Financially Adjusted

#29: MY FAVORITE FINANCIAL TOOLS, SOFTWARE, & SERVICES

• Leslie Roth • Episode 29

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In this episode, I share my top tools, software, and services to help business owners manage their finances with ease. These are all tried and true for me in my own business and personal life. Whether you're a chiropractor, wellness practitioner, or small business owner, these tools can help you stay organized, track expenses, and maximize efficiency. From my favorite accounting software to my favorite project management software, I give some great insight into products that could help you level up the management of your business and suggestions on ways to use these tools.

Resources Mentioned:

 Helpful Resources:

Email me with any questions you’d like answered in future Q&A episodes!

Recommended payroll software (affiliate links):
ADP
GUSTO

Recommended bank and the one I use in my business (affiliate link):
RELAY BANK

QuickBooks Online is my go-to accounting software. Get the best discount possible (30% off for 12 months) when you buy with my affiliate link below, through Complete Business Group. Message me at support@financiallyadjusted.com with any questions regarding signing up.
SIGN UP FOR QUICKBOOKS ONLINE

My favorite budgeting app w/ an amazing free version:
EVERY DOLLAR BUDGETING APP

My preferred business credit card with cash rewards (affiliate link):

If you have healthy behaviors around spending with a credit card, this is a great one to use and earn cash back. It also links up well with QuickBooks Online. If you have unhealthy spending habits with credit cards, please avoid using o

Check out all my FREE financial resources in one place

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Disclaimer: This content is for educational and informational purposes only. Please consult with an accounting professional for direct advice based on your specific business situation.

What is up my entrepreneurial friend! I am so grateful you are here with me today. I'm Leslie with Financially Adjusted, if we just met. If you have been tuning in with me for awhile, you know that I like to bring you actionable, tactical steps when it comes to managing the money in your business. And today is a good one for that.

I'm going to talk about all my favorite tools, software, and services for managing your finances and your money in your business. So be sure to go through this episode and take note of what you're currently using and if you can maybe use a different tool that might work better for you.

So, let's get right into it.

The first tool I'm going to talk about is my favorite bookkeeping or accounting software which is QuickBooks Online. I use this personally in my business and I use this for all my clients as well. It's actually an essential to working with me that you have QuickBooks online.

I think that the functionality of QuickBooks online is pretty great, and I just wanted to get used to only one system in my business which is the reason I use that exclusively. So, there are lots of other bookkeeping software out there that I can't really speak to as well as I can QuickBooks online. I have touched in zero and used that a little bit as well as played around with FreshBooks but I just find QuickBooks online to be a lot easier and more user friendly.

Now, in the future it is a goal of mine to look at some different software and play around in them enough to get a feel for how they work and look at the pricing but QuickBooks online is one that I highly recommend. I've been using this for years and the functionality is fantastic for the app that you can use on your phone as well as the browser. So, QuickBooks online has an app for smartphones and this I highly recommend using because it's a really handy tool to track your mileage as well as to snap receipts on the go and get them entered into your system So if you're a really busy business owner, maybe you aren’t able to sit in front of your computer a lot. I know a lot of chiropractors tend to not be able to sit by a computer very long throughout the day and if you are any kind of wellness practitioner or medical practitioner, that's probably the case for you too because you're handling services for patients you're spending time with your patients and you have to physically be present so you can't be sitting at a computer managing your finances through the browser. So, the app is a really handy tool for if you are on the go.

Let's say you have a receipt because you took out your employees for lunch and you just have that paper receipt, you can easily snap a picture of that on your app and then you can enter that right then and there as an expense. Or if you have a bookkeeper, you just snap the receipt and shows up for them when they're looking at it on their browser and then they can categorize that properly. So that is really handy for those times where you just don't have the chance to sit down and enter all your bills, but you have the receipts. So, you can do that very easily.

Okay, the other feature I talked about was tracking your mileage and this one's a great one. Because the IRS, if you were to be audited, is going to require a lot of different detail about business trips that you took that match up with a the mileage deduction that you took on your tax return.

They're going to want to know date, your starting point, your ending point, the addresses, the mileage the business purpose, the car that you used, and these are all details that QuickBooks online allows you to enter through the app. So, it's very handy.

You can opt for turning on the auto function where if you get in your car, that's going to automatically track it. Now, you would have to be careful with this because if not all of your trips are business trips you need to make sure they're not all being categorized these business trips, but you can review them easily within the app or the browser. And then you can also easily just add that mileage to your books from your tracker that you've been using.

So, whether you do your own bookkeeping or you have an outsourced bookkeeper or accountant that does your books for you, this is going to be just such a handy tool to have at your disposal And if, by chance, you ever get audited, you won't be sweating any of that stuff - you'll have all the details that you need laid out and you'll already have that business purpose, the date, times, destination all of that. So, it's wonderful.

