure you have the resources to sell a lot of them? What strategies do you want to use to promote that offering during the holiday season?

Having access to clear financial records is extremely helpful when you’re doing business planning like this.

Plan Sales and Specials

Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday are coming up soon, as well as a host of other times when businesses typically offer sales or specials with their products. Consider whether you’d like to participate in these dates, and how your business is best suited to do that. Perhaps you can focus on promoting packages to up the dollar amount spent by each customer, or offer a deal on your bestselling offering.

Alternatively, you may decide not to participate in these dates, or to do so in a different way. Some small business owners choose not to take part in these events, because it doesn’t feel right to them, or because they choose to celebrate Buy Nothing Day. Even some larger businesses opt out, or take a different path. Deciem, a large skincare brand, holds an annual sale for the entire month of November, to discourage “hyper-consumerism.”

The choice is ultimately yours. Whatever sales schedule you decide to follow, you will also want to take into account your production timeline. Right about now is when many product-based businesses start beefing up their inventories. Here’s an article I wrote for product-based businesses on how to financially survive this process.

If you’re a service-based business or selling digital products, there may still be some considerations for you around your schedule during the holidays. If you’re providing 1-to-1 services, for example, how will your availability change during the holiday season? How can you allocate your resources to ensure you’re able to deliver and make a profit?

Prep for Events

You’ve likely signed up for whatever craft shows, expos, or web events you’ll be participating in during the holidays (or maybe you haven’t yet and now is a good time to think about that!). Now is the time to think strategically about what you can do to get the most out of these events. I wrote an article on upping your profit during holiday events which you can read here.

If this post was helpful for you, you might like checking out my free eBook, The Cash Flow Reboot Guide. This 9-page resource can help you brainstorm to get prepped for a profitable holiday season. Download it for free here.

☮

Angela

Photo by Kira auf der Heide

By |2021-10-15T11:43:38-07:00October 15th, 2021|Categories: Cash Flow, Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments
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The Key to Reducing Money Stress in Your Business

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.

I am planning on doing a more in-depth post on money tracking softwares, and the why and how to use them for business and personal finances later this month. Stay tuned for that!

I hope these tips on organization encourage you to decrease the financial stress in your business. A lot of this work can be accelerated when done with an accountability partner. I’m currently offering a 4 Week Refresh package through the end of January for people who’d like to work with an expert to gain control of their business finances. This package of four private sessions is designed to help you review 2020 and create a clear roadmap to your financial goals in 2021. We’ll also construct a money map personalized to your business, so you can effortlessly visualize your money system. If you’re interested in this package, you can learn more and sign up for a free consultation here.

☮

Angela

Image by  Arnel Hasanovic

By |2022-01-12T10:37:03-08:00January 12th, 2021|Categories: Bookkeeping Business, Financial Clarity, Profit First, Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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