Mastering QuickBooks Online for Coaches: Streamline, Simplify, and Profit with Alisa McCabe
In this episode, Alisa McCabe shares her expertise on leveraging QuickBooks Online (QBO) and supporting apps to streamline financial processes for coaches. Discover how Alisa helps coaches save time, increase profits, and enjoy more quality moments with friends and family—all without hiring additional staff. Plus, learn about her free 7-day trial for the Skool membership that could transform how you manage your business. Tune in for practical tips and strategies to simplify your finances and reclaim your time!
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Transcript
Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Hi and welcome to the You world order showcase. Podcast I'm your host, Jill Hart. And with us today is Alyssa Mccabe. Alyssa focuses on quickbooks online, which we will refer to as Qbo in our conversation. So make a note of that
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: and all the apps that support it, and to streamline the processes for coaches, her main goal showing coaches how to spend more quality time with friends and family, and how to increase profits without hiring a staff. Gotta love that. Welcome to the show, Alyssa.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Thank you so much for having me. I I'm excited to be here and talk with you.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I am excited to hear all about what you've got going on, because I think it's just one of those things that most entrepreneurs need, but don't even recognize it until.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Usually too late. And then and then they're like.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Drowning well, and and so this is a conversation I have with entrepreneurs all the time
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: they come to us, and they're embarrassed about the state of their books. They're like, Oh, you don't want to look at my bookkeeping. It's terrible! Oh, well, and I have to tell them, and it it's like, but I don't know how to do what you do.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: If if you're a hairdresser or you work in Hvac, or you're a coach, should I be good at that, too. No, I don't know how to do those things, so I know how to do these things and what we realize, because my company 1st steps, financial handles, bigger clients. We work on small to mid size firms, but then we realize there's a whole host of people out there who do their own bookkeeping.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and why should they suffer through doing it badly?
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And then we started realizing that we streamlined all our processes. My company's 100% remote.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And we we utilize technology as much as we can.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And we decided we're going to share all these secrets that made our company successful.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And we are focusing on coaches because we love coaches.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: We have a coach.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and it's it's made a total difference in our company. So we thought, Who can we help.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Let's help these coaches so that they can in turn help more people
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: because our go ahead. I'm sorry.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I love that and coaches, and it used to be back 40 years ago that when
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you started a business you either had to go to bookkeeping school and actually learn how to keep books with. You know the ledger and all the little receipts, and when I took bookkeeping I was a lifeguard at the same time, so I would. I would take all my little kit because they give you a kit.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: and you'd stick it in the sand
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: was, it was quite the thing. But now now you can, because of technology, you can actually learn to keep your books in a nice, simple manner.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: because they can all talk to each other all the different things that you're doing.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And that's and that's so. We created this. It's on this platform called school.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and the name of the group is called the smart boss. And it is all about using Qbo quickbooks online to do all your invoicing and do it quickly and efficiently and collect payments so that you don't have to do anything with it. It's all done, it's all automated. And then other things like, if you have a contract with a client
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: we have, you know software that you can use that works with quickbooks online.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And then if you're already using something, maybe that is particular to your type of coaching.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: we can utilize Zapier, which connects those things that aren't innately connected.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and we show you how to use it. And a lot of the stuff is already built inside of Zapier, and you can just use it. And it's it's really easy. It's not complicated, because, believe me, we want things to be as simple as possible.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: because.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Safe here.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Oh!
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's got so many recipes already done.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's just like this, is, is this what you're trying to do? And you're like, Oh, yes, thank you. Thank you.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: It is, they have hundreds and hundreds of apps that they already innately connect.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and you can go in and just pick which one you want. So you know, we use Hubspot, too. So if you're using Hubspot as your Crm, you can actually go in and pick what you want to connect. It doesn't have to be everything. It can be just certain things. So we we really love that we also love task management systems. Now, look, we're all accountants. So we love all the things to be organized. But for coaches.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: One of the things that we've found is having a task list that you can replicate when you work with your clients. Have I sent out the contract?
