#185: Organize Your Business Like a Boss with Sara Fins

Michelle Leotta:
All right. Hello there health coaches. You know what tax season it's almost here. It, I mean, it is here really now is the time for us to start thinking about it. And, uh, and as I was thinking about it, because my accountant was like, "hey, I need your home office expenses," I was thinking about how like eight years ago, when my business really started and I had just given birth to my second son and we decided to move and he was four months old. Uh, I had so many logistics to deal with and I could picture the table in my head, in my dining room. It was just like covered and paperwork and all this junk. And my accountant, even back then was asking questions about my income and my expenses. And I was like, I have no idea. Like I do not know what is going on in life.

Michelle Leotta:
And I'm pretty sure that I filed all wrong and I lost all kinds of money that I probably didn't even have to pay because I was a hot mess. So, today we're talking about getting yourself organized, not just your finances, but that dining room, all aspects of your business. Cause it really can be one of the most difficult parts of running your health coaching business. And since we are on the brink of tax season, I've invited my friend Sara Fins to join me today because Sara is a health coach and an accountant. Sara, thank you for being here.

Sara Fins:
Oh, You're welcome. Thank you for having me.

Michelle Leotta:
Of course. Well, let's just start by saying that Sara is a member of healthy profit university. She actually helps admin our group. And, um, the thing is, it's funny, right? We used the word like Healthy Profit University. If you're making a profit, you're gonna have to pay taxes. It's like one of those good problems, because if you're paying taxes, that means you made money. And we like that. Now, for those of you who are thinking, uh, I'm not making a profit, you might wanna think about joining us for this year's healthy profit university, fast track semester. We're only gonna be doing it once in 2022. And the wait list will be available in a few weeks. So just wanted to tell you to keep your eyes open for that. But most health coaches probably did earn something in 2021. So, Sara and I are actually holding a three day tax prep event for you guys. It's March 7th to the 10th. That's right, right, Sara?

Sara Fins:
Yes. 7th through the 10th, the first three days will be the events. And then we have our bonus event on the 10th.

Michelle Leotta:
Got it. So if you are like me eight years ago and kinda a hot mess of keeping track of all your business, finances definitely join us for this. We're gonna get you all situated and ready to go register for free at healthcoachpower.com/taxtime. And I'm gonna drop that link right here in the comments. And Diane is here and she's saying hello and excited to hear about this topic today. I really think it's necessary. Like everyone should just look around at your desk and that'll give you just a glimpse into your state of affairs. Maybe you need to get organized.

Michelle Leotta:
Before we dive into today's topic, I do need to give a shout out to FWask who wrote this five star review on apple podcast. And she said simple and approachable strategies. I'm currently in the process of changing careers from a speech pathologist of 10 years -any other career changers in the house? To a health coach.

Michelle Leotta:
And though I'm super excited and motivated. It's overwhelming. I found this podcast and I've been binging it as I approach the start of my program. It's been beyond helpful to hear Michelle's approachable, simple and straightforward strategies to launching a business and putting your services out there. Thank you, Michelle, for all this great info, I've enjoy listening to these topics and hearing your logical advice. It has really made this process make much more sense. So FWAs thank you. Please send your mailing address to us at support@healthcoachpower.com. Just reference this episode so we can send a little thank you, gift your way. And for everybody watching and listening, would you take a minute to leave a review? It helps so much. It helps other health coaches find the support that they need. It allows me to continue bringing you this free content every single week. So, thanks in advance for that. And we do have some career changers here, Shawn saying she was an oncology nurse and Cindy says she was in geology. Wow. We have so many different talents in our group and Sara you're one of them obviously coming from an accounting background. So you're the perfect person to talk about organization.

Michelle Leotta:
I know you're a very organized person just from like working with you and knowing you through the years. So, we gotta get behind the scenes. First of all, what does your desk look like?

Sara Fins:
Well, my desk has all the things you can probably see here. I've got files and things in the background. So I definitely am organized, however, not always so neat.