And QuickBooks online, I know they have increased their fees, but I don't think it’s astronomical compared to other software’s. There are some that are going to be less expensive for sure. And I don't love that they increase their fees a lot recently but that's going to happen with any software really. And a lot of times you might get used to software and gravitate to it because it's a little bit cheaper, but then they're probably going to up the fees on you at some point. But I like the functionality of QuickBooks online and it integrates with a lot of different banks and credit cards and it's very user friendly so I highly recommend it.

I actually have an affiliate link that I have in my show notes and it can get you a discount of thirty percent for a whole year.

And if you're switching from QuickBooks desktop to online you can even get fifty percent for a whole year. It's through a third-party company that I sell QuickBooks products through. The company is Complete Business Group, and you'll find that link in my show notes. You will be taken to a landing page. That is going to walk you through all the different steps for selecting what you want in your QuickBooks subscription. So, when you do that if you have any questions just send me an email to support@financiallyadjusted.com. But that's a pretty great discount that you can get on QuickBooks products and it's for a whole year. I believe if you go to their site, you might only get three months’ worth of discounts so definitely check out that link in the show notes and full disclosure, it's an affiliate link I do get a little bit of commissions but I'd be recommending QuickBooks online anyways so that just kind of helps me along a little bit in my business. So, I would appreciate it if you used the link if you need QuickBooks online. I definitely recommend that for any business owner that wants to properly track their bookkeeping

As far as The QuickBooks online subscriptions and the one that you might need that will work for your business -the first one that I would recommend would be QuickBooks Simple Start. And that is going to be for if you just have a pretty basic business and you're not doing a ton of invoicing, and you don't need a ton of reports within your system. You're going to be paying a lot less for this and the functionality still great. I do recommend avoiding the self-employed version of QuickBooks because not full on double entry accounting so you're not going to have a balance sheet, and if you are running a business you need a balance sheet and a profit and loss statement.

Now, if you are someone who you like to do your books in a spreadsheet there's nothing wrong with that but I will say that doesn't scale and then you have less of an ability to compare different months and years as easily.

And if you are a business that growing, I highly recommend getting an accounting software because you are really going to want that historical data. You're going to want to be organized from the get-go so that you have all of your business information in one place. So, definitely check that out if you haven't yet.

The next tool that I'm going to talk about that I absolutely love and you’ve heard me talk about this a lot if you followed me for a while but it the Every Dollar budgeting app and the Ramsey organization is the ones who are the ones who came up with this. It is such a great app and it's free. Free is music to my ears especially when it's a wonderful tool. And they do have a paid version for this budgeting app which allows you to connect your business bank accounts or your personal bank accounts. Whatever you’re using it for, you can connect your bank and then all the transactions will come in and you can mark them as they come in. But I found that I don't really need that feature and I would just prefer to use the free one. So, I highly recommend this because it's great. Also, just like QuickBooks online is, it's great for using it on the app on your phone and the browser version. So, they're both really good. And if you have a login, you can share that login with a spouse or business partner - someone who you're budgeting with. You can both have that same login and access it from your phone So, if you're doing a budgeting meeting, it  comes in pretty handy because you could both take a look at the budget and then talk about it. So, I really prefer this for my personal budgeting and for my business budgeting.

Whenever you sign up for this it's going to pop in categories that are conducive to a personal budget but all you need to do is change that. And I actually have a budgeting tutorial on YouTube, if you're a visual person. And I have a budgeting podcast episode that I did. I believe it's the second episode. I'll link that in the show notes as well but if you're looking to get on board with budgeting, which I think you should, especially coming into this new year. I think it is the best thing you can do for your business and for your personal life. It's all about being proactive versus reactive, which is vital.

So, EveryDollar budgeting app -  you'll find that link in the show notes as well.

And moving on to my next favorite tool is Dropbox. Dropbox is something I have used for a really long time for mainly personal starting out but since I've been an entrepreneur, I use it for my business as well. 

Now, I do have another more secure way to share files with my clients and that is ShareFile and that's through my bookkeeping business but that's because I want it to be, like uber secure and it's just a really better service to collaborate but Dropbox has been one that I've had through the years, and it has been so handy. Such a handy tool because I can easily save stuff from my phone in there. If I have something someone sent me or if I have marketing posts or a document someone sent me, I can just quickly save it from my phone in Dropbox and then easily access it.

And then I also can share things with my husband who is also my business partner. So, it's a pretty handy tool to digitally organize all of your files. And it's not very expensive.

And I also recommend Google Drive. Google Drive is free so if you're looking for something that has a little bit more, user friendly, more options, I would recommend Dropbox over Google Drive but that's just my personal preference. But Google Drive is free so if you were looking for economical and you are looking to pinch some pennies Google Drive is your best bet for organization.