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Have I set up the 1st meeting? Have I explained how this works? Have I done all these things? And having Asana set up
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: so that you can replicate those things, has made their lives so much easier.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And it it's just been. It was a game changer for us when we implemented Asana in our company, and we have found it to be so valuable for the clients we use for a small and mid size internally, and for the coaches that we work with.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's just these little little apps
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: that you can connect it all together, that just they take over the place of having
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: a staff, you know.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: It really is it? It takes the place of
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: so when I started my company 15 years ago.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: my 1st hire was an admin person, because there wasn't all these things. I needed someone to push paper around. I needed somebody to make sure this was done, and have this signed and do all that.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and I no longer have an admin person. I have a chief of staff.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and we don't push any papers, and she just oversees and makes sure that everything gets done for me
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and for the company. So it's much less of an admin position because so many things are automated.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: She just makes sure that all the systems are working so they don't.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Talking to each other. You don't even have to really like, keep your books anymore, because it just feeds into the quickbooks system. And you know you you hook your
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: for people that don't understand. You just hook your bank account to quit
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: books, so every time you make a debit, or you spend money on your credit card, you put your credit cards which should be in your business name, not your personal name.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Connect it to your your quickbooks account, and then
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it automatically puts it where it's supposed to go. It does like.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And it comes in, and then, and we teach people how to connect those bank accounts, connect your credit card account, and then how to categorize, and then the magic is to set up rules
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: so that every time so people think like, well, no, I I do this, and I do that. And it's all very different.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: It's not. I'm sorry. But in general everybody goes to the same places all the time.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: There's there's very few outliers. So 80% of your categorizations can be done with rules.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: So you will spend. We tell people
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: you'll only spend 15 min a week on your books. That's it.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And then once a month you're gonna spend 30 min. You're gonna reconcile your bank accounts, reconcile your credit card accounts, and then you're gonna run some reporting.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and that reporting will make sure that it. What it will tell you is where you are financially.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: It'll tell you if something's off.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: it'll tell you if something's become disconnected.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: if one of your one of the apps that comes in.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: it will tell you if something's off
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and we have these key things that we want you to look at.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and that you're going to look at every month. And we teach this in the course.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And in addition to that, we actually have. If you become, when you become a member.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: you we have a meeting every Friday at noontime Eastern Standard time.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: So anybody, even on the West Coast, you could join us.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: We have an open forum. You can come in and ask us questions.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and everyone. I it's myself. And Mark Janice is my co-host.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Everybody is advanced, certified in quickbooks online. And some people from my team actually come in
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and you can ask any question. We had someone come in and say.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: my stripe account has become disconnected from my quickbooks, and stuff is not flowing in. And right on the spot, we said, Do this do that?
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And and she's like, Oh, my God! That fixed it!
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And we told her it so. There was a gap because things weren't coming in, so it might have been like a couple of weeks that she had all these transactions that didn't come in, and we told her how to fix that too.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: So it it allows us to be, you know, with you you can ask any questions.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: If by some chance you have created
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: a Kerfuffle or some sort of
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: large issue that goes beyond what we can fix. You can actually, you have the ability inside of school to put time on our calendar for a paid hour.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Now, how many times would you have to do this? Maybe once a year.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and you can even. And you can do it anytime. You can actually go in and say, Hey, can you just review my books for me?
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: We're more than happy to do that, but
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: it's totally free to come in on Friday. Ask any question we talk about. We usually pick a subject to talk about
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: something new that's come up quickbooks over the last
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: in the last few years. They now have a quickbooks, checking account inside of quickbooks.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and the nice thing about it is that they had envelopes inside, so you could take the money that comes in from your consulting work.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and you could move it to a folder like.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: okay, I know I gotta pay
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: 25% in taxes. Let me move it to a taxes folder.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: You know I I know that I have to pay this bill at the end of the month, so you can move it to folders, which was a really neat system.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: So we talked about that, and when you move things to the folders they got paid a higher interest rate.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: So it was 5%. It's down to 3%. But
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: it's still more than most bank accounts are paying.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And it, and it's easy to use. And so we teach people how to use these things, how to use them easily, so that you don't have to think about it for more than 15 min a week.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And so that's our goal.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That's so huge and talk to people about the school communities. It's kind of a new and upcoming thing. Yeah, some of us follow Hermosi. So we're.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: So her mosey is great to follow, because he is.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: He is larger than life, for sure. And the school community is new. It's a new program, and I love.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: I love the vibe around it because it is really people helping each other. Everybody that's in there.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: There's only one other group that I have been a part of that has this energy of
