063 How to Leverage Bookkeeping to Fund Your Dreams (Not Just Pay Bills)
Do you want to make informed financial decisions and achieve business success? I will be sharing the key to unlocking your financial potential and reaching your entrepreneurial goals. With the right knowledge and understanding of bookkeeping, you can ensure that your business is on the path to financial success and growth. Let's explore the basics of bookkeeping and entrepreneurship together.
Bookkeeping is essential for all businesses, and it's the how of getting out of the emotional and financial holes we talked about earlier. - Regan Bashara
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00:00:00
Hi, y'all. Welcome to money through ease. This is your host, Regan Bashara. And today we're to talk about the basics of bookkeeping. But before we even get into that, we have to talk about why did you even start a business to begin with?
00:00:14
So this is a lesson that I actually taught this week inside of our live Facebook group community. What even is bookkeeping? Why you started a business. But I thought I'd come on to the podcast and also share that lesson with you just to let you know that this is the kind of information that I'm going to be teaching inside of the mind the gap community. You can actually join our community right now.
00:00:39
Just visit the link tree in the show notes and don't just do that. Go ahead and enroll in mind the gap. Mind the gap is my digital entrepreneurial bookkeeping course. And when you get enrolled early, you get that early bird bonus call with me. That's a $500 value when you enroll in my digital course today.
00:00:59
So before we can even talk about what bookkeeping is, we have to talk about why you went into business in the first place. So let's talk about it. First of all, shit costs money, and everybody's got a side hustle this day. Or so it seems, right? So everybody's doing something to make some extra money for their lives because the corporate culture sucks ass and it's just not cutting it anymore.
00:01:22
Nobody wants to work for shitty managers anymore. People want to do something important to them, and they also want to make money from it. So why not do something that pays the bills, or at least some of the bills, and is also in alignment with your personal values? Many folks are working for companies whose values are not in alignment with theirs, and that can create a lot of discord and resentment, honestly. So whenever you are working in a place like that, you may be like, well, if I could really do what I wanted to do and make money from it and pay some of my bills with it or create a savings with it, and it's something I enjoy doing, and it's something that's really, truly in alignment with who I am as a person and the things that I care about.
00:02:03
That sounds awesome, right? You get to support yourself. You get to support your family. You support your dreams by taking whatever it is that you enjoy doing and making money from it. And here's what happens for a lot of folks.
00:02:16
Here's the hole that you wind up in. This is not a financial hole that we're talking about. It's actually an emotional hole. You're suddenly overworked again, underpaid again, and demanding way too much from yourself, the same way your corporate job demands more from you than you have capacity for and what you're paid to do. Like I said, this can create resentment, shame, guilt, all of these emotions that turn into us avoiding it altogether.
00:02:46
That's the emotional hole that many people wind up in when they've got a side hustle and a day job. But it can also be a financial hole, too. Now, you're putting money from your day job into your side hustle to fund your business. You've got to have resources to start a business. And more often than not, one of those resources has to be money.
00:03:05
For some people, it's a dream to have a business that takes a loss so that they don't have to pay as much in taxes, like some people actually do have a business, so that they can just have a loss that reduces their income and therefore reduces their tax liability. I'm not recommending this. Let's get one thing straight. This is a very oversimplified description of how taxes work. And yes, it is true that you cannot just keep taking a loss on certain types of business activities.
00:03:33
So don't think that that is something that you can do and that you can do continuously. I'm not giving tax advice. I'm saying that for some people, that's their goal. But for you, it's probably not the case that you want to just dump money into something so you can take a loss on it if you're listening to this podcast, because that's not what we do here. Okay, Regan, you've described my circumstances.
00:03:56
Now, what does that have to do with bookkeeping? Great question. Bookkeeping is something every business has to do. And yes, that includes your side hustle. If it weren't for bookkeeping, you couldn't claim your side hustle on your taxes, which you do have to claim that on your taxes, by the way.
00:04:13
And if it weren't for bookkeeping, you wouldn't know the point where you could afford to quit your day job and go full time in your business because it can finally financially support your life. Bookkeeping is essential for all businesses, and it's the how of getting out of the emotional and financial holes we talked about earlier. Without your business financial data, aka your bookkeeping, you can't make informed, empowered decisions about your business, your side hustle, your gig, et cetera. So, with all of that said, what even is bookkeeping? Bookkeeping is a system that you use to maintain records of the revenue you made, the expenses you incurred to make that revenue, and all of the other financial considerations of your business activity, such as loans, credit cards, tax liabilities.
00:05:02
I could go on, but you get it. Bookkeeping starts with you making a transaction. You either have money deposited to your accounts because someone paid you for your services or products, or you spend money from your accounts because there are business purchases to be made in order for you to provide those services or sell those products. Bookkeeping, boiled down is the transactions that happen in your bank and credit card accounts and the receipts, paperwork, and backup documentation that are the records of those transactions. Yes, there is a general way to do bookkeeping, especially in the United States.
00:05:39
And if you want to learn my system from the ground up, whether you are a business owner or even if you are a bookkeeper, you can get enrolled in my digital bookkeeping course. Mind the gap today the course content drops in May of 2024, but if you enroll today, you'll get to book a free one on one virtual consultation with me. That's a $500 value that ends when we start our free challenge in May. So visit the Link tree in the show notes and enroll in mind the gap today. You'll also get access to our private online community of other business owners who are doing this same work.
00:06:16
You'll get to network with them and get regular content coworking and Q and A's live with me, your host. I hope to see you inside the community soon, and I can't wait for you to explore all of the content inside. Mind the gap this year. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you all soon.