Struggling with Taxes & Bookkeeping is Killing Your Business... And How to Fix It

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Ep 206: Struggling with Taxes & Bookkeeping is Killing Your Business… And How to Fix It

In this episode, I dive into the common struggles female entrepreneurs face with taxes and bookkeeping – and why these money woes are holding your business back. I share key mindset shifts, practical strategies to simplify your financial tasks, and tips to save time (and stress). Whether you’re overwhelmed by bookkeeping, feeling guilty about your business expenses, or ready to explore outsourcing, I break down the monthly must-dos and give you the encouragement and resources you need to reclaim your financial confidence. Tune in to learn how to make money management less daunting and build unstoppable finances for your business!

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Struggling with Bookkeeping and Taxes as an Entrepreneur?

Are taxes and bookkeeping stressing you out, draining your energy, and holding your business back? In this episode, I’m sharing one more session for my Beyond the Numbers audio summit. This information was just too good not to share. We’re gonna dive into the challenges entrepreneurs face with managing their finances and why it’s hurting your bottom line. But more importantly, I’m gonna share practical solutions to help you stop spending your wheels and reclaim your financial confidence.

So if you’re overwhelmed every time you think about taxes or bookkeeping, it feels like a never ending battle. If you’re constantly putting off bookkeeping tasks only to feel guilt or shame about not staying on top of them, or if you’re tired of feeling unqualified to handle your own finances, or if you wanna stop fearing tax season and take proactive steps to make it stress free, this episode is gonna be just for you. So let’s get to it. This is the Your Money, Your Life podcast. The show where I help female entrepreneurs go from stress and struggle to unstoppable.

Mindset and Bookkeeping: How Your Thoughts Impact Your Money

Here we blend step by step strategy, mindset work, and emotional regulation so you can create unstoppable finances, build an unstoppable business, and truly enjoy your unstoppable life. It’s time to take my wisdom, my expertise to help you simplify money and go beyond the numbers. I’m your host, Aimee Cerka. Welcome. I’m so glad you’re here.

Welcome to the final session of Beyond the Numbers. Hopefully, we’ve met by now, but my name is Aimee Cerka. I am the host money comp host here at the summit, money confidence coach and bookkeeper. I’ve learned step by step strategy, mindset work, and emotional regulation to help you go beyond the numbers so that you can create unstoppable finances, build an unstoppable business, and truly enjoy your unstoppable life.

Bookkeeping and Tax Management as Key Business Stress Points

And this session, we’re gonna talk about bookkeeping and taxes because this leads to so much unnecessary stress and missed opportunities as this is like a point of resistance for a lot of people, really the numbers in general, but especially when we get into bookkeeping and taxes, and it doesn’t have to be. We’re gonna talk today about some of the mindset shifts around the task, a couple of things so you can simplify the process, save time, and really, explore the idea of outsourcing too as well. So a lot of times I hear that entrepreneurs, business owners, they’re struggling with taxes and bookkeeping because they feel like they should be able to do it ourselves. And I think part of the problem is it’s not necessarily rocket science. Right?

Like, it’s not and even I’m gonna go through in a little bit the monthly, like, must do tasks if you’re doing your bookkeeping yourself, but it’s not rocket science. Right? Like, it’s not this overcomplicated thing. We put this pressure on ourselves that we should be able to do it. But there’s so much resistance that you create from trying to force yourself to learn it or to handle the tasks that don’t come naturally.

Outsourcing Bookkeeping for Less Stress and Better Results

This drives your energy and, again, creates stress. It creates more friction than it needs to in your business and within money itself. Like, energetically, when you’re creating the resistance there, it causes more problems. This is why this is one of the areas I highly recommend that you let go of and outsource because it can be such a huge stress point. Okay?

And then, also, if your bookkeeping isn’t done correctly, you’re missing out on potential tax benefits and deductions, all those things. Okay? So let’s kind of reframe this for a minute. There’s a couple key things that I normally hear. There will be guilt and shame about how much expenses, how the expenses you’ve had in your business, the investments that you’ve made in your business, and you don’t feel like you’ve seen the profit that you, quote, air quotes, should have or the return that you should have by now.

Guilt About Bookkeeping Mistakes and Your Success Timeline

Okay. First off, that’s irrelevant. Like, the timeline of your success. Like, if your success was inevitable no matter what, would this really matter right now? No.

