Transcription
Welcome back to another video. I'm making these every single week because I want to teach you everything I know about starting a bookkeeping business. That way, you can learn from my mistakes and hopefully fast track to success. Let's talk about it.
How to survive month-end close for bookkeepers and accountants. This is top of mind for me right now because I have 80 clients and it's the second week of August, which means I just got done last week with month-end close. So, I'm just now feeling the relief and the pressure from month-end close and being done with month-end close and recovering and catching up on sleep and catching up on everything else in my life. Month-end close, I'm probably going to say that phrase a million times in this video. It's very stressful. It's very hard. So, I'm going to try to give you some tips, some tricks, some strategy for managing month-end close as a bookkeeper accountant, specifically as an entrepreneur, as a bookkeeping business owner.
It all starts with a weekly workflow. I talk about it all the time and I'm going to talk about it again today because I firmly believe this is so, so important. Quick story. I had somebody call me from California this weekend and she wants to invest in my investment fund, Zip Capital, but she found me about a year ago on YouTube and she has an accounting business and she manages three to five bookkeepers and she said that she could never figure out how to manage the workflow, the weekly, monthly workflow for her bookkeepers until she watched my videos. And then she finally learned how to split things up on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. And ever since she learned my weekly monthly workflow strategy, she said it was a game-changer for her business.
So, this video is really helpful for people just getting started like you who maybe don't have any clients and are just thinking about starting a bookkeeping business. But the cool thing is this video is actually also helpful for the super experienced business owner who might have a decent-sized accounting business and they've got three to five employees who work for them. So, if you're just getting started, if you've been doing this for 10 to 20 years, hopefully you can find some value out of this video.
So, throughout the month, my weekly monthly workflow throughout the month, I'm categorizing transactions. I'm asking questions. I don't wait until the end of the month or the beginning of the month to record all of the transactions from the previous month. I'm doing it. I spread out the work. I'm doing a little bit of work every single week. So, all 80 of my clients, I log into their QuickBooks every single week. That way, I can ask questions in real-time. That way, I can record transactions weekly and it's much easier for me to manage. If I was going to, it just doesn't make sense. It's like, why not spread out the work across four weeks instead of trying to jam an entire month of bookkeeping into one stressful week where you're trying to record all the transactions for the entire month before. So instead of being super, super stressed out for an entire week because I waited, I just spread out the work. I just log in every week.
So each of my clients gets assigned a particular day of the week. So, if you were a Thursday client, I would log into your books every single Thursday. And then I'll categorize your transactions. And the really cool thing is I can pitch this to my prospective clients as a great selling point because I'm logging into their books once a week. I'm asking them questions once a week. That way, if there is something unusual or if there's something they don't know about, it's a lot easier to answer a question, "What happened last week?" instead of "What happened last month?" or "What happened two months ago?" So, it's much better in my opinion to log into their QuickBooks every week. That way, you can ask relevant, timely questions. It's much easier for them to get you answers based on what happened last week instead of trying to think back one or two months.
And then the exact same thing, the exact same strategy applies to month-end close. So, if you were a Thursday client, I would log into your books on Thursday every week, but then also in the first week of the month, I'm going to wait until Thursday to close out your books. That way, on the first or second day of the month, my brain isn't going to explode trying to think about how am I going to close all 80 of my clients in the next two days. Instead, I take a breather. I take a step back. I look at my workflow spreadsheet and I can see, okay, here's my Thursday clients. I'm only going to worry about my Thursday clients. And then on Thursday for months, I get their bank statements. I'll talk a little bit about that later. And I reconcile their accounts. And my course, I've got a course for sale. It goes over this entire process. How to manage your workflow, how to reconcile accounts, how to provide high-quality customer service. It also goes into QuickBooks and marketing and sales and bookkeeping fundamentals, but I've got a course that talks about all of this in much greater detail. And also my course, I share my screen, so I actually show QuickBooks. I show my spreadsheets. I really walk through the process in detail. So if you want to check out my course, if you want to kind of go deeper and learn a little bit more, my course teaching you everything you need to know is linked in the description of this video.
