Hello and welcome to EPISODE. 40.
Eight of Design Curious Podcast, I'm your host and mentor Rebecca
Ward. Today on the podcast we have a
virtual bookkeeper and CFO who definitely is probably one of
the first. People.
You're going to need to hire for your business if you're going
out on your own. Is an extremely important role,
and it's not one that you usually can cover all by
yourself. You can do a little bit of the.
Daytoday, but you really should. Hire a bookkeeper first thing
when you're starting out of business to help keep you in.
Order keep track of your. Revenue Your profits.
Because profitability is really just.
The main thing about a business if you're not making money, then
why are you in business, right? Unless you're a nonprofit.
So we're going to talk up to Lori Ann in a little.
Bit but before I. Tell you a little more about
her. I want to remind you that my
design mentor is taking on students for the summer.
I'd love to see you in there. We have some great discussions
going on and a lot of content for you to consume to really get
you on your feet as an interior designer.
So go check out the links for that.
I'd love to. See you in there with us.
And now let me tell you a little more about Lori Ann.
Lori Ann is a virtual bookkeeper and fractional CFO for the
Creative Entrepreneur. Her goal is to bridge.
The gap between traditional accountants and business owners.
With 35 plus monthly DFY bookkeeping clients in the
industry, she has the insight and experience to help you.
Up level your. Business while removing the
stress and burden of managing your finances.
Whether you're just starting out or you've been in business for
years, her mission is to help. Creatives feel peace about
their. Finances while growing their
profit and confidence. So let's hear from Lori Ann.
You're now listening to design. Curious a place where you?
Creative One are here to learn about what it.
Really is like to. Be an interior designer and I'm
your host and mentor. Rebecca Ward, if you're worried
about how to. Succeed in a creative.
Career if you're ready to. Learn your next steps to become
an interior designer. And if you want the satisfaction
of doing something you love. Every day.
You are in the right. Place grab a coffee.
A notebook and let's dig into today's episode.
Hi, Lori Ann, Thank you for coming on Design Curious
Podcast. Today.
Hi. I'm so excited.
Thanks for having me. Yeah, my pleasure.
So for. Our audience let's just.
Talk a little bit about what it is that you do and how.
You got into that? Yeah.
So I am an owner of a basically like a boutique creative
bookkeeping firm to where we specialize and done for you
monthly bookkeeping, fractional CFO work as well as helping
people just getting started off the ground and what they need to
do to keep track of their numbers and kind of back story
is, I feel like I have always been a numbers lover.
I've always known like I was going to do something with
numbers even from like a very young, like elementary age like
math was always. My topic that I liked and so
obviously of course what do you go into an accounting path if
you like numbers most of the time I also had entrepreneurial
family members and parents and I saw from a very young age
finances was a huge part of running a business and.
I remember thinking and listening to discussions between
my mom and my dad. This is about finances and
running a business and business plans and strategies and stuff
like that. But it always was centered
around what was happening financially because without that
financial back foundation, you can't make good decisions.
So I saw that and I was like, that's really good.
Like, I I really like that. So Fast forward, I decided to go
down the typical accounting path, be a tax accountant,
become ACPA. And after I got my first job at
a local CPA firm, I realized I'm like, I hate this.
This is not for me. I didn't as much like hate the
tax strategy part, but I did not like seeing clients come in one
or two times a year. And we would hurry up, get their
taxes filed and then send them out the door and they would be
like, left like not sure what was going on.
And we're like, hey, bye, see you in another 12 months.
I didn't feel good about that. People would also come to us at
the end of the year. At the time we're recording this
podcast, we just came out of tax season and people to come to us
being like here's a shoe box of receipts or here's a bunch of
random like E documents of her bank statements.
And because I was kind of a newbie in the firm, I would be
in charge of like cleaning up the books and.
I was very shocked at how many businesses were running just so
blindly because there's such key valuable information in your
finances. And I'm like, you know what I I
want to do that like I want to help the people month to month
throughout the year, on business, on understanding their
finances, on cash flow, how to make strategic decisions.
