The minute you file the LLC paperwork, the minute that you
accept a payment from your first customer, the minute that you
start going into relationships with contractors and vendors,
you are the CEO of your business and you have a responsibility to
know your numbers, to understand your finances, and to understand
how to use that information to make business decisions.
And we cannot outsource our responsibility to AI, to
automations, to QuickBooks, and either to our bookkeeping team,
like your money team is there to support you.
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. Hello and welcome to episode 182
of Design Curious podcast. Today on the podcast we have
returning guest Danielle Hayden. She was back on episode one O 4
with some great financial insight.
She is Co founder and CEO of Kickstart Accounting Inc, a
bookkeeping and accounting firm that is on a mission to coach 6
figure and beyond female entrepreneurs so they can better
understand their numbers through bookkeeping, financial analysis
and support so they can grow profitable, sustainable and
enjoyable businesses. I know you're going to love our
conversation again today. You can't talk or learn too much
about money when it comes to running your own business.
It's always a good conversation. And so let's get into it with
Danielle. Hi Danielle, welcome back to
Design Curious podcast. It's great to have you again.
Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.
Yeah. It's been almost 2 years, a year
and a half since you were on the podcast.
I know you have more great information to share.
And one of the topics we're going to talk about today, which
I think is very relevant for 2026 is the subject of AI.
And we haven't touched at all on this podcast AI with your
financial processes. And so why don't you dig in
there? Because I'm not even aware, like
I'm not using any AI, I don't think in any of my financial
parts yet in my business. So when would someone want to do
that and what are the things to be?
Aware of. Yeah, So the reason I started
talking about this topic, I went to a business conference here in
Cleveland a few months ago and I listened to the facilitator talk
about AI and how this group of business owners should be using
Chachi BT to do financial analysis for the business owner.
And Rebecca, when I said I was dying, cringing in my seat, I
could not stand it anymore. I finally raised my hand and
said, I'm sorry, but I cannot let this group of people walk
out the doors today thinking that it is OK to upload their
financials irresponsibly into their ChatGPT and think that
chat can give us a full financial analysis.
So I recently recorded on my podcast Business by the Books,
some of the the ways that AI and automation is actually hurting
our ability to look at our financials as the CEO of the
business. And I want to start with
QuickBooks, if that's OK with you and I can talk about like
some of the issues I see there. So in QuickBooks for anybody who
is doing their own bookkeeping, one thing over the last several
years is there's a lot of automation that's happening and
you'll see it's kind of some of the ads is we sync with
QuickBooks. It's a beneficial feature and I
understand, right. We're like, oh perfect, the
systems are talk to us, talk to each other.
It's going to take care of itself.
So excited for this automation that's going to occur.
We have so many clients who come to us at Kickstart Accounting
when they come through our onboarding process, we do a 29
point review process where we check the books before we move
forward. And what we're seeing over and
over again is duplicated sales, uncaptured expenses, duplicated
expenses, which is really scary because it's actually literally
real dollars. It's going to cost you in taxes
when your financials, when you're double sinking something
or you're sinking it and then applying the payments when
you're doing that, those strategies without understanding
how to actually reconcile your financials.
And here's the thing about QuickBooks, it does not say like
with big red letters or exclamation points or like
alerts or bombshells saying, hey, you did that wrong.
Oh yeah. You know, like, hey, that's not
right. Like, hey, don't put that there.
That's actually not how you do it.
There's options in QuickBooks. And to be clear, I don't expect
QuickBooks to do that because QuickBooks doesn't know, right?
Like you need options in accounting.
You have to apply your logic and then as a business owner, if you
then take your DIY bookkeeping. Done.
Incorrectly, right? So QuickBooks didn't tell you
there's no big flashy alerts telling you your financials are
wrong. And then you take those
financial statements and you go type into your free version of
ChatGPT. Hey chat, analyze my financials
for me. ChatGPT wants to please you.
It wants to tell you what you want to hear.
It is also not going to alert you that your balance sheet
doesn't make sense, that you are an LLC, not an S Corp, that your
sales are duplicated, that you've never reconciled your,
your books. And so the chat wanting to
please you, it's going to give you a full financial analysis of
your inaccurate numbers. And I want to be clear, I'm a
daily user of of AI. I love automations, I love
systems and I love AI. So I'm not trying to scare us
out of using it. There's a place for it in our
businesses. But I think that we're rushing
to use this automation and rushing to use AI and it is
irresponsibly in the place of humans who know how to say, hey,
those sales are duplicated. Hey, the balance sheet, it's
wrong. You're actually not an S Corp
and those are in the wrong places or those debt payments,
they're not captured correctly. And then to do a full real
analysis based on what's happening in the world today and
proven frameworks that have been used for thousands of business
owners. What are those financials
telling you rather than chat wanting to please you using
inaccurate numbers? Yeah, well, that's a really good
point. I never would have considered, I
guess, putting my financial into chatting free porn analysis,
knowing I guess also that chat is, you know, hoping to please
you and in that that's like private information that's could
be, you know, used publicly. But it's really interesting also
to think about that. It's such such a technical and
precise practice, like doing your bookkeeping if one thing is
off and of course, you know this, but like it, it could
unravel everything and then it's just too much error that could
happen. And then you're, you're stuck.