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: people wanting to help other people.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And and that's what I think is unique about the school community is you can go in there and and like in our internal school community, you go on anytime and ask questions, and we're there all the time answering questions, and other people get involved like, Oh, I have that same problem like, I don't even how I did it. But you know, we talk about different things in there, and the overall school community is very similar.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: I can go in at any time and say, like, Hey, I have a question like, I'm not sure how to do this inside of my community, and they're there, and they support you, and they have great contests. They have like school games that you can go in, and they have different contests which are fun and they really know how to build community.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Sam Evans. Whole goal with school was to gamify education and to make it fun to learn. And you you go in. And it's different than Facebook. You know, Facebook communities. Yeah, there's tabs. But nobody ever looks at the tabs, no matter how many times you tell them. But in school it's set up. There's a classroom area. You go there. If you want to learn something
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: and you can open it up. Depending on how interactive your community is with each other. So the goal is to, you know. Get people talking to each other on the platform, not necessarily in Dms, because you only get 10 dms a week.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: So you have to use them judiciously, which I
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: I love. I love about that because it makes you build a community. It almost. It forces you to do that. And I I just think that in an age where so many people feel alone.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: this is about building community, and it's about leaning on each other and and everybody moving forward together. And I,
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: I, we're so all about that. We we just feel like we want to give this information to people. We want to help people create successful businesses.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: It's, you know, with so many businesses failing, you know. 6. It's some ridiculous amount, like 60%
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: fail after 3 years. We want to change that number.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And we know that what we do is actually the lifeblood of the business, because you can go out and make as many sales as you want.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: but if you're not tracking it, and you're not profitable.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: you can't keep doing the good work you do.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: For sure, for sure. And one of I'm gonna just mention one other benefit of the school community. Everything in there searchable.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you know, you were talking about the gal, who's
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: stripe account got disconnected? Well, the next person that comes along and they're like, Oh, my God! My stripe account has been. You don't have to wait till next week to the to come to the meeting. You can just search for a stripe, disconnect, and you know all the content that's related to that will pop up. And
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you know, if somebody's in the community right then you can ask them about it. You could just go watch the video again. And
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it's like.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: That's that's the other thing. It's like any. Every resource stays right there. You don't have to go like oh, where can I find this and it like you were saying about Facebook. You gotta like dig into the Tabs school. You can search by it and the Friday meetings we record, and they're there for everybody to watch.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And if you and and if you search you can do it by
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: it has it in increments, too, like in videos. So you can see like where they're talking about this and
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: it.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: It's outstanding. It's 1 of the best learning tools I've seen out there, because we've looked at Kajabi. And there's a whole bunch of other programs out there.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And and I, really, I have to say that this does it in twofold where it's education, and it's
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: fun education. And it has that community.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And I I just I think that that is.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: people helping other people is really where it's what coaches do.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: I mean, if you think about it, it's like, that's their whole job.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah. And it it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's fun. And you actually make real connections with other people. And you know, in a community like yours, where there's a whole bunch of people doing a whole bunch of different things.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Hey!
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It just makes it makes it fun, makes it.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: It does.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Feel like you're part of a group that's going somewhere and doing something. And and it's around a subject that you know most people are like.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Oh, I don't do math.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Well and most of the time, and this happens with accounting people's eyes glaze over.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And I get it, I totally get it. I know that I have an issue. I love accounting, and I, my support group is my team because they all love accounting, too. We've banded together. But it's something that we can take the ick out of accounting
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Part of the problem with accounting. I know for me. This was my problem with accounting.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I I grew up, and because we moved around a lot. I had a really poor math
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: background of foundation.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It was like, I just didn't get math because I didn't.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I was in like 4 3rd grade classes when you start to learn math. So I I was just like hopeless my whole
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: my whole life when it came to math. But accounting is not math.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: It's not.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's puzzle solving.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: These these are. They're just number puzzles.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And and when I took that
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: approach to accounting and bookkeeping specifically, it's like I love bookkeeping. I hate math, but I love bookkeeping because.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: It is.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Where? Where is that number?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Did it really? Is it really like a hundred here and 99 there? Or is it really a penny.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Yeah, well, and it's so. That's the big difference. If you don't love calculus and algebra good.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: because we're not asking you to do that
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: it really is about. And it's so funny that you say it's puzzles
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: everyone on my team loves mystery novels.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: They love to search and find things.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And so we have really like boiled this down to a very simplified approach, so that anyone can do this. I taught my high school kids how to do bookkeeping because it's actually an important skill to know, because it's about, you know, knowing how much money is in your checkbook
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and knowing how it got there.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: what came in and what's going out.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and and how much money do you get to keep?