So I left there. I went back and worked for my
parents for a few. Years, part time.
That's whenever I had my daughter, She's 3, 1/2, she's
almost 4 now. And I started gathering clients
on the side and I really don't know how I got into the space,
but I'm where I need to be. I like stumbled in the online
space, stumbled in the creative space.
So I work with a lot of photographers, brand and web
designers, interior designers, a lot of people that.
Have that creative mindset, that creative brain that's amazing.
And I love to work with them because that's kind of part of
who I am too. Like I like creative stuff.
I like designing or doing a house renovation right now.
So all you interior designers like I'm I'm loving doing this
right now but a lot of times numbers and finances are very
scary and overwhelming and I want to make it as simple and
easy to understand for you and take that just anxiety and that
not clear picture and just present it to you in a way
that's like pretty and. Understandable, so that you know
exactly what's going on instead of feeling all stressed out and
anxious whenever you just think about numbers.
Yeah, that's so fun how you just fell into that niche.
Which is really like a. Passion for you as well, so I'm
sure that comes across when you're helping your clients.
So do you do a lot of the bookkeeping?
Work or you're more in the analysis and pulling reports and
like helping the the owner understand what where their
business is going. Yeah.
So I started out to do more of the bookkeeping work.
The business is about three years old now and I started out
of just mainly doing bookkeeping work and now we have moved into,
we have a team of 6 now and I have assistant bookkeepers that
do a lot of like the data entry in the behind the scenes and
I'm. More of like the fractional CFO
and ICO and do analysis and budgeting and projections and
stuff. So my job is more so like the
analyzing the finances, but the firm as a whole is like a one
big picture. Okay so I'm sure.
That you see. You said you have interior
design clients and. So that you.
See, the businesses set up a lot of different ways.
And there's a lot of like moving parts and so.
What do you see? Specifically about interior
designers that might be challenging or something that
they maybe that they're good at keeping track of or do you have
any like analysis around the industry?
Yeah, I would say designers in general, whether you're online
brain web designers, interior designers, most of the time I
see them start doing a side hustle.
And then they move into leaving their corporate job or their job
that they're designing for somebody else.
So they start the side hustle and they are just and it's just
going to be a little bit here and there and they don't
prioritize their business and treat their business like a
business. I would say it's the biggest
thing that I see is that they don't, they don't treat their
boundaries like a business between them and their clients.
They don't treat their finances like a business.
They don't have separate bank accounts.
They're not having systems set up, they're not budgeting and
projecting and really diving into those numbers.
A lot of times because they're scared too, and they don't know
what they're doing. And then those things get pushed
aside. And then all of a sudden you're
like, hey, you know what? I want to leave my corporate
job, and that's now your sole income.
And you really need to be honing in on those finances because
that's what's providing the life that you want to live and the
things that you need to survive. I think it goes back to my first
point of just like it's not taking your business like a
business and treating it whether you have one client right now or
you have 50 clients you're working with.
Yeah. And I think most designers, when
they're starting their own business, they're starting out
as a solo purneur and they don't have employees or anything like
that. But I believe solidly like the.
First person that you're going to need to hire even if you
think you can't afford it, would.
Be like a bookkeeper just because that is.
An area where you don't want to have any mess ups, like you need
to get it right. You know you got to pay your.
Taxes. You got and sales tax if you're
doing product and things like that.
So that was just. Really valuable.
Offering that you can give to interior designers, especially
starting out. So do you like offer?
Full time bookkeeping or just as needed.
Yeah. It first comes back to the
conversation is like a lot of people are like, okay, well, do
you do our taxes? What's a tax account?
What's a tax strategist? What's a bookkeeper?
And why do I need to have a bookkeeper if I have an
accountant filing my taxes at the end of the year and I kind
of. Whenever I was introducing
myself, I kind of went into a little bit of what we do is
we're with you throughout the whole year and just at the end
of the year, which is a lot of what tax accountants do,
they're, they're with you at the new year, they file taxes, they
put you out the door. And so then you need to figure
out your finances, whether you're doing it yourself or you
have a bookkeeper do it. And I 100% agree, I think having
a bookkeeper on your team, but from the very beginning is
great. Not everyone has an opinion and
I'm just certainly here like. OK.