You're, you're of a, of a Creek, you know, And it's just like, I
would not trust AI with that, especially not yet.
Like, you know, maybe, I don't know, 10 years down the road it
might get like better processes, but still I don't think we can
replace the human part of that. So that is really good to be
aware of because we definitely don't want people doing that and
trusting AI to do all of their financial planning and, and
reconciling and. Nothing can replace you as the
CEO. So I think that's, you know, a
lot of growing business owners, they say, well, I don't see
myself as the air quote CEO of this business, right?
Like I just started, I'm an accidental entrepreneur and not
ready to see themselves in that way.
And that limiting belief, I think keeps us from taking
responsibility. The minute you file the LLC
paperwork, the minute that you accept a payment from your first
customer, the minute that you start going into relationships
with contractors and vendors, you are the CEO of your business
and you have a responsibility to know your numbers, to understand
your finances and to understand how to use that information to
make business decisions. And we cannot outsource our
responsibility to AI, to automations, to QuickBooks, and
even to our bookkeeping team, like your money team is there to
support you. We call our services done with
you. Like, yes, it's done for you,
but we really need you to lean in and TuneIn because we want to
do it with you, alongside of you.
Yeah, it's so important that the CEO knows what's happening
financially and like where to even focus their energy, like
it's data that they can use to understand how healthy their
business is or when and where they need to grow.
So to tune on that point when someone is starting out in their
business and you know, hopefully they'll very quickly realize
they're ACEOA, lot of people start out as sole proprietor or
just LLC. Do you want to touch on the
point on when it's good to understand when you need to
change maybe your classification there?
Yeah. So I recommend becoming an LLC
from day one. So if you're operating as a sole
proprietor, it's early in the year, go file the paperwork to
become an LLC. It's really cool what we get to
the opportunity to do here in America.
We get that legal protection of being an LLC.
So go advocate for yourself, get the protection now that is a
legal protection as an LLC. You can then go say to the IRS
that you want to be taxed as an S Corp.
And I don't want you to do it right away.
It's a really important decision, but I'm gonna give you
a three-step framework to know when it's time.
So if your business is bringing in $75,000 a year of net income
for more than two years, so not one year, we want two years.
So if our business is bringing in $75,000 of net income, sales
minus cost of goods sold, minus all your expenses number at the
bottom of the income statement for two years in a row.
I also want to make sure that you are completely separating
your business and personal expenses.
If you are commingling business and personal, you cannot become
an S Corp. It's like I'm going to go on a
diet on Monday. I'll get my sugar intake
together next week. Yeah.
You're not going to separate your financials, what should
become an S Corp if you're not currently doing it.
So make sure you have that practice in place.
And then as an S Corp, you have to pay yourself a reasonable
compensation. So the IRS, this isn't
Danielle's rule, It's not kickstarting County's rule.
The IRS says you have to pay yourself a reasonable
compensation. So that's how much would you pay
somebody to do the job if you weren't the one doing it.
And so once you become an S Corp, you have to pay that
reasonable compensation. So the third thing is that I
want you already regularly taking owners draws from your
business. If your business doesn't have
cash to pay you today, not going to have the cash to pay you and
payroll taxes next year. So it's a simple three-step
framework. Once you have $75,000 of profit,
you're completely separating your business and personal
expenses and you're consistently taking owner's draws, it might
be tax advantageous for you to become an S Corp.
Once you're an S Corp, you're an employee of your business.
It's a really cool step if you think about it.
You lower the tax liability of your business, you are saving
money on self-employment tax which is freaking amazing.
And then you also will be paying yourself a reasonable
compensation, meaning that when you go to buy your new home and
you go to buy a car or you go to bring out an investor or a loan
in your business, you're going to show that you have the
ability for your business to pay you regularly.
It's going to make getting those types of loans much easier.
So this is a full analysis that we do for all our clients at
Kickstart Accounting. So when somebody becomes a
client, we look at what is the best entity type for you and
should you be on payroll or not, and then how to pay yourself
that reasonable compensation. So your money team should be
able to help you with this type of analysis and make this
decision with you. That will be really beneficial
yeah. I love that you can be the
expert to help people understand when and you know to to become
an S Corp or or not they're not ready yet.