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And and starting to think of those things in percentages. So if all my money comes in and then 30% goes out in expenses.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: But wait a minute. I have 70%. I can keep.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: What can I do with this.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: you know, and and and working on that level of starting to understand, of thinking, thinking of it. And this goes into the reporting that we do, because I have a favorite report, and I know that's such a nerdy thing. But I really do. I have a favorite report that I try to teach all business owners.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and it's the profit and loss by profit and loss by percent of income.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Because what happens is. It tells you where your money's going.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: So you know how much money comes in, and it gives you that number. You brought in a thousand dollars this month, and it tells you where all your money is going out. Are you paying insurance? Are you paying fees on quickbooks? Are you paying for your quickbooks file. You know any other fees that you have to pay, and then what you're left with at the end. But it tells you in a percentage.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: so that you know every time you make a sale every time you gain a new client, and you tell them, okay, you know my fees are X amount per month X amount per hour. You know what percentage of that is going to go out as insurance, what percentage is going to go out as any other fees that you have.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and you're going to know every month what you're going to be left over with.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: I might be left over with 50%.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And I know that 25% should be put aside for taxes.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And those things. When you start to think about it in that framework.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: it just makes it easier because you can keep those in your head.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And then when you look at your books, it confirms what you're already thinking.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and it allows you to be a profitable business owner.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and that allows you to ensure that ongoing success.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And so I know I get very excited about these things. So I
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: we'll keep talking about them. But I I hope it does. I I.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: The experience that we're getting, and the feedback that we're getting from
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: our members is that it really is making something that was scary, something that was
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: their whole life being afraid of doing it, has brought it down to a very simple
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: thought or way of thinking about the subject.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, I I and my hat's off to you, cause it's it's really one of those important things that you know
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: as a solopreneur, and most coaches are solopreneurs these days.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You're not really taught how to be an entrepreneur in school, and you may have learned math in school, and you may have learned. Maybe you learned personal finance in school.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Most likely not. But it's just like
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: the world has changed and continues to change. And we're embracing technology. And this is just like it's moved, something that was
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: more complicated. And you really did need to hire a professional to do
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: to. It's 15 min a week.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: 30 min a month, and then you have everything you need to take to your accountant at the end of the year and say, Hey.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: here it all is.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You plug in the numbers, or it's sometimes some of the tax software will just like hook into your quick books and look at the reports and do your your
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: taxes for you, if it's not that complicated in turbotax is that I love turbotax.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And so some of our coaches do their own taxes, which
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: cracks me up because they will do it, and so it does. Quickbooks connects with turbotax.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And so you can do it. And quickbooks also connects with almost all accounting Cpas accounting tax software. So it really, it's a good plugin method.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: you know these when you are.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: You can't feel bad about not knowing how to do this, because that's the way life is. We don't know how to do everything. We are born with that knowledge, and
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and really taking the moment to learn how to be an entrepreneur.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: This is part of it.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and I know a lot of people are accidental entrepreneurs, and I'm sure you talk to them all the time that they just start doing something. They're super passionate about.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and I will share a secret with you.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: That was me.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: I was passionate about trying to help small businesses become successful.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: So one of the 1st things that I did. One of the 1st huge errors that I made is, I didn't have a separate bank account.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: I and it was a very humbling experience to try and sort through personal and business and separating them.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And so
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: that can happen to anybody. I learned my lesson, and this was before quickbooks online was a big thing. But having quickbooks online makes things so much easier. And especially with the program that we provide because we're there to support you.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: You don't have to go it alone.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: You have a community you have experts you can reach out to at any time, and it's at no cost beyond, you know the school program.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: It's, you know, the smart boss. You get a a week for free, which I think I forgot to mention. So it's a free trial. You can come in and and look around. Included in the free trial is how to set up a quickbooks file.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: It teaches you soup to nuts how to get in there, purchase it, open it up,
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And I do have to say I talk about this. I talk about this when I in the school program
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: quickbooks offers live bookkeeping help.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Now my other company gets a lot of business
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: cleaning up this live bookkeeping help.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: So I'm just saying I don't suggest you use it.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: You you can. But I'm just saying it. It's cost people money, so they don't. They don't really.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Quickbooks hasn't quite figured out how to do live bookkeeping help.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And it's basically because of the system that they use when you connect with the live bookkeeping you just get who's ever available.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: So they don't know you. They don't know your system.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: They don't know your business, so you get a new person every time.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and that's really hard to work with.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, it's kind of like the medical world.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Oh!