I'll just like of course I'm going to say I I'm one of the
first hires because that's what I do.
But it is very important because finances and numbers is the
foundation that you base all of the rest of your hires off of.
So if you're going to bring on a top employees, you need to know
what your numbers are saying. And if you don't know what your
numbers are saying, then you're just completely operating your
business on feelings and what you think your business is doing
and that can be something we talk about too because.
It's a whole thing about just running your business off of
what you feel like you're doing, how you feel your business is
doing. But as far as our services, our
main service is monthly bookkeeping services to where we
go in once a month. Do your bookkeeping, record all
of your invoices, all your income, all of your expenses in
a very customized. And easy to understand document
and PDF for you, so that we can give you the reports like, hey
look, this is what's going on in your business.
Again, it's very customized to you, my interior design clients.
Their profit and loss in the balance sheet looks different
because they have different business models.
And they want to see things differently.
So you get those reports to you. You also get like a simplified
summary e-mail saying what's going on.
You get a Loom video walking you through those reports because
communication and understanding is really big for us.
And with that, you also get like access to me and to Voxer with
your bookkeeping team. And just to be able to anytime
you have any type of question or if you're like feeling something
about your numbers, you open them up and you're like, this is
awesome. Like, what am I supposed to do
now or? Oh no, what am I supposed to do
now? Like type of like, Oh no, that's
not really what I wanted to see and we're there to walk you
through it. So that's our main service and
it's a month to month. And then obviously we do other
types of services for people that are just starting out.
We have like one time strategy setup sessions and then people
that that need budgeting and projections and all that type of
stuff. We have like an elevated service
too. Yeah, really good, Okay.
So let's go. Back to that feeling.
With the finances, so sometimes business owners, I think they're
very subjective to the media project they're working on or
some other factors. They might hear something in the
news and all of a sudden they're panicked.
About the state of their. Business.
Talk a little bit about. That, yeah, it's something that
I've been talking a lot more about.
I would say it's always very important.
But right now, especially people are like worried about the
economy. What's that going to do?
What's it going to do in the creative industry, which is?
The people I serve. And so between that and then the
fact that here, like in the United States, most of the time
we don't have education, like it comes from little up, You don't
get educated on how to manage your money, how to budget, how
to file your taxes. And I think that's something
that's kind of the school system's fault, just like little
up. I do see it changing a little
bit, like some states have rolled out, like it's mandatory
for personal finance classes in high school and stuff, But I
think that's where it begins. Also, what type of parents did
you have? Did they really and openly talk
about money with you? Did they openly talk about money
too much to where you were stressed out about money as a
kid? I think that's something too.
So you kind of have to go back to just like your mindset around
money and where that came from. And that's like a scary thing
sometimes to do, but then you go into your business.
And you're starting to do all the different things where all
the different hats and you can get so caught up in, like you
said, in one project or something like that, that you
just kind of let finances slide and then all of a sudden you
look at your bank account and it's like where did all the
money go? And then you start feeling down
about your business and then you make a sale and bring out
another client that you feel excited about your business.
So let's make a bunch of like buy a bunch more stuff.
And I know for me like there's there's weeks that I just don't
feel great about my business. Like I'm like, you know, it's
just not doing super great. I don't have a lot of leads.
So that kind of well, if I just operate off of that, that
impacts the type of decisions I make.
And then if I sign a bunch of new clients.
I'm like, ohh, yeah, I can invest in this.
I can have my website redesigned, but then I have to
think about, but what are the finances saying?
What is the number saying in order to do those decisions?
And also not even just just looking at your bank account
balance. So many people will run their
business off of what's in their bank account.
And there's so much more than just that, so much more because
you could have a credit card bill that of the stuff that you
paid for two months ago or a month ago.
Hit. And then you all of a sudden
have a $10,000 credit card bill and it's like, well, I don't
have the money. And then you get that swing of
things or you have a lot of money, but you forget that you
have bills coming up and then you decide to spend all that
money and then when the bills come.