View-only access to accounts is super helpful because we need bank statements. We need check images. Sometimes we have questions and the client isn't always responsive. So if you can to manage your workflow and to manage your month-end close, try to get view-only access to their bank accounts and their credit card accounts. That way you can just log in yourself and you can get the month-end bank statements and credit card statements. And also, if there's a disconnect in the QuickBooks bank feed, you have your own username and password. So, it's super simple for you to fix bank feed errors. Definitely recommend trying to get view-only access to all the bank accounts, all the credit card accounts.
So, it's really important to send these financial reports. That's kind of the whole point of bookkeeping so that we can create financial reports. And so, I try to do it in the first week of every month. And I do the exact same thing with my investment fund, Zip Capital. So I am basically the bookkeeper for Zip Capital. And I have seven investors right now. And so I actually send all of my investors monthly updates for my investment fund. So I'm doing this exact same process. I'm reconciling my accounts and I'm generating financial reports, P&L, balance sheet. I'm actually emailing it out to all of my investors. I pay my investors like 8% up to 12% fixed returns. And then I use their money for private money lending. And I do the exact same thing with my investors that I do for my bookkeeping clients. I'm keeping them updated with where the business is, the progress, the P&L, the balance sheet, and I give all my investors kind of like a monthly recap of what happened the month before. So, if you want to learn about my investment fund, it's also linked in the description of this video. It's Zip Capital. You can register on my website. If you want to invest, it's a great alternative. It's a great option to earn 8% up to 12% fixed returns.
So, I have 80 clients now, but I didn't just start with 80 clients. There was a slow buildup. I slowly built up to getting to where I am today. And the reason that's important is because if you were to just wake up tomorrow, even with 10 or 20 clients, you would be very stressed out. That would be very difficult because it's hard to onboard a client. You have to learn how they communicate. You have to learn how they spend money, how they receive money, how their business operates. You have to learn the nuances and the ins and outs of all of their bank accounts and credit card accounts and loans. And once you work with someone for three to five months, it becomes much easier to do their bookkeeping. You learn how they operate. You learn how their business is structured, how everything flows. It becomes much easier. And so what I've done over the past 5 years, I've slowly built up to the point where I have 80 clients. People ask me all the time, "Zach, how do you manage 80 clients? That's insane." Well, the secret is is I slowly built this up. I got two to four bookkeeping clients every month for the last 5 years. And so I've slowly been able to onboard new clients. I learn their processes. I learn how their business works. And then I get used to it. And then I get good at it. And then it becomes second nature. I can quickly close their accounts, quickly reconcile their books, and it's not as hard as it sounds.
So, I bring that up because your goal should be to onboard one to two new clients per month in the first year and then maybe in the second year try to get two to four new clients per month and then slowly build your business. That way, you're not super stressed out, super overwhelmed in the beginning. Slowly build up. It'll be good. I know you're probably stressed out right now because you want more clients, but trust me, it'll be better in the long run if you just slowly build up your book of business.
And then marketing and sales. It's kind of stressful because as an entrepreneur, we are not just a bookkeeper or an accountant. Our job, we have to do everything. We have to do marketing and sales and customer service at the same time. So, I usually give myself a break. Marketing sales will slow down or it's even going to completely stop this week. And that's okay because it's actually kind of a nice break. I always come back the next week feeling refreshed and rejuvenated and excited to get after marketing and sales. And it just gives my brain a chance to take a break from obsessing over prospective clients because like in the last week of every month, I go crazy. In the last week of every month, I am just trying super hard to find new clients and to do more marketing and sales. And then all of a sudden, month-end close happens and then my brain switches and then I just focus on delivering high-quality customer service. I just focus on month-end close and it gives me a chance to take a break from marketing and sales, take a break from social media, take a break from sales calls and from reaching out to interested clients. It's a nice rhythm. Every month it happens. Every month. It's like a nice reset. So, don't be worried. Don't be stressed out if you if your marketing and sales slows down during month-end close. It's okay. You've got three more weeks in the rest of the month to hammer marketing and sales after month-end close.