So that's great And when would you say is the best time for
someone to hire on bookkeeping services?
So like I always say that that's that was my first hire.
You should do it early. But is it like, should they do
it with their first client or should it be their second or
third or like how at what point can they not keep track of it
and or need to set up their accounts properly?
Is it from the get? Go yeah.
So I think that as a business owner, a new business owner, a
lot of what we're doing is buying back our time.
So you're doing everything in those early days and as soon as
you you have regular income in your business.
So if you're only getting one client here and one client
there, it's kind of a side hobby for you, then maybe that's not
the right time to actually get a money team in place.
But if you're bringing in consistent revenue and income,
then we're at the point right there to bring on support.
We are often our clients first hire because like I said, you're
buying your time back. You can't be keeping track of
this and honestly, you don't know how to do bookkeeping, so
it's. Probably, yeah.
I can't do, but you guys do. So I always say that with with
love, I need you and and you need us.
You know, as soon as you feel like you have regular income in
your business, get the money team.
Can I walk you through the four people?
I suggest everyone has their money team.
Yeah, that'd be great. So this is this is very
different because most people will say I need a tax account
because I'm going to have to file my.
My tax at the. End of the year, so it's like a
normal first one, but you actually cannot file your taxes
at the end of the year without person #1 so person number one
is your bookkeeper. And the bookkeeper keeps
organized while you're out making money and spending money
and doing your thing. Your bookkeeper.
I'd like to consider it the big puzzle, right?
So you throw this thousand puzzle pieces on the coffee
table. Your bookkeeper comes in, they
put all those puzzle pieces together, so all you're looking
at is a beautiful completed puzzle.
And then your tax account can use the completed puzzle, the
organized financials that are accurate to do your tax return.
And since we see that in reverse order, a lot of times, as
business owners, we're trying to ask our tax account to be our
business coach, bookkeeper, a little bit of catch all.
So person #1 bookkeeper, person #2 tax account, all they're
doing for you is filing your tax return.
Person #3 is your financial advisor.
And your financial advisor is the person who's putting
together your business and personal finances.
They're looking at how do we use your business to create wealth
retirement accounts, Iras, 520 nines, like what else do you
need outside of your business? And then lastly is ACFO or
business coach, when you're ready to start looking into the
future of your business? For our clients, when we work
with them at under our CFO services, we walk them through a
five step goal setting framework where we're looking to the
future for the next 10 years and doing a complete SWOT analysis.
So you might not be ready for all four people today, right?
But start with person number one, who's your bookkeeper and
then your tax account and build from there.
That's really good advice. Yeah, I do think people think of
it as a reverse process because they'll be like here's take all
the receipts to their tax accountant like they need it,
maybe need it all organized so they're not spending all their
time reading through your receipts.
You know when I started the business 11 years ago.
Bookkeeping is not sexy, right? Like it's not the sexiest
business. So I became ACPA, and my
background was as a chief financial officer.
And so I had been helping these private equity firms, investors,
CEOs make all these business decisions using their numbers.
And when I started working with small business owners, I said we
need to bring access to that same information to the small
business owner. Like, I don't care if you're
doing $100,000 a year, you deserve the same access, the
same information as a business owner who's doing $1 million a
year. You know, like we all deserve
access to that information. And so that is my mission in
life is to make sure that small business owners have access to
their financials and know how to use them to make Better Business
decisions and to be able to step into their confidence.
So but keeping isn't sexy, but it's like the foundation of our
own. For sure.
Yeah, Really important stuff. We can't bypass this important
step if you want to be a successful business owner at
all. So yeah.
And interior designers are not naturally inclined to want to do
their own bookkeeping. I think most of us want to do
the creative stuff, so it's totally fine to hand it off to
the expert. Now explain again on in your
business, like do you offer a la carte services?
Is it like I know you had that 29 point inspection for
onboarding, but if someone maybe already had a bookkeeper, but
they kind of need a little more help with vision or future
casting and things like that? Yeah, so few options.
I'm going to be a little confusing for a second.
We do offer a one time check Your books service and you can
find all this on Kickstart accountinginc.com.
So if you are doing it on your own or you're working with
another bookkeeper, but you're having an uneasy feeling about
your financials, you can go to our website and select the check
Your books option where we'll go in and we'll check what you
have. Just give you an honest
assessment of what we're seeing and we'll take you through that
29 point assessment. I believe in my heart that every
business owner deserves to do what they love and to stay in
their zone of genius. I love bookkeeping and I love
numbers and I still don't do Kickstarts bookkeeping.
I believe every business owner should have bookkeeping off of
their plate so that they can go and do the things that they love
to do in their business. So our primary service is
bookkeeping where we work with our clients month over month.
We have a long very long term engagements with our clients.