There's no money, so yeah. There's a lot of stuff there.
There is, yeah. There is a.
Lot that comes up, I think, especially for designers because
we're dealing with our own money.
Mindset. Issues as well as our.
Clients issues. So some have no problem writing
you a check for $10,000 and others are like well show me
exactly what I'm getting for this money or?
They have a history of. You know, being not very liberal
with their money and they want. It they're very cautious about.
Spending it or they're, or they're just more liberal with
it. And so even putting our own
issues onto the client and being like, well, I wouldn't spend
$10,000 on a sofa, but they want to you know, so like not
holding. The client back from spending
that money and things like. That so that all gets.
Wrapped up into business, I think you know.
Yeah, especially like you're saying like with into your
designers that you're spending your clients money.
Like you're the one that's like, well, here's the S&S, we PCs
things together and you're spending your clients money and
they might value one thing over the other.
And it's in a way it's kind of like what I do, like I have to
work with each of my individual clients because we're talking
about their money and. Everyone of my clients is so
different. We have to figure out what type
of mindset they have around money and just cater towards
them. And I have to let my mindset
around money just get shifted back because how they want might
want to run their business might be different than what I see and
would think would be a good idea.
And obviously in advisory situations I do give my opinion
because they are paying me. For it.
But yeah, it's kind of like you have to see and work with each
individual client and kind of like let yourself go.
On what you think the clients should be spending on certain
things. Yeah, yeah.
And I think one of the more common issues and you had.
Brought this up before. That interior designers that in
our industry and and it's starting to change a.
Little bit, but that we. Don't value our talent and our
skill as much as we should. So we're undercharging or you
know and different things like that.
We're not taking the businesses seriously because.
We would do this if for a hobby, but.
We're doing it for a living, you know.
Yeah. I have a client right now that
she's been on with me for probably, I don't know, probably
four months now. I think she started at the
beginning of the year and we are, we're working through that
exactly. And she came on and I'm like,
what are you charging? And she's charging my hour and
she's charging. A very low rate and I'm like you
realize that you could if you're going to charge by hour like if
you want to give your like charge by hour instead of my
project, you could be timing that by five or six and you
could still be getting clients. She's like are you serious And
I'm like yes. And we're still we're still
working through it. It's still again with like her
money mindset like we're still working through that.
But yeah it's the whole image is like pricing is just a complete.
There's so much to unpack there because like you said, a lot of
people are like, I would do this for a hobby.
I mean, I would do this for a hobby I love doing.
I love designing houses and does, doing renovation and
stuff, picking out different accent pieces and everything.
So it's kind of like coming back to your business is so
supporting you. Your business is giving you what
you want and your vision for your life.
And when that's like your main source of income, then you got
to pay attention to the numbers. I actually, I read a statistic
this morning, I think. It was either 65 or 85%.
So don't call me on this, but 65 or I think it was 85 because it
was high. 85% of female business owners claim that their business
is their sole income or the main income of their life in their
household. And that was really like
shocking to me because I feel like there's a lot of people
doing side households and they might have like a main full time
job and I'm like OK, 85% of female owned businesses like
that's their main source of income and like.
We gotta be like taking charge of it, taking ownership of our
finances. Yes.
Yeah. And I think it's that transition
well and I don't know like historically female business
owners like what kind of examples?
We've had if we've had a. Lot in the last you know couple
decades but just even women coming out of the workplace and
being there owning their own businesses like you're going
just different mindset like going from being an employee to.
Being your own boss, you know and the one you're getting paid
an hourly wage and so you can't. Like if you're getting paid
$30.00 an hour, you can't go out into your business and charge.
$30 an hour because there's so much more overhead and stuff
that you got to cover and account for and and then you're
not charging. You know if you do hourly,
you're not charging. Typically for.
The full 40 hours a week or. More you know so.
It's just there is. A I guess there's Business
School, there's that transition that often times, I think.
That the bookkeeper or? The fractional CFO like.