Because you know that your success is inevitable. It’s going to happen. It’s just, again, we talked about this, it was day one that I talked about the pressure that we put on ourselves. But we don’t need to do that. Also, especially if you’re in The US, tax benefits of having a home based business, you’re saving money, your quote air quotes again profit just by having a home based business.

There’s two tiers on our current tax structure. There’s one system that was built for w two employees and one system that was built for the business owners. The business owners get more tax breaks because they knew when they created the IRS, which we can go into a whole another story about the way that the IRS functions and all those things, but irrelevant. That’s the system we’re dealing with right now. K?

Business Owner Bookkeeping and Tax Strategy Insights

The business owner tax system was built with more tax breaks because business owners are the ones that create jobs. So take the deductions that you’re owed. I can go off on another tangent. We need to have tax strategy, not just a CPA. You need to have somebody in your corner who is good with you taking the deductions that you are entitled to.

You should not be having to fight to take deductions that you were entitled to per the tax code. Your CPA, your accountant should not be afraid of the IRS and neither should you. It’s not as big of a deal as we make it out to be. We have to kind of remove that stress, that pressure there. So don’t feel guilty because you haven’t created a profit.

We should not feel the overwhelm and stress from that. And so much of that comes from the finances and that we don’t understand. So if it’s not your strong suit, and the best way that I kinda think of to look at this, like, when you sit down to do your numbers, does it light you up? Are you excited by doing your numbers? Because I can tell you even before the numbers look like I wanted to do them like, I wanted them to do I wanted them to look there we go.

Should You Do Bookkeeping Yourself or Outsource It?

Even when the numbers didn’t look like I wanted them to look, I was still excited and still energized by doing the numbers because it’s a natural gift that I have. If that’s not you and you’re stressed and you’re frustrated and you put it off and you don’t wanna have to mess with it and you’ve tried to automate it and it doesn’t work, because that’s another thing. We can automate certain parts of it, but we still need to have the hands on part. It it’s probably not the most effective use of your time. And, yes, I’m a bookkeeper, and I do recommend having somebody.

I think the benefit of having me as your bookkeeper is I’m also the financial coach. So we get the strategy and the mindset as well both. But I’m not saying, like, if it’s not me, it’s not me. Having support in your business, that’s gonna accelerate your growth. Another way to see, like, where you were at, how long it actually takes with the numbers is put, like, start a clock, actually track it.

Often we can underestimate how much time we’re spending on tasks like this that might not be aligning with your strengths, your business goals, those things. I know we had Kylie Ota was talking about outsourcing as well and, like, having those things in place so that you can do the part that you want to do. How many times do we show up and that we want to serve and we want to deliver in the part of our business that we actually, like, enjoy. Right? We don’t want to have to do this other part.

Monthly Bookkeeping Tasks Every Entrepreneur Should Know

We don’t want to have to, quote, be the business owner or whatever it might be. There’s aspects of your business that you don’t enjoy. So why are we forcing it? If you are ready to outsource and you’re like, okay. Maybe, like, I could just hand this off, make sure you’re looking at communication and the bookkeepers’ standpoints as well.

Again, you don’t wanna have somebody that’s afraid of the IRS and not willing to take the deductions that you’re owed. Somebody that understands where you’re at. Somebody who works with this. I know especially as online business owners, it’s done a little bit differently. You want somebody who understands.

But if you were somebody who feels like you do need to take that on, let’s go through the four things that you need to do every single month. Okay? Before we get into that, this is one of the questions that I’m asked often is, you know, which accounting software should I have? I use and recommend QuickBooks. I know their price has gone up a couple times over the years, but I do feel like this is an area where it’s worth the investment to pay more.

So QuickBooks online is the one that I use and recommend. Okay. Monthly must dos. You need to make sure your income is entered every single month, but it also needs to be entered correctly. So for example, in QuickBooks, this is not not at all just improving approving from the bank feed.

That’s not how you enter income correctly within QuickBooks. The second thing that you need to be doing is entering your expenses correctly every single month, making sure they’re categorized. This is where rules and people can try and automate and systematize systematize things really throws it really can get thrown off quite quickly. Again, it’s not your area of expertise. It is definitely something that you can outsource and get the support with so that you can spend your time doing what you need to.