Michelle Leotta:
Yes, I do see you still have those types of what are those file fold folder files, that type of stuff. I used to have my whole business organized that way. And my clients would give me paper checks back in the day. I would take their checks and put them in the file and I would deposit one check every month. And that was the payment system.

Sara Fins:
Yep.

Michelle Leotta:
I was gonna say, I assume your finances are spotless. Are there any areas of your business that, um, that do get pretty messy and disorganized?

Sara Fins:
Yeah, I would say, you know, I, I have a lot of ideas as I'm sure most of us do right? About your business and what you wanna offer and where you wanna take it and things you wanna do. And I always wind up writing lists of those things when the inspirations come to me and then I'm like, okay, I'll put that here. And then the next time I'm like, wait, where did I put that list? I don't know. And then I wound up writing it all over again. And then so in that aspect, I feel like I I'm always writing that in a different place and having that 12 different places when new things come to my mind. So I think that's where I struggle the most when goes to keeping those things organized.

Michelle Leotta:
Yes.

Sara Fins:
Yeah. I'm a pen and paper girl too, when it comes to that sort of thing, like ideas and so when it's not on my, um, laptop, it tends to get a little disorganized. So...

Michelle Leotta:
I was thinking the same thing. It's like all the ideas that we have when we have our own business, I should do this. I should do that. Anybody else dealing with that? Just tell us in the comments and if you have any suggestions for how you handle Hmm. All your ideas. I wanna hear them. Like I've been working on putting my ideas into my project management software. So I actually use a tool called Asana. You can also use Trello if you guys are familiar with Trello for, for this type of thing, both are free tools. And my, my practice, it is when I have the idea, don't just say, oh, I'll remember that later. Or I'm gonna jot it down on this scrap of paper right here, but actually go to my phone or go to my computer and put it into the system.

Michelle Leotta:
And then I just at least have a list that's there that I can't, you know, lose or misplace. But both of these tools, Asana and Trello are ways to organize projects, your ideas, and also your timelines. I actually have a project manager that helps me with it, but she can't even help me if I don't get the stuff in there. So I'm, I'm with you on that. Let's see what some people are saying here. Someone says, I keep, oh, Kimberly, says I carry around a spiral notebook for that reason. Otherwise I have pieces of paper everywhere, but now I have five spiral bound notebooks.

Sara Fins:
That's my problem. I keep it nice and organized in a notebook, but there are five of those.

Michelle Leotta:
Nona says, I keep those on my mobile phone as a note with a header. Yes. And something else I've heard people use, although I never have used it is Evernote, which is supposed to make it easier to keep track of all your notes. Have you ever tried any of those?

Sara Fins:
I've heard of Evernote. I haven't tried Evernote. I have used Trello from time to time when I'm working with someone in my business, helping me with things, we use that to organize, but then I always falls by the wayside once that project's over. And I, I kind of forget about it. So, um, I will revisit that though. I think that's a smart idea.

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah. So everyone check out those tools. I use Trello for organizing even like stuff around my house, like my contractors and maintenance and stuff like that. It's just very good for helping keep track of lots of little details in an, in an organized fashion. So, there's tip number one for you guys. Sara, maybe you give everybody a quick finance tip. I, I know you're like organizing all kinds of areas, but we're gonna talk more about this during the tax prep event. Yep. But what's one thing that you do to keep your finances organized.

Sara Fins:
Yeah. I think one of the most important things you can do is to file things right away. So if you have an expense, if you in a current or you are making some money or whatever it happens to be, and you have some sort of receipt or something that goes along with that, have a folder on your desktop or have a paper folder, if it's something that you're gonna have in person and just take that minute or two to file it right away. So that way, when you're going back to look at it, come tax time, or whenever you do your numbers, you're not scrambling around looking for all of those receipts because one of the things you wanna have on be on top of is, you know, the support around the expenses that you've had over the year. So, um, don't put it aside, just take those two minutes, do it right away. And then you'll be good to go.