I do have an episode all about digitally organizing and organizing your papers pretty much getting organized in general with your business and with your finances so definitely check that out I'll link that in the show notes as well. I can't remember off the top of my head which episode that is, but I also have a freebie for financial and business organization and that is going to help you so much in your business.

I honestly feel like the first step to having a solid financial foundation and business foundation is just being organized. It's amazing how much more control you can feel in your business and your life when you know where everything is you've organized it properly, you can quickly go back and grab something that you need and find something. It's just better for you and better for your peace. And the control you have in your business and your life and it also pretty professional so if you're working with other financial professionals, then you can easily get them the information they need and you're not just always scrambling especially at tax time. That’s really when these digital organizational systems come into play. You can have everything centrally located so that you're not just running all over the place trying to find your documents that you need for your tax professional.

So, highly recommend Dropbox and Google Drive. I use ShareFile for my client file sharing and that's a pretty robust system. You don't necessarily need that for your business but definitely check out those two options that I mentioned.

Okay, next I'm going to talk about my favorite bank. I have personally and for my business used some local credit unions - local to me in Pennsylvania. And although they've been okay, I have recently in the past year come across Relay Bank. Actually, it's Relay Financial and then the bank that's associated with that is Thread Bank I believe. So these guys are awesome. Honestly, this is the best bank I've come across in a long time and I feel like they just took what everybody wants in a bank and just gave it gave it all to us. So, they have the ability to open up multiple bank accounts, checking accounts, savings accounts so that you can save in a lot of different accounts and have all these different purposes for your business accounts.

This bank that I'm recommending is for businesses only so you can't use this for your personal, but Relay is perfect for a business. And if you have employees or other people in your business that you give debit cards to, it’s fantastic because you can have I think it's up to like fifty cards for employees and you can set all these limits and controls on them. So, it's a really great tool for managing people in your business that have debit cards.

You can also add multiple businesses under the same login so if you yourself have multiple businesses. I know a ton of chiropractors and medical practitioners that actually love real estate. So you might be one of those people who also have a real estate business and maybe you have some kind other consulting business and you have multiple entities. You can easily manage them all in the same login so you can have all these different accounts but have one central login where you can easily manage all your businesses from the central login.

And they have great bill payer features which I will say I haven't used them myself yet. I do plan to down the road, but they look so easy to use and you can you can store a lot of different contacts in there. There's a lot of great options for bill pay and controls you can set on there for if you have an employee that's helping you pay bills, and you can easily…link up your bookkeeper or your accountant or an employee so that they and have their own login, and then you just set permissions. 

So, they just have all of these wonderful features, and they link up fantastically with QuickBooks online which I mentioned earlier was my favorite accounting software. But they integrate with a lot of other accounting software as well. So, check out Relay Financial. I have a link in the show notes, and it is an affiliate link so I would get a little commission on that. But like I said before I would recommend this anyway.

I only recommend things to you that I have used myself and have experience with so I'm not going to mention something that I just heard in passing might be good. I'm going to you know of things that I'm using myself that I have seen great benefits from.

So, on to the next one. I have three more to mention to you and this one is Monday.com. Monday.com is a CRM, which is customer relations management, I believe and a project management software.

I have my bookkeeping business, and I have my online education business which is Financially Adjusted. So, I use Monday.com for both of these businesses. And the great thing about Monday.com for project management and task management is that you can have these two separate sections for each business. And then you have all of these different, what they call boards. So, you can have all of these different boards for different categories of tasks that you would use.

So, for instance, for my bookkeeping business, I use Monday.com every day, every week, every month - it keeps me in line and keeps me on task with all the accounting cycle stuff I have to do for each one of my clients. 

So, each one of my clients is listed as a board and then I have tasks under that so then when I complete something for that client, I'm marking it as work in progress, done. I stay on task and I'm not constantly questioning if I got something done or what needs to be done or forgetting a task that I need to do for that specific client.

Now, for my online education business, I have one for podcasting so I have all my podcast tasks under that. I have general marketing tasks. I have general to do. I have all these different boards the things that I need to get done and in Financially Adjusted. So, you could put whatever spin on this tool that you needed to for your business. So, if you were a chiropractor and somebody's helping you manage. Say you have a chiropractic assistant that's helping maybe manage some financial stuff, some patient stuff, you could really keep employees stay on task and yourself on task with various things that you're working on - different projects that you have going in your business especially if someone is working on advertising and marketing for you That's a great way to stay on the same page and have like different tasks on there that you want them to accomplish.

Okay, the next one that I'm going to talk about is my favorite business credit card Now I have to preface this as I always do when I talk about credit cards…with…watching out for behavior first.