I try to limit extra client questions during month-end close. So, for example, a lot of my real estate investors, I need to do class tracking for my real estate investors. So, I will send them a list of transactions and I'll say, "Hey, here's a list of transactions from the past two weeks. Can you tell me like for these supplies and utilities and interest and property taxes and insurance, can you tell me which properties these expenses should be allocated to?" And so during month-end close, I'm probably not going to send extra questions. I'm probably not going to send those specific questions to my clients. I can wait a week or two weeks until after month-end close. Try to limit extra client questions because you're already stressed out enough. Focus on what's important right now. What's important right now? Recording transactions from last month, collecting bank statements, reconciling accounts, and sending financial reports. So, anything that's not that in this specific week can probably wait until next week.
And then I even go so far as to blocking off my calendar. I block off my calendar so that nobody can schedule meetings with me. I might not even take new sales consultations, existing clients, people like you. So I have I offer one-on-one consulting. There's I think there's probably a link in the description of this video where you can schedule a one-on-one meeting with me, but I actually block off my entire calendar for the whole week of month-end close. And it's just that's just how it is. Like you can't be expected to be available 24/7, 365. That's ridiculous. I think it's totally reasonable to block off your calendar during the busy times. And if any of your current clients ask you like, "Hey, what's up? Like, why can't I schedule a meeting sooner?" Just be honest with them. Let them know like, "Hey, I take customer service really seriously. I take month-end close really seriously. So, this is just the time where it's blocked off. Like, if you want to meet next Monday at 9:00 a.m., I'm here for it. I will be available as soon as month-end close is over."
Nothing's ever super urgent when it comes to bookkeeping. Bookkeeping, taxes, like we're not saving lives. We're not curing cancer. We're not exploring outer space. Nothing is urgent when it comes to bookkeeping. I promise you. And if it is urgent, then something's wrong. Then something wasn't done properly in the previous months. Nothing should ever be urgent. I might not even take Zip Capital meetings during this week. Sometimes I will if it's a great opportunity. Sometimes I might if I'm not super busy, but I like to meet with investors in Zip Capital, especially local. I'll do phone calls, but I like to do local meetings at local coffee shops with accredited investors, people who want to invest in my investment fund. And even during month-end close, I'm trying to grow Zip Capital. But even so, during month-end close, I might not take on new investor meetings. So, I take it super seriously.
So, you're going to have monthly tasks throughout the week. Don't try to do everything on the first day of the month. You're going to have monthly tasks that need to be done for month-end close. Like maybe you'll have rental income that needs to be distributed or maybe you'll have prepaid expenses or maybe you need to import credit card transactions from the credit card account. Maybe you've got unearned revenue journal entry. It could be anything. You're going to have a list of things that need to be done for every client. Don't try to do everything all at once. Spread it out. You've got realistically seven, eight, nine days to finish month-end close. So spread out your monthly recurring tasks that need to be done because like I said, nothing's urgent. Nothing's so important that it needs to be done on the first day of the month.
And then send month-end close questions on their day. So like I said, if you're a Thursday client, I'm closing out your books on Thursday. I'm going to send you a list of questions on Thursday, and then I'm not going to bother you. If you want to respond same day, next day, amazing. I love that. I'm here for it. I'll send you your P&L as soon as you answer my questions. But there are some clients who quite simply aren't going to get back to you in time. Some clients aren't ever going to get back to you, and that's just the nature of our work. So, what I do is if I send you a list of questions on Thursday, boom, I'm done. I'm done with your account until you respond. And then next Thursday, I'll look at my spreadsheet. I'll look at my workflow tracker and I'll make a note. I'll see. I'll see, okay, I've got a note that says "questions" under the column, "Did you categorize transactions?" And so that tells me that I asked this particular client a list of questions. So I'll go back to my email. I'll search for their email and I'll see, oh, the questions email was never answered. So I'll follow up. I'll respond to that email. I'll say, "Hey, if you get a chance today, could you please try to answer those questions?" But I'm only doing it once a week. That way, you don't burden the client. You don't bother the client, annoy the client with too many questions, but I still want to follow up. I still want to touch base and say, "Hey, I sent you a list of questions last week. Would you mind trying to get those answers today or tomorrow? That way, I can close out your books." Like, I'm trying to do you, I'm trying to provide services to you, the client. I'm trying to close your books. I need these questions answered so I can close your books. So, I send the month-end close questions on their day, not a different day of the week, but on Thursday, and then I'll follow up on Thursday. So, I really try to be strict with only working on my clients on their particular day of the week.