Michelle Leotta:
I'm feeling ancient right now because the advice from earlier in my business was like, take your receipts and put them in an envelope. And I literally have probably still envelopes sitting around here that say like 2010, but that's so old school these days. Don't we wanna just like, take a picture of it and then put that picture into a folder somewhere.

Sara Fins:
Yeah. You can certainly do that. You can certainly use an app to do that. There are a lot of tracking apps for, or um, for those expense receipts, but then also a lot of them are online these days. So for example, MailChimp, you know, if you have MailChimp for your, mail system, then they're gonna send you an email every month, you know, when your charge comes through. Yeah.

Michelle Leotta:
So the receipt is already on the screen.

Sara Fins:
Right. So take that and just put it in a folder that says, you know, business receipts, or just so that you have record of it. But yeah, it doesn't need to be paper. And most of it's not these days, but anywhere it's organized

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah, most are not. Oh my gosh. When I get like a receipt email to me, I even like, um, print it to a PDF or take a screen of it, put that in the folder. Right. Because digging back through my emails later to try to find everything is a nightmare.

Sara Fins:
Exactly. We get so many emails that if you spend the two minutes up front, just saving it when it comes in, you won't have to worry about it and spend all that extra time digging around for it later.

Michelle Leotta:
Okay. Very good. And we already getting questions about different, like tax write offs. Cindy wants to know if we can write off our workout clothes since we're health coaches. I know we wanna like wanna write off my massages and my acupuncture and my herbal tea. And we'll talk more about tax stuff during the event next week. You guys, and make sure to sign up for that again, that URL is healthcoachpower.com/taxtime, but all very good questions to be asking. Sara, what's another way that you organize yourself in your business so that you can be efficient, cuz you are very efficient and effective. I love it.

Sara Fins:
Yeah. I try to be, um, yeah. One of the things that I've gotten really good at over the years are, uh, repurposing things. So what I mean by that is if you're having, uh, if you have a program where you have client handouts or you have contracts or you have anything that you're using in your business that you're gonna use more than once, um, finalizing that and then saving it, you know, very methodically like, so you know where you're gonna look for it later so that you can use it again or at least use it as a starting point to create something different or create iteration of that. But it will save you from recreating the wheel a hundred times and doing, you know, everything over from scratch. So that's actually been a huge time save or saver in my business for me.

Michelle Leotta:
Oh, that's a really good one. Whenever you're creating something. Think about not just the thing you're creating now, but how to do it. So you can use this again in the future. So example my Facebook group and even like my, my personal Facebook page, right. I always make good use of the, the header graphic area you guys may have noticed. Um, so that has to be a very specific eyes like there's, you know, these very specific dimensions and everything to make those headers work. So I have a template for it instead of just each time I need one starting from scratch and creating it, oh wait, what, how many pixels wide, wait, blah. You know, I have a template for it. Exactly. It shows me exactly where the picture goes exactly where the text should go. So boom. I can just bang it out. And then I only run into trouble when Facebook changes their layout, which they do, they do, but that's only maybe once every couple years or something like that. So there's an example of, uh, reusing. Um, what else? I'm trying to think of another good example of something we might create once and then like want to use again and again, you were saying.

Sara Fins:
Like maybe a format for, um, a client questionnaire or if you use some sort of a food journal or if you use some sort of handout you've created, like I used to do a lot of in person workshops back when I was health coaching and you know, having those, whatever it is you use for that, your outline, your handouts, whatever, instead of creating it once and then needing to do it again, when you have another one come up that might be slightly different, but mostly the same. You can use the one you already wrote and just go from there and tweak it. And it just seems you a lot of time.

Michelle Leotta:
And effort. What about you guys for everybody? That's here live? What have you created in like a templated way? Let's share some ideas here. I thought of enough other when you were speaking, if you have an email response that you're constantly sending people like, you know, when they ask a particular question or when they email about something that has pat whatever, you know, something that you just find yourself repeating the same thing, instead of typing it out every time I finally got myself to create an actual template. So like within my Gmail, I can create a template. And then when I get that question, I just go, boop, boop, template done, send. So much easier.