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Better to have your own doctor, who knows? You
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: knows your history. And you you can go in for your 15 min consult, because you don't have to go back through, however long your life is, and tell them all the things that led to this point, so that they can make a determination of what's actually wrong with you, and they don't have the time for that. So
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you're not going to get an accurate diagnosis. So the same goes with any kind of help that you're getting.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You need to know
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: who you're talking to and what their expertise is same with. I know turbotax also offers help.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: and I've used them before I I've had turbotax for 20 years.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Maybe 40, I don't know
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: like a long time, and I've always done my own books, and I've always done my own taxes. But you have to approach it
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: from the the viewpoint of asking specific questions, and you have to know
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: before you ask what the 2 or 3 most probable answers are, and just use them for confirmation. Don't ask them questions where you're trying to learn something.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You need to ask somebody who knows your personal situation and can spend the time with you to diagnose
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: what the what? The the answer as a solution is based on your criteria.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That's that's the beauty of a a membership in your school community. I'm sure it's just like.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: and it's not just with you. The professionals that you bring into the community. It's other people that are in the community that have run into similar situations like.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: You're in the same boat. You're with your people, and they really do. They can help you. There's nothing like, I mean, that's why we have associations where, you know, there's a group of coaches that get together and talk. It's because you're all have shared experiences, you know, a client that makes you crazy, or you know, something like I can't figure out how to do this or whatever it is. You have the shared experience, and it's really
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: it's a great feeling to be able to go through that. I love your analogy about being having a doctor. It's the same, you know, having the same doctor, time after time, who knows your history?
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: It's the same thing in coaching. Can you imagine that if every time you you sought out a coach it was a new coach every time, and and you had to like, explain again over and over. This is what I'm trying to do it. It really, you need someone who's consistent, who you can build on each time. And and that's the only way you can make progress.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Because if you're back here telling your story every single time you talk to somebody.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: it's very hard to move forward.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: So especially when there's an issue.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: I mean, medically, I've had issues that
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: going to, you know, so many different doctors. They just. They have no idea, because they don't know.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: They don't look at the whole picture. They only get
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: little yeah little snapshots, and you know, accounting's the same situation you can. You can think it's a revenue problem when it's really an expense problem, or it could be a tax problem, or it could be an investment problem. Or I, you know.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: there's just so many different facets to it. It doesn't have to be complicated. But again, you know, in a community, you can say, Okay, this is what I've got going on. What are the 3 most likely
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: things that I need to be looking to solve? And then you can go to, you know to quickbooks, or if.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Get a hold of you, or they can go to turbotax. And they can say, Okay, this is what I've got. And then you look you don't tell them the 3 things. You wait and see what they tell you, and see if it matches up with those 3 things, and if it's 1 of those 3 things that's a likely
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: solution to your problem, or a likely, you know.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: matches up. Let's just put it that way. Then it's pretty. You can be pretty
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: confident that that's probably the thing you need to look at, or the thing that you need to do.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But yeah, just like randomly asking people for advice.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I they may or may not live overseas and not not understand.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: What we're what we're trying to accomplish for sure. Yeah, it's it's a difficult situation to be in for an entrepreneur, because sometimes you don't know what you don't know.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And and it's interesting.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: you know, when someone comes to you and you, you clean up their books and you look at it. And you say.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: just so. You know, you have a huge profit.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And they're like, Oh, that's great. We're like, Yeah, it is, except for you need to go see your Cpa and do some tax planning.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And the nice thing is, you have really clean books.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: So your Cpa is really going to be able to help you and be confident in those numbers. So
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: you know, there's just things that
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: when you don't know what you don't know
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: it, it makes it really difficult? And and being able to have a community that you can ask questions of that other people are like, Oh, yeah, like, I have a great account, or I did this, or you know, I I had to fix this and this worked, and
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: it's really great to have that.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, for sure. So tell tell everybody again about your the name of your community.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: So the name of our, the name of our school community is called the Smart Boss.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: And we focus on quickbooks online all the apps that connect with it, to make your life easier.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and to make your business streamlined so that you can spend time doing what you love.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And your other business is 1st steps, financial, correct.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Yep.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And that's for small to mid size businesses or coaches that are making how much and.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: So we work with people who are doing coaching and consulting between one and 10 million. So typically they have employees, they have a much larger structure.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and they are, you know, we're running their payroll, paying their bills. You know. And if you're looking to get to that point.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: ask questions in the community about how to scale your company.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Because and and look and look, this is a judgment free zone. Let me tell you if you want to stay the size you are.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: that's awesome. And you want to just build on what you have, how to do it smarter, faster, better, more efficient. That's great. If you want to scale, we can help you do that, too, because we've we've helped our clients scale. You know, we've taken a lot of our companies that were under a million to over 10 million
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and help them with their processes and allow them to streamline it so that they aren't spending a lot of money on creating the base on which everything
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: builds on top of.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Awesome.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Thank you so much for sharing all of this with us, Alyssa. What's the one thing you hope the audience takes away from the conversation today.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Not to be afraid of accounting
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: that. It's part of the entrepreneurial journey.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: and you can embrace it and know that we've taken the the ick out of it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I love that. Thanks for joining me today.
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::Alisa McCabe | FirstStepsFinancial: Thank you, Joe. It was a pleasure talking with you.