Again, profit, all those things show up. Okay? So second thing we have to do every single month, make sure your expenses are entered correctly. The third one, this is the biggest mistake that we see every single month. We have to reconcile, which means matching what’s in the QuickBooks ledger with what’s in your bank account.

Bookkeeping Reconciliation and Home Office Deductions

If it’s not right, you haven’t done it correctly. And we need to do this on a monthly basis because, otherwise, we just get way too off track way too quickly. So reconciling. There’s a process, like, within QuickBooks. It’s a little button that says reconcile.

I think in Xero, it’s a little button as well. It’s the other software that I’m familiar with. Okay. Fourth thing, record your home office and auto deductions. For my clients, I give them an Excel spreadsheet that we’re gonna document this in because portions of this is tax deductible.

So when you collect this information as you go each and every month, you’re ready to go. You’re set. You are calm, confident, all those things when it comes to taxes. It makes tax season so much easier when you take care of this on a monthly basis. Again, this is part of why I formed ExecutionLab to help you do the things that you need to within your business, but your taxes and bookkeeping and keeping track of your numbers should not be a point of resistance.

Bookkeeping Support: Coaching, Outsourcing, and Confidence

So we need to get you the support, whether this is learning how to do bookkeeping yourself through bookkeeping coaching or something along that path because, you know, there’s tons of information out there. If you’re gonna do it yourself, let’s make sure you’re doing it correctly. So, again, you feel clear, confident, and in control. If it’s a point of resistance, maybe it’s time to outsource. This is the area, and I’m not quite sure why.

It’s not as big of a deal, you know, to hire a copywriter, to hire a virtual assistant. There is something to do with the numbers, and I think it’s because it’s personal. And, again, we feel like we should be able to do it that there’s a point of resistance in here. When you get this figured out, everything else works so much faster for you, works so much better, so much more efficient. So if you are open, you’re like, okay.

Maybe this is the time that I need to outsource it. You can book a discovery call with me. And, really, whether you’re like, okay. Maybe I need coaching to help make sure I’m on point with the bookkeeping. Maybe I just ready to outsource the bookkeeping.

I also have an audit slash action plan that we could do. It’s like a thirty minute check-in. If you’re doing yourself and you wanna make sure you’re up to date, we’ll put the link for that in the show notes. It’s unstoppablebookkeeping.com. Because this area, this is where I wanted to end it.

Bookkeeping Reflection: Moving Forward With Financial Clarity

K? Because I don’t want you to feel guilt. You should not feel guilt about the expenses and the investments that you’ve made into your business. Because at the time you made that investment, you felt that was the best choice for you, and there’s power in that. And we need to be confident in the choices and the decisions that we’ve made.

We’re looking at moving forward. Moving forward, the best version of you. And another thing that I talk about or think about or to think about if you is this an area you would want to outsource? If money wasn’t a problem, is this a task you would wanna do? And I think that makes it clear for a lot of people.

Sometimes we feel like we’re stuck in the I can’t do it yet, but until you explore the possibility and set the intention, this is something you would want to do and know what it would look like, what would it actually cost for you to be able to do this. Until you know those things, we don’t have the clarity. Again, we’re looking at the possibility. We’ve talked about this a couple times through some of the sessions that I’ve done throughout the summit. Looking at the possibility, what can show up for you? Be open to it.

Your action step slash reflection for this one, I’d love for you to book a call with me, unstoppablebookkeeping.com, because I would love to take that stress off of you. It’s one of the things that I know that you can show up as the best version of you. Like, I can support you to show up as the best version of you in this area, and it makes such a big difference. But your action step slash reflection, let’s evaluate why you might be avoiding your bookkeeping or the taxes, why you might be avoiding it, why you might feel guilty, What emotion comes up for you? Is this something that you feel like you have to do yourself? Okay. Why is that? Is this something that you feel like you were doing, you’ve got a handle on? What is the emotions that show up when it comes to filing your taxes? Is this something that you’re not doing at all? Why are we not doing it? Is this something that you’ve done, but you feel guilty about it? Wherever those emotions step that your emotional trigger, where that shows up, evaluate why you feel the way that you feel. Take a step back. Look at that.