So, if you have poor behavior around debt and around credit cards, please, please, please get real with yourself. Really do a check-in and monitor how you've always spent with credit cards if you've had healthy behaviors, and you can trust yourself to have a credit card of course. I have other podcasts episodes that will talk a little bit more about that.

But I do want to mention that credit cards can be great for a cash flow management tool throughout the month as long as you have those expenses in your budget already and you are already going to be paying for that stuff. It can be a great tool to use to pay for your expenses whenever you need to. And then not have a cash flow timing issue throughout the month and then just pay that balance off, get it back to zero at the end of the month.

 I actually pay mine every week, because it's the flow that I like to get into.

But you set it up however it works for you.

The credit card that I recommend for getting really great cash back is Capital One Spark. It's primarily a business card. It is a business card. 

I think it's two percent one and a half percent or two percent that I get back. Might be one and a half percent now that I think about it. But this ends up being really great for just having a little extra money in your business to do some things with. So, I did have an episode. My last episode. I talked about business savings and one of my recommendations was when you're trying to build up business savings, take the cash back that you're getting from a credit card and put it into your savings. Pretend it doesn't exist because really it's not money that you're counting on in your business. This is just a little extra money that you have to play with. It's just a little extra reward in your business.

So, it would be the perfect way to use that by putting it into your savings count and you're not even really thinking about it because you didn't count on it for revenue. Or at least you shouldn't be. But it's just a little extra to give some extra oomph to your savings account.

But the Capital One Spark card I think is incredibly user friendly. I like their platform for their app on their phone and the browser. And I really like it to integrate with my accounting software. So, it's in QuickBooks online integrates very easily and I always measure any online tool with does it have an app that's easy to use and does it have a browser? Or does it operate well in your browser? And If I can't say yes to both, then it's not a tool that I necessarily want to use.

 It’s a great credit card and I have a link an affiliate link also in my show notes if you want to check that out. And the last tool that I'm going to mention that I use all the time in my business and totally keeps me on track is my Google calendar.

So, this is of course free if you have a business email. Of course you're going to pay for the business email but you can get a Google calendar through just a free personal Gmail account.

What I love about the Google calendar is that you put tasks in every day that will jump right to the top. I select task, I add a task to that day, and then I hit all day so that it just pops in right at the top of that day. So I can actually start my day by looking at the different tasks that I have in my Google calendar, and I can mark them off.

I don't know about you, but I am a huge to-do list person and it feels ridiculously good to mark something done on my task list so this appeals to that side of me I love being able to mark as completed on these tasks. And I have these daily tasks set up. So, part of what I set up is for my morning routine. I do a Bible study in the morning and then I do this start your day planner that Christy Wright has. Which I highly recommend. It is the best way I found to start my day because I just sort of get my head right, I spent some time with God, and I list out what I want the priorities for my day to be. So, I just have that in my taskbar. That it just kind of reminds me that's how I want to start my day and then I have all these other tasks that I need to remember.

So for the bookkeeping business if I have to file somebody's sales tax, you better believe I have that task in there because I'm not going to rely on my brain to remember. I have the task in Monday.com and I have it in my Google calendar so there's no chance that I am missing doing that sales tax filing.

And I have all kinds of other important bookkeeping tasks as well as stuff for my Financially Adjusted business, for the podcast and also what I want to get done. Every day that is driving me towards anything in my business, or in my personal life. So, I highly recommend that and it's a free tool that is amazing.

So, whatever you take away from this episode, I want you to start getting the wheels turning on the tools that you use are ready and if they're working for you and maybe some new tools that you could implement.

Maybe I can spark some ideas for how you can implement a new tool or service in your business that you haven't already that could really be a game changer for you. 

And I've really found that, it's information overwhelm pretty much all the time in our world right now. And it's so hard to decipher what tools to use because there's about a hundred for every different purpose that you want to accomplish in your business. You're getting recommendations left and right.

So, my hope is that  I gave you a little bit of insight into to some tools you've seen out there that could work for you in your business. And help set you up for financial success and to be organized and manage your money well and your business.

If you ever have any questions that you would like answered on the podcast, shoot me a message at support@financiallyadjusted.com and check out my freebies that are on my website.

I have some free financial tools that can really help you out, especially the financial organization guide that I have as well as the estimated tax guide. Those are two that I think any business owner can benefit from. For all my chiropractic peeps I have a P & L, a sample P & L that lists out what I think a healthy profit and loss statement should look like, some healthy ranges, and a healthy profit margin for your business. So, it's a great benchmark tool to compare against your own business and to help you to set goals.

So, that's it for today. As always, remember action brings clarity and imperfect action is better than no action at all. Have a great day!

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Leslie Roth

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