Bookkeeping for Business Owners - Quickbooks vs. Bench Accounting

Welcome to Podcast Episode 33: Bookkeeping for Business Owners - Quickbooks vs. Bench Accounting

You are not obligated to work 24/7 in your business, which is why I’m a huge advocate for outsourcing the things that waste your time and can easily be automated.

In this week’s episode I dive into bookkeeping because it is a necessary part of running a business, whether you like it or not.

Early on in my business I knew that something I needed to outsource pretty much immediately was bookkeeping.

There are many reasons why you would want to outsource bookkeeping, either because it’s time consuming or you just aren’t number savvy.

Either way, this episode is definitely for you!

WHAT I TALK ABOUT:

[00:00] Intro

[02:45] My journey with bookkeeping and Quickbooks for multiple businesses

[05:00] Bench Bookkeeping and how I got started with it

[07:08] Pairing Bench with Gusto, my favorite payroll processor

[07:57] Other perks Bench offers

TAKEAWAYS

When we're trying to figure out why something isn't working in our business, it's incredibly easy to miss an obvious root issue because we get hyper-focused on the wrong things. This is why we have to, as business owners, gain the ability to remove our perceptions about what might be going on and view the problem from a birds eye view. This will give you a lot more clarity on where the problem is actually stemming from and how to fix it for the long-term.

Related Links:

• Smarter Not Harder: 3-Day Workweeks for Millennial Entrepreneurs©  Program
• Bench Accounting (get a free month of bookkeeping!)
• Gusto Payroll Services

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Three Day Workweeks podcast. This is a much requested episode. We're gonna be talking about bookkeeping, fun stuff but I promise we can make it more fun. So welcome back to the podcast. I'm Kate. I am a systems and efficiency expert. I. Obsessed with getting entrepreneurs to those three day work weeks and enjoying your free time again, because that was the whole point of starting your business in the first place, was to have a life that you design and that you love, and that you're excited to wake up every day and you have the option of working.

You are not obligated to work 24 7 and. A slave to your business. So let's get into bookkeeping because it is a necessary part of running a business, whether you like it or not. Gotta pay taxes otherwise. The government will come for you . Early on in my business I knew that something I needed to outsource pretty much immediately was bookkeeping.

I am not really great with numbers and I'm working on being better. I don't wanna say that for the rest of my life, I will not be good with numbers because that is not factually true. It's just not my super strong point, and I knew that I did not wanna have on my plate bookkeeping. Now, the longer that you are in business, the more if you're listening to this podcast, you've already started to realize you need to take more things off of your plate, especially things that.

Growing the business in a way that is unique to you because a lot of people can do accounting and bookkeeping, but there are not a lot of people who can bring that special sauce to the business like you can because it's your business and it's your baby, and you have the vision. So outsourcing, bookkeeping.

10 out of 10 would recommend even if you are just starting, honestly I don't think many of you that are listening to this podcast are just starting, but just do it as soon as possible. Because it's not a good use of your time. It's not a good use of your energy. Even if you can do it and numbers are your thing, maybe you're even an accountant or you've done bookkeeping as a profession.

In that case, if it's like that, easy for you, maybe do it. But growing your business, if you don't I, just wouldn't say that. That's a good use of your time. I'll tell you a little bit about my journey with bookkeeping. This is y'all asked for this episode. I would've never thought anyone would wanna talk about this, but when I started with a CPA and they used QuickBooks.

And so using those two things I was. Honestly frustrated. I was like, why am I paying for this? Why am I paying a person and the QuickBook subscription where I'm sitting here having to do like hours of work every month to make sure all the statements are uploaded and that everything's where it needs to be.

I'm like categorizing stuff. Even though I was paying for some of that and I just wasn't thrilled with the process. It was something I dreaded and. It just wasn't very streamlined. You guys know that I'm all about efficiency, and so I came to my CPA and I said, Hey, can we make this more efficient And there's, is there any way that we can make this more efficient in an easier process?

So she started to look into ways that we could do that and. We did some things, we used some tools, but it was really like patching things together with masking tape and they, the connections would break. And when it comes to bookkeeping, banking, your payroll processors, your credit card processing, all those things, they need a lot of security and they often will disconnect themselves for security's.

but that becomes a major pain for you because you gotta go and reset it. And so like I was always getting texts from my CPA like, Hey, I'm logging in here, can I have the verification code? Or can you go in and reset your password? Or we logged in too many times and it like forced a password reset.

Oh my gosh, it was so annoying. . It was so annoying. Like why am I paying for these services when I still have to do this all the time? I. It got to a point where I was like, this just doesn't, this is not making sense anymore. And one of my coaches and mentors told me about this service called Bench, which was this bookkeeping, whatever.

And I'm like, all right, I'll check it out and I'll see, because my contract was coming up with my cpa. And so I looked into this and it is like the coolest tool ever. A little background. I have multiple businesses and multiple, streams of income. So what really attracted me to Bench were two major things and then I'll tell you some other details about it.

But one, you have a team of bookkeepers and they are humans. They actually re part of this is that they actually respond to you so quickly because there's an entire team. Bench is an entire. Company organization, they are nationwide. And I'm not positive if they're in Canada, but they might be. Cuz I know I have some Canadian listeners.

I know I have Australian listeners and I am gonna apologize in advance. I don't think that they can work in Australia, but Canada, it's a possibility. That was something that was really attractive to me, that it was a team of bookkeepers because I hated categorizing stuff and just knowing that there was an entire team of people that I could always get an answer to something really quickly.

At least that's like what they claimed. I was like, all right, that's attractive. And then the second part of it was that it is, they are really a tech company in a lot of ways. So they they sync with your credit. With PayPal, with Stripe, with Square, with if you do anything through Venmo, they'll also they do, they can't pull those automatically, but it's super easy to just download that and give it to 'em.

They syncs with your bank. Also, Payroll processor, which I use Gusto and I love it. It's so easy because they have a partnership bench and Gusto have a partnership so they are integrated into each other. So when you sign up for one through the other, , they, you'll see that it's connected. You'll see the logos on each side and that makes it super easy so that taxes are just upper breeze.

So, easy. I love it. So those were the two big things for me was the team of bookkeepers and then the that they automatically pulled stuff. Now I have only once in two years had to reconnect. An account maybe twice. Maybe twice. I had to reconnect an account and that was just because a password changed, but.

It's been so easy. There's, what I love is that they are, because there's an entire team of people, they don't get bogged down by like busy season. They're fully prepared for that, and they can go through and they categorize all of your transactions. You can actually have conversations with them that's built into your.

Monthly payment with them that you can get on the phone with them, you can talk to them, you can say, Hey, here's what's going on. Here's what's coming down the pipeline. Like when we added like an income source. I wanted to make sure that was categorized in that way. And then like we started to do a lot more affiliate partnerships.

And so I wanted to give them a heads up and said, Hey, you're gonna see a lot of PayPal transactions of where we're paying our affiliate partners. And that's what that is. So now they don't have to even ask me questions like they're, I would say from. . Each month there's maybe two transactions that I have to categorize, and I'm never surprised at what I'm categorizing.

Makes sense that they would need my help with that. So that's been really cool. And then they also offer a tax planning and filing service and. It's awesome. It's really nice because they already have all your stuff, everything's in there and they put it all together in a nice package. Again, there are so not only a hum, not only the human that you're assigned to as your bookkeeper, but you also get access to their whole team.

My guy was out on vacation and he like, let me know, Hey, I'm going on vacation, but we have people here for you. And I wrote back and was like, have a good vacation. And they wrote back and it was another person on the team and they were like, Hey, we're here for you, whatever you need. And so same with tax planning, that they are an entire team and they put you with one person.

You can get on the phone with them and ask them questions. Even I have. What I would consider pretty complex tax situation because of the different businesses that I have and the different nature of the businesses that I have, and they handled it beautifully. If you need an extension, they can help you file the extension if you need payment plans, they can help you with the tax payment plans.

It's so easy, it's incredible. And for what they do, I think the service is very affordable. They just change their pricing a bit. And I do have a code for you guys a special link that if you sign up with the link for for bench, you will get, I'm pretty sure it's a month free. Let me double check.

Because they do, they have a really good affiliate program. Yeah, bench. You get a month of free bookkeeping, which is really cool. So they'll do your they'll do clean up the previous month's bookkeeping and you can see how they do and if you like it and if you want to continue working with them.

But they also, because they are a tech platform in so many ways, they have a really great dashboard where you can visualize all of they. Do all the run the numbers. You can see where you're at. They have a, tab that's called Pulse. You can see where your bank accounts are, where your credit cards are, how much you've got, incoming, outgoing, your major expenses, all those fun things so you can plan strategically.

For me, it's so much easier when I can. See it in I can't, just like looking at a spreadsheet is like, all right, that's nice, but when you can put it into a graph and into something that is more digestible, I can make better business decisions based on what I see. . They also have an app on your phone that's super easy to use, and they're just really responsive, which is what I love about it.

So not the sexiest topic, but they make it fun. And I actually like logging on and being like, Ooh, what's going on in there? And QuickBooks to me was just like so clunky. It's bizarre to me, honestly. It's bizarre that QuickBooks has not caught up with the times, they just they have their contingent and they know that they have customers.

That probably won't ever change, but I don't know. It's not efficient. It was not intuitive to me. It's so easy for me to use bench and it just makes my life so much easier. The time that I spend on bookkeeping. Five minutes a month maybe. Maybe. I barely do. Which is amazing for me. I love that. So that I can be tracking other things like sales and working with my team, using the information that they give me to create strategic planning, seeing our growth.

Seeing what revenue sources are doing the best for us and where we need to pour into more, where we need to pull back as far as expenses, all those fun things. So I love it. It makes life easier. Never thought I'd say that about bookkeeping, but y'all ask for it and here it is. So if you have questions about.

Shoot me an email. Hello kate waldo and co.com and we'll make sure to link everything in the show notes for you so you have that discount code. And I'll also link Gusto the payroll company that I use because that's super easy and it all is married. So that's all I got for you today. If you have any questions, again, just email me and if you wanna know more about how you can marry all these systems together and have a really beautifully streamlined business that you only have to work three days a week, check out smarter, not harder.

Our signature program for three Day Workweek for Millennial Entrepreneurs. That is also linked in the show notes, so you can go to kate waldo and co.com/smarter not harder. All right, that's all I got for you today. I'll talk to you soon.

Always cheering you on,

Kate

Creator of the Smarter Not Harder: 3-Day Workweeks for Millennial Entrepreneurs©  Program

Owner + Founder, Kate Waldo + Co. 

P.S. Curious how you can grow your 6-figure business while slashing your workweek in half? Click here to learn about the Smarter Not Harder© program!