Sara Fins:
Such a time saver.

Michelle Leotta:
So we love these things, but it comes in time. You guys, I mean, I definitely was not like I just said, maybe in the past year or two, I got that under control. Whereas for the previous 10 or 11 years of my business, I would type out the email from scratch every single time. And finally I was like, whoa, hard, stop. Gonna pause. Gonna actually create the template. Takes five minutes, saves you so much time later on. Okay. I love this stuff for me. I am super duper organized with my calendar and it's kind of at a necessity because my calendar's just very, very packed, but I time block my calendar, you know, inside Google calendar, you see the visual blocks of time and I'm so serious about this. I block time for exercise. I block when I'm gonna shower, when I'm gonna take my kids to their activities.

Michelle Leotta:
And everything's like color coded. And then just this year I started creating multiple calendars inside of Google calendar so I can turn them on and off. So like we have one calendar that's for all of our events inside healthy profit university and our weekly mentorship group. And I've got a calendar just for the emails that I'm sending each week. Yeah. Because in my business we send a lot of different emails and I wanna make sure that they don't conflict and accidentally go out at the same time. So I have a calendar just for that. And then of course my main calendar with like what I gotta do today and my client appointments. Um, the cool thing when you time block is that if something doesn't get done, it's like a little game of Tetris or something where, you know, whatever, I have an unexpected phone call or something happens and I didn't get this thing done.

Michelle Leotta:
I can just drag it to a different day. And when the day is full, I see the day is full. It is visually full. So nothing else is gonna fit in that day. And it really helps me get a better grip on what I can conceivably get done in any given day. So it'll end up with like a hundred tasks for tomorrow, cause obvious that's not going to happen. So, um, that is another tip that I have for you guys. If you're not already time blocking and using multiple calendars, it can be so, so very helpful. Tracy's asking the template is created in what application, a template for what Tracy, we talked about a couple different ones. So, um, like if you need a template for your Facebook header graphic, I use Photoshop, but you could use Canva. I also use Canva templates for lots of my social media posts. The template for my emails, that's within Gmail itself, cuz all of my emails funnel into my Gmail account. So I use some of their built-in tools and the, they have a lot. I'm trying to think what other templates we might like what tools we might be using Sara.

Sara Fins:
Yeah. It can be even as simple as a word document, if you're doing something like we were talking about before, if you want, you know, some sort of handout for your client, you could just create it in a word document too. Um, or within your email system, if you're writing, uh, certain emails in there, you could keep it in your, as a template in your email system as well. I think that those are the things we talked about.

Michelle Leotta:
I mean, I couldn't live without even just, um, Google docs because no matter what it is, it's kind of similar to what we were saying before, instead of writing on a piece of paper or anything, you know, I, I just throw it in a Google doc and then I find it, I search for it as long as I named it something with like the keywords and that has been very, very handy, whether I'm on my phone or if I'm on my computer, how do you manage your calendar, Sara? Cause you also have your business and your kids and probably a million different things to do every week.

Sara Fins:
Yes. Um, pretty much the same as you. Although I, I don't usually use separate calendars and that's a great idea. It's something I'm actually gonna look into, but I, I do also time block. That has been huge for me. I mean, when, you know, as most of us are doing all the things, it's really the only way to be able to, for me to move my business forward. Because if it's not on the calendar, it doesn't get done. So a hundred percent putting things in the calendar, um, including personal things, like you said, my workout or when I have to go bring the kids somewhere because otherwise I may accidentally schedule something during that time. Right. I know when I was young, I, it was much easier for me to remember all these little things, but there's too much going on now. So it has to be written down.

Sara Fins:
So that's how I manage my calendar. I do also, like I said before, I'm a paper person I do also like at the beginning of each day or at the end of the day before I just write down all the really important tasks that have to get done either that day or, or the next day, depending on when I'm writing it. So that way, if I sit down in the morning and addition to the, um, meetings I have on my calendar, I know the really urgent other things that have to get done so that they don't accidentally, um, fall by the wayside.