And then I have a recurring monthly email that gets sent out to all my clients. If I don't have view-only access to your bank accounts or your credit card accounts, then I'm sending you a "Documents Needed" email on the first day of every month. And I'm basically going to say, "Hey, please send me last month's bank statements and credit card statements." And if I have a hard time remembering which credit cards I need statements for or if the client has a hard time, so typically if the client struggles to send me the correct vehicle loan statements or credit card loan statements, I might be more specific in my email. So the subject: "Documents Needed." The body: "Hey, please send me last month's credit card statements and bank statements." And then I might have a bulleted list: Capital One credit card, Mercedes-Benz loan statement, CarMax loan statement, Ally loan statement, Wells Fargo bank statement. I might literally list out the bank accounts and credit cards, the specific loan statements that I need every month. That way, there's no confusion because I want to make things as easy as possible for everybody, the client, the bookkeeper, me. I want everything to be as easy as possible.
So, my monthly workflow spreadsheet. You've heard me talk about it before. I think I have it available for download on my website. It's a really simple spreadsheet. It's linked in the description of this video. I've got a ton of digital downloads. The monthly workflow spreadsheet. So, I just really simply, you could, you don't even need to download it, honestly. You can just make it yourself. I have just a list of all my clients and then I have their email address and then I have the day of the week. So I assign 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I assign a number to every client and one is Monday, five is Friday. You get the idea. And then I have "Transactions," and then "Reconciled," and then "Reports" three columns. Transactions means did you record their transactions for month-end close? So I'll just say "Yes" or I'll say "Questions" or I'll say "No." And then for Reconciled, it I'll say "Yes." "Yes." Or I'll say "Need Statements" or I'll be specific. I'll say "Need AMEX credit card statement" or "Need vehicle loan statement." I'll be specific. And then Reports. Did you send the monthly reports to the client? "Yes" or "No." And then so only whenever all three columns are "Yes, Yes, Yes," am I completely done with that client for month-end close. So the monthly workflow spreadsheet, listen, if you have two, three, four clients, not a big deal. But as soon as you get to 10, 15, 20 clients, this becomes a big deal. So just start the process now. Get the spreadsheet up and running now. That way you can just get in the habit of keeping track. Even if you only have two, three, or four clients, just start the spreadsheet now. Get in the habit. That way as you grow, because you will grow, as you grow, you already have the systems in place to track things.