Yourself that you provide. Can help a business owner
transition because most of the time they're not going into
business because they want to have a business.
It's because of the craft that they want to do and then having
their own business. Just a way to facilitate.
That and give them autonomy so. Yeah.
And I would say especially with. Creatives and interior designers
to like they don't go into it because they love the numbers,
They don't love the business side of things.
They go into it because they want to create and design and
have kind of the freedom and the choice and flexibility of owning
your own business. But the business side of things
can be a little bit hard and hard to transition out because
you're so right. Like if you're coming from a job
to where that you're designing at, they're paying you $30 per
hour. But like your example, you can't
go out and charge someone like $30.00 for your work because you
have to pay taxes. So there's 25%, then you have
insurance, there's power, much, and then you have any
subscriptions, any software, any thing that you're using to run
your business. And there's just so much extra
cost to having your own business that you need to factor that
into. And I like the point that you
brought up about having examples of like just women owned
businesses. Yeah, it's.
Crazy to me. It was 1974 when a woman could
get her own credit. Card before.
Then we couldn't get it into that's not even, that's not that
long ago. And so from where we've been
since 1974 to 2022, it shifted so much and the statistic for
this year, I think it's like 40. 47 again, me not having exact,
but it's like 45 to 47% of businesses are female owned in
the US right now and that's crazy to me because like 1974 we
couldn't have a credit card before you have a business
owner. So we go from like not being
able to get a house, not being able to get any loans or a
credit card to being able to shift into.
Hey, the females and the women can actually manage finances and
money to own almost 50% of the businesses.
So in the last couple of decades like it's the societal
standpoint of women being a finances has completely shifted.
Yeah, yeah. And so we don't.
Have a lot of those. Role models, I think, and now
they're starting to come up, you know, and be really more
present, but there's just not a long history of it.
You know now. Little girls will have.
These examples going forward and their moms have always been able
to. Have a credit card but like.
My mom couldn't unless her husband sign on it or her dad or
something. So.
Yeah, I had found that out like last year or the year before.
When I saw that statistics and I was like, mom, is this true?
Like you weren't able to? Have a credit card.
Like when you were young. It just blew my mind and how far
we've come, which is great. And you know and.
Partly the fact that we're. I'm bringing up, you know,
female owned business because the majority of interior
designers are females and so that's just great information
and just just something to think about, you know, like having
these examples and so now. We're.
We are the. Ones that can set that example
for future businesses and so. That's kind of and.
It does. It gets to me exciting because
my daughter, she asked me this morning.
It's like, mom, can I have a computer and a desk?
And a chair like you and can I work with you?
And I'm like, maybe one day you can come work with me and I
don't know, being able to provide that of having my
daughter look up to me and be like, OK, mom can run a business
and have a team and be very present with me.
And you want to come to all my school events and do all this
stuff with me. It's very exciting for me to be
able to have my daughter be able to see that and other like, kids
that are in my life too. Yeah, Yeah, 100% both my.
My daughter and my son get to. See that as well, because I.
You know I'm there to pick them up a.
Couple days a. Week.
Sometimes my husband does it and it's just like a new way of
showing them how you can work and especially, you know, within
a post pandemic world too, where everyone's can work virtually
and it's just really changed a lot.
So they're seeing a lot of new examples come through, I think.
For sure. Yeah.
OK. So going back to.
The services that you provide. And how you can advise?
People. Would you say that designers
starting out in their own company?
Do they need? Both a bookkeeper.
And an accountant. Yeah, I would say the dream team
is to have a bookkeeper, an accountant, because your
accountant's your tax person. So I I know tax, I understand
it. I can help advise on tax stuff,
but they're the ones that are taking all these extra CPD
classes. They're getting updates with all
these random year to year tax change laws, everything like
that. They're the specialist in
account and tax. Whereas I am the specialist and
getting every single transaction documented and analyzing every
single penny and where it's going and how it's performing
and managing the cash flow and things like that.
I like to think about accountants and bookkeepers as
doctors. So all of us we have like the
normal premed, like typical education like we we started
out, we have the same knowledge base.