Michelle Leotta:
I love a daily both list.

Sara Fins:
Exactly. Daily hit list. That's good term for it.

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah. I mean, for those of you that are maybe, um, earlier, you know, in your, in your career, so you don't have like 5 million meetings every single day. What I used to do, uh, like especially when my kids were little, when I still had babies and I was only gonna really get like one or two things done on any given day is it would be on paper and that's what I called it, my hit list. And I just knew like, this is the one thing. These are the two things that if I do nothing else for my business today, these are the two things that have to happen. And you know, then the next day, you know, in the morning, okay, what are, what's gonna be like my one or two items for the day. And that was really helpful in those earlier years, Tracy's saying that she also color codes, her events in her calendar. I mean, it's like, I need more colors. That's, that's where I'm at.

Sara Fins:
I can relate.

Michelle Leotta:
Um, I, I wanna remind you guys that we are going to be doing like more of this type of organization stuff as it relates to your finances during our tax prep event. That's next week you can register for free healthcoachpower.com/taxtime. Sara, tell us a little bit more about what we can expect to do during those three days, because I know like I even have a, you know, I, I have a lot of, I have people on my team that help me. I have a lot of systems in place and I'm still like, uh oh home office expenses.

Sara Fins:
Right, so my intention for those three days is to really walk you through exactly how to get organized, to prepare your taxes. And, um, I'll be walking through each day will be kind of a different, you know, little mini challenge of task, um, of what you can do to get organized. And then my aim is by the end of that time, you will have everything ready to go for your tax prepare or yourself if you file them yourself. So we're gonna talk about, um, organizing expenses. We're gonna talk about organizing revenue and then on, um, we'll also be doing a, a finale event on Thursday and that's where I'll dive deeper into, um, some of the deduction categories and things of that in a HR. And so, um, it's all included in the free event. If you sign up, you have access to all of it and if you can't attend live, everything will be recorded. So...

Michelle Leotta:
Good. Good. I'm gonna drop that link in here. One more time for you guys. Um, it's the kind of thing that you need to learn because you need to like probably clean up the mess from 2021, but then also think about how we're in the beginning of 2022, you can make it so much easier for yourself. If you kind of like, know what it's gonna require to get your taxes prepared. Like my, my taxes used to be so easy when I was just me and I had a job with one paycheck and that was it. It was like the simplest thing. I think I filed it myself, but like once I bought a how house, once I had kids and definitely once I started a business, it's like, whoa, whoa, what so many different things. Has anyone here already filed, like already got all this stuff to your accountant or already, you know, you're already prepared. You're already like completely good to go. Just raise your hand in the comments cause I would, I, I think I should send you a pony. Like it's, it's such a difficult task. What about you, Sara? Is your stuff all done?

Sara Fins:
It's all ready to go. Yes. I haven't filed it yet, but it's all ready to go. But what I wanted to say to your point before is that if you are just starting out or if you have, you know, not a lot of, um, ins and outs of your business just yet, this is still really worth because what it will help you do is it will help you get set up for what you need to have in order as your business grows. And it'll be easier in the long run because you won't have to spend time going back and figuring out like I've had a really successful year. I don't even know what to do in terms of my taxes. So you can get a handle on it now, so that as you grow, you'll be all set. So…

Michelle Leotta:
And what kind of, um, since we were talking today about so many different tools that we use, I mean, certainly as you know, time has gone on in my business, like now I'm using QuickBooks, right. But I didn't for a really long time. So what kind of tools like would someone expect be using if they're in their first couple years of their health coaching business and what's the cost associated with those?