So we do that day-to-day bookkeeping for our clients and
we provide something very unique called the CEO dashboard.
We call it the snapshot and. I have taken all of my
experience as ACFO plus my experience working with
thousands of business owners over the last 11 years to give
business owners exactly what they need at the end of each
month in their snapshot with a podcast episode, videos,
education on how to use it to make Better Business decisions.
How often do you hear air quote know your numbers and you're
like what the hell is? That, yeah.
So we walk you through that. So we do bookkeeping for our
clients and providing that snapshot at the end of each
month equips you to be able to make those business decisions.
And then we do offer CFO services.
So if you're working with another team or not, or you need
a bookkeeper, our CFO services is where we can start to look
towards the future and budget and plan for your future goals.
Awesome. Yeah, sometimes that is a really
nice benefit to have that CFO option too, because might have
everything else in place, but you're not really looking that
far into the future and you should be like, you need a road
map where you going to go, right?
So that's awesome. Are there any like books or I
mean, we know we have your podcast, Anything else that
you'd recommend someone who's like kind of just getting in
their feet wet as an entrepreneur to get a handle on
understanding finances and like all the things that go into
being an entrepreneur? Yeah, My podcast Business by the
Books, my favorite business book of all time that I think had the
biggest impact on who I am today.
And the business that I run today is built to sell.
And I think every business owner in reading that can think about
the type of business that they want to own and lead and the
type of business that they're going to build.
So that's my. Just bought that book and I
haven't started it yet, so excited for you to read it.
Yeah, OK, great. So that's a good book.
I was like, oh, this looks like a good book.
Awesome. So yeah, I'm excited to read
that book. Built to Sell, which because I
think also for interior designers, we don't often think
about having our businesses as something that is sellable or,
you know, able to pass on to someone else or anyone would be
interested in buying either. So like almost no interior
designers, I know they'll just retire their business.
So I think it's important to explore the options of selling
your business, but I'm sure it goes into much, so much more
than that. It's so much more.
So it's it's about how you are going to build the business, how
you're going to build the frameworks and the processes.
And I do believe that there's so many business owners who walk
away from their business because nobody shared with them those
strategies 10 years earlier. So like if you built your
business around the principles and built to sell, when you
finally go to think about walking away from your business
or selling your business, you might have something to sell
because you have been thinking in that way the whole time and
building your business. So yeah, it.
Takes intention from a long time ago, like it's like investing,
you know, or if you start early, it's not as hard, you know,
Yeah. So many opportunities as
business owners and I just think entrepreneurship is the coolest
thing that we we can do and we can be so intentional with the
business that we're. Building.
I love it. Awesome.
Well, is there anything else you want to share with our listeners
today? You can get support is the last
thing I'll I'll leave you guys with.
I am somebody who eleven years in, I still have never had an
executive assistant because I'm like, well, I can do that.
Give me two seconds, but use it as an example, OK, like we all
have a different kryptonite that we're allowed to get support.
So whether that be a bookkeeper, a tax accountant, ACFO,
marketing, like whatever it might be, you do not have to do
everything in your business by yourself.
So go get yourself some support. It's going to make this journey
so much more fun. I have a team of almost 40
people now and I have so much more fun running this Business
Today because I get to stay in my my zone of genius.
I have to be here and do things like this with you, and I'm able
to do that because I have a full team of people behind me.
That's a really big team. Wow, that's impressive.
Well, awesome, Danielle. Well, thank you.
We're going to put all of your contact information.
Where can people find you on Instagram?
What's your handle again? Danielle Hayden Dash OH is my
personal brand and then Kickstart Accounting and all the
places. Awesome.
Great. We'll put those links in the
show notes so people can find you.
But thank you for coming on. You're welcome to come back
again. And again, I'm sure this is a
topic that is really one of our weakest links, I think as
interior designers. And so it's important to keep
reminding ourselves of all the things that we need to do
properly so that we can be enjoying our businesses like you
are. So thank you for that
inspiration, of course. So I hope you enjoyed that
conversation today. We have the links for Danielle
and Kickstart Accounting down in the show notes.
Check those out. While you're there, you should
check out our new download for you.
It is a recording of the webinar that we had last December as we
were getting ready for boot camp and it was well attended and I
realized that not many people were able to attend at that
particular time and probably we're still interested.
So I thought I'd make it available to you the recording
from that webinar and it was called from Passion to Profit 5
Money moves to start your interior design business, right?
So it is a proposed to the topic that we had today with Danielle.
And so if you would like to listen to that webinar that you
may have missed, then you can download it from the link we
have in the show notes. So go ahead and go there and get
that replay of the webinar. I think you'll get a lot from
that. And that's all I have for you
this week. Next week we'll have another
great episode. 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
arworddesign.com or e-mail me at podcast at our award design com.