But then people will branch off and be a pediatrician, or
they'll be a family doctor, or they'll be a neurologist or
cardiologist, and they all work together.
So you might have one problem or one patient where you need a
cardiologist and a surgeon or whatever it might be, where they
work together and they understand the human body and
they can come up. Up with a game plan together,
but one can't perform its job without the other.
You might have an accountant that you go to and they're
trying to do it all, but nine times out of 10, if they're
crunching and trying to do your bookkeeping at the end of the
year, they're missing things. It's just it's not reported for
your understanding. It's only reported for the like
to file taxes and then they're done.
And so that's most of the time what's happened.
And then if you have a bookkeeper that does all of your
numbers and everything and has your bookkeeping done.
Well then who's filing the taxes?
And you could file taxes, but I highly recommend if you have a
business, to have someone else file the taxes for you.
Yeah, especially once you get like Incorporated and have
another level of things that you can do.
So, Oh yeah, for sure. And and I will say like when
you're first starting out hiring a bookkeeper might not be in
budget and I have that discussion with some potential
clients. If they're like you know like
that's just a lot of way I don't think.
I can afford it and there are other options like I'll just put
out there, there's other options.
We can figure out a way to help you understand your numbers.
The biggest thing is helping you know what's coming and what's
going out and then when you get to the point to where you can
afford to bring on a bookkeeper then great, we can do that.
But I'm not here to like just you have to hire it right away
and then you're it just puts your business more into the
ground and I don't think any bookkeeper should be doing that
at all. They should be looking at your
finance. This isn't if it's detrimental
to your business and come up with a different game plan.
Do you have a? Specific software that you
recommend for people to start out on, yeah.
If you're just starting out, so you just started your business.
Even if you've been in business for a year or two and are like
DIY in your books, I highly recommend a spreadsheet.
The reason why is because software is like QuickBooks
Online or zero. They have a lot of accounting
background that's happening. And and if you don't have a
basis like knowledge of what accounting is and deficit
credits and journal injuries and balance fees and like how things
flow together, yeah, it can very.
Be inaccurate and things can get messed up.
So then your reports that you're running your business off of are
not accurate. So the easiest method and you
don't have to pay for a monthly subscription.
You pay at one time. Get a spreadsheet and you can
utilize that for hour long until you get to the point that you
want to outsource. Hands down spreadsheets and the
way to go. Is that something that would
someone just set up their own spreadsheet?
Or they're like prefilled out. Kind of categories and things
that. They can get from somewhere like
a template. Or something like that.
Yeah, I mean, you can obviously create your spreadsheet, but a
lot of times you open up a Google sheet, document or sheet
and then you open up an Excel sheet and it's like.
Too overwhelming because it's just a bunch of little boxes,
right? I have a digital product shop,
so there's like a personal budget template, a business
budget template, and then like a DIY bookkeeping template in
there and I'm continually adding to it to where everything's
filled out. It calculates your estimated
taxes for you, has a gold tracker.
It has tarts and graphs in there to where like, visually you can
see your numbers and a lot of things are prefilled to
Basically you just enter in like, here's your expenses,
here's your income, and then everything populates for you.
And the whole spreadsheet is like aesthetically pleasing
because. Oh, good, it's.
Not like you're like Uncle's spreadsheet.
That's like really random and just not really pretty.
So I made it really pretty. As pretty as a spreadsheet could
be. Yeah, it's it's pretty pretty.
Awesome. So those are resources that
listeners could go. And download.
Or purchase for themselves if. They're getting started out.
Yep, you can go to my website and it's under the marketplace.
Perfect, okay. We'll add.
Links for that cuz I think that'll be a good.
Resource. For people just who don't even
know where to start. So that's good.
Cuz I know when I started out on QuickBooks I had someone.
Or at least set up all. Of the categories, you know,
like so it could translate into taxes at the end of the year,
you know, because that's really complicated.
For sure, and I would say if you're going to use the
software, that's the way to go. If you're going to do it Wyatt,
don't try to set it up on your own.