Sara Fins:
Yeah. Um, I, what I recommend is making sure it's something that you will use. So what I see a lot of the times are that, um, health coaches will say, oh, I need to get QuickBooks for example, and I need to get this set up and I need to get this ready to go. But I have found that if you're in the beginning of stages of your business, or even if you know, you've been going, been running your business for a couple of years, you don't need something so robust and it's a, a huge expense, right? And it's, it's not an expense you necessarily need right away. So you can do it on something like Google sheets or Excel, you know, very, very basic spreadsheet is helpful. I've seen even people do it on paper. I don't recommend that just because it's hard to tell everything up, but if you're old school and that works for you, you could certainly do it that way. But the most important thing is for it to be something that you're comfortable with and that you're going to use, and you're not gonna feel overwhelmed, stressed, or intimidated sitting down and, and doing it so, right.

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah. I love that. Cause it's just like a free spreadsheet, whatever spreadsheets offer you have, that's really all you need. And that's what I use for years. You guys, so when you hear me say that I'm using QuickBooks now that's cuz my business is in a different place. Right. But for a long time, it, it was a spreadsheet. Julie saying, I have, of course Julie, I know, I know Julie's got her stuff. Like in order she says, I have my Excel sheet totally done, but still many questions about whether or not to include some things on it before sending it to my accountant. So, I'm really looking forward to this event. Do I get my pony? I think that's pretty good Julie. I, I think that gets a pony. I do. I do. Cause I I've not done all of my, um, all of my expenses yet myself. It's a lot. Nikki says she did mine. She said deductions, I'm still in the hobby years. Do you wanna say something about that, Sara? Like when is it just a hobby?

Sara Fins:
Yeah, it really depends. It depends on how much your deductions are in relation to your revenue. So if your deductions are obviously more than your revenue or really close to the amount of revenue you're making you, it, it, it it's, you know, it depends on your personal situation. I can't give tax information, but if your revenue is under a certain amount, as it relates to your deductions, you'll be considered a hobby business. And that's, you know, that's nothing to be sad about. You know, everyone's business is gonna start somewhere, but if you're seeing it go up over time, you'll eventually come out of that space. So...

Michelle Leotta:
Okay. So, yes, it's possible in the beginning. I gotta tell you though, my business has always been profitable because when you're not making very much, you don't wanna spend very, very much, you know, you gotta be careful with that. Sometimes I see coaches enrolling in like this health training and buying this expensive tool and doing, you know, all these other stuff when there's no income. So isn't there like a limit on how many years you can claim a loss.

Sara Fins:
Yes. I think, I think it's three. I'm not certain about that. I think it's three, but you also don't want to take all those expenses as deductions if you're not making the revenue to cover it. So for example, if you did invest in a course, that was a significant amount of money, but you're not making much more revenue. You probably don't wanna include that. You don't have to take every single expenditure as an, as a deduction. And in that case you probably even can't because you may not have enough revenue to cover it. So mindful of that too. I know we always wanna maximize our deductions, but we can only do that to the point that we have revenue to cover it. Like you were saying.

Michelle Leotta:
All right. That's probably really helpful for everyone. Who's like, oh, oh, but you know, you don't want to get flagged, you know, you don't want to get flagged as like something's a little wonky with this business.

Sara Fins:
Exactly.

Michelle Leotta:
Even though it is painful to pay taxes, I honestly, and I encourage you all to think of it this way. I am so, so grateful when I'm writing tax checks with lots of zeros, because that means I am earning and the more tax I'm paying, that means the more, uh, income my business has brought in. And I'm so grateful for that. So I think of it as such a blessing that I'm able to pay these taxes. If that makes any sense.

Sara Fins:
100%, I feel the exact same way, the exact same way as you.

Michelle Leotta:
Oh my goodness. Well, we're going to help you all get sorted. We have other questions coming in here about using wave and uh, you know, red flags and the hobby years and all that stuff. We'll talk, we'll talk more taxes very soon. So make sure you guys all get your little, tushies registered at healthcoachpower.com/taxtime. Sara, thanks for joining me today. And I'll see you next week.

Sara Fins:
See you there.

Michelle Leotta:
Bye everybody.