Know the difference between done and perfect. So bookkeeping is a fluid, constantly changing relationship between the client, the bookkeeper, the bank accounts, the credit card accounts, QuickBooks, vendors, customers, invoices, bills, accounts payable, accounts receivable. Bookkeeping is constantly changing. It's a fluid relationship. Think about it like a puzzle, but also think about a puzzle. Imagine you have a 1,000-piece puzzle and imagine four or five pieces are in the wrong spot. If you take a step back and look at that puzzle, you're still going to, it's still going to look complete. You're going to be able to see, okay, that is a picture, a puzzle of the beach. That is a city. Like I can clearly see that is New York, a puzzle of New York City, even if four or five pieces are in the wrong spot. Same thing with your bookkeeping. You need to know the difference between being done, being good enough, and being perfect. If you try to make every single account, every transaction perfect, you're going to lose your mind because small businesses operate in an imperfect world. There, it's just not going to be perfect and you as a bookkeeper need to be okay with that. I'm not suggesting that you do a bad job. That's not what I'm saying. As a matter of fact, I'm saying the opposite. 100% effort, integrity, honesty, admit when you make mistakes, 100%. I will always say that. But if you give 100% effort and if you try to do the right thing and if you're honest and if it's still not done, you need to be okay. If it's still not perfect, you need to be okay with just accepting the fact that this is as good as it's going to get. And then so what I'll do is I will send the client the P&L, the balance sheet, whatever reports you might send your client, and then I'll make a couple notes like, "Hey, here is your July P&L, but here's a note. I'm still missing your vehicle loan statement. So I have not had the chance to split interest and principal for this vehicle." Here's your P&L, but here's also a list of three or four questions that I have in "Ask My Accountant" or "Uncategorized Expense" or "Uncategorized Asset." I have here's a list of three or four transactions that I'm still not sure what to do with. So, just understand and become comfortable living in this imperfect world between done and good enough and perfect. It's never going to be perfect. You're going to drive yourself and probably your client crazy if you're constantly trying to make it perfect. So, do your best, do the right thing, be honest, but just understand.
And each client is different. Each client is different. This is something that I had to learn over time. So, there are some clients who are going to pick through your general ledger with a fine-tooth comb and pick out every transaction and ask you a ton of questions. That's amazing. I love that. I am here for it. I want your books. Trust me, I probably want your books to be more accurate than you do because I'm an accountant. I'm a bookkeeper. Like, this is my thing. I want your books to be good. I want to do a good job. So, if you want to ask me questions and go through things and review things, I'm here for it. I love it. But then there's also going to be clients who just never look at your P&L, never answer your questions, never send you statements. So, you just have to learn how to make it good enough. That's enough of that.
Okay. A couple more points and then we'll wrap up this video. Let's talk about time management, managing your schedule. So, work a few hours on the weekend before and during month-end close. So, if let's just say for example, Monday, I think Monday, September 1st. So, this would be applicable. So, Monday, September 1st, that's that's coming up next month. So, month-end close and that's Labor Day. So, that's a holiday. So, probably month-end close for all of us will start Tuesday, September 2nd. So, what I recommend: August 29th, August 30th, over the weekend, make sure everything is done. Work for two hours on Saturday, work for an hour on Sunday. Make sure your email inbox is totally cleaned up. Make sure your office is clean. Make sure everything is done. Prepare yourself for month-end close. Work a few hours before month-end close on the weekend just to set yourself up for success. Like clean up all those loose ends. Send out all your last-minute quotes. Whatever you got to do, tidy up your life and your business before month-end close and then during month-end close. So, with Tuesday, September 2nd and then Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, you're going to be busy doing months. Just come to terms. Accept the fact that you're probably going to have to work three or four hours on Saturday. It's just once a month. Once a month. So, if you're married, tell your spouse. If you've got kids, if you've got friends, just plan to work two to four hours on Saturday. I'm not saying 10 hours every Saturday, every Sunday. I'm not saying you're never going to have a life for the entire time that you're a bookkeeper or an accountant. That's not true. Just during month-end close, one Saturday a month, work two to four hours. I promise you if you do that, you're just going to make your week so much less stressful. You're going to get ahead. You're going to accomplish things. I promise you. Just accept the fact and communicate with your spouse. Tell your friends like, "Sorry, can't hang out Friday night. Can't go out with you guys Friday night. Can't watch college football on Saturday. Got to work four hours on Saturday to catch up once a month. Month-end close."
Be willing to make personal sacrifices during the week. So, we talked about the weekend, but also during the week. Maybe you like to go to the gym. I do. I like to go to the gym every week. Maybe you hang out with your buddies on Thursday night. Maybe you go to trivia. Maybe you go bowling. Maybe you're in a softball league. Whatever it might be during the week of month-end close, you're going to have to make sacrifices. Maybe even your kids. Listen, I've got four kids. I've got one on the way due in September. I love my kids. I try to spend as much time as possible, but you're going to have to