We have done setups and help people get things going like set
up right, because that's a big part of it.
So if you want to use the software, have someone help you
set up and train you in it and then you'll be.
Good to go. At least until your accountant
can review it, yeah. But.
Yeah, you did a good choice there.
Yeah, I was in a networking group and as I was getting
started and there was an accountant in there and she was.
Like, oh, you have to do this. Like you had to have someone
else set it up. You can't just like go in Willy.
Yeah, into cookbook. So So yeah, and since then, you
know, I've transitioned to using Studio Designer and and there's
a lot of other industry specific accounting software for interior
designers. Would you work with any of them,
or do you particularly work on QuickBooks?
Or is it? What is?
Yeah. We primarily use zero in
QuickBooks. That's our preference.
A lot of, and I have seen this in a lot of different industries
they have. There's a lot of CRM's and
client management places that you can go and then they try to
build inside of that. An accounting software and most
of the time 9 times out of 10, I haven't been inside of yours
specifically, so I don't know what that one looks like.
But most of the ones that I've been inside that they have in a
quote UN quote accounting portion of it, It's not giving
the insight that I want to be able to provide to my clients
and it's just limiting what we could do and what we could
provide to them. So usually we use QuickBooks or
zero and most of the time that links to whatever.
Time management software that you're using to where it like
talks back and forth and it integrates well.
But those are the two that I prefer and out of those two I
prefer 0. Okay, I'm not familiar with that
one, so I'll. Be good to check.
It, yeah. Yeah, it's also cookbooks just
has really, they do really good at marketing their software, but
their customer support is horrible and it's like not
there. The amount of times I've been on
hold for hours and hours, I just kind of was like, that's enough.
And zero is they're amazing to work with.
They have great customer support and they're like a third of the
price of. QuickBooks.
So great. Yeah, good.
OK. All right.
Well, where? Can people find you if they
want? To reach out to you about your
services. Yeah, so you can find me at my
websites Lori Ann coons.com and my Instagram is Lori Ann
coons.co. OK, great.
I'll check that out. And any?
Last words of advice for. Potential creative or designer
who's looking to start their own business.
Yeah, I think the best piece of advice I can give you is that
you're able to understand your numbers and you are completely
capable of being able to look at them and analyze them and know
what's going on. And no matter if you've had
like. Any type of education or
training from just little up in finance management and managing
your numbers and your money, you are 100% capable of doing that.
Might just take a little bit of digging and a little bit of time
to educate yourself and we're all still learning how to manage
your money better. So good.
Well, thank you so much. Lori Ann is a great time talking
with you today on the podcast. Yeah.
Thank you so much for having me. Such a helpful conversation, and
I know from talking with other designers and other creatives
that really the finances, the bookkeeping and keeping it all
straight is not usually a. Forte of creatives.
And so they're quite intimidated.
By the process. And making sure that they can
keep everything straight and that they're doing everything
they need to pay their taxes and.
You know, stay. Upright as a a.
Company. And so definitely a bookkeeper
or a fractional CFO is going to. Help you with that.
And I can't tell. You how valuable it is to have
all of the. Information on hand to have
those reports monthly to keep looking at it and keep
evaluating so you know what is working in your business and you
know what is not working and what you need to change.
So Laurie Ann can definitely help.
You with that if you'd like to. Use her services.
You can find all of her information in the show notes
and in addition. To all the other great.
Links that you'll find there, like the downloads for people
interested in the career of interior design.
You'll find those there, as well as information about my design,
mentor and anything else you want to know.
About the podcast, so check that out.
And next week we have an episode from me or it's truly and I'm
talking about. Perfectionism, which is
definitely a. Struggle for a lot of.
Creatives and designers. And so we're going to talk all
about that next week. So stay tuned for that and until
then, stay creative. Thanks for listening if.
You love this episode. Please.
Leave a rating and a review. This helps me reach.
Other curious creatives like you if you have a topic request.
Or would like to contact me. Simply.
Head over to my website. Our ward design.com or e-mail
me. At podcast at our ward.
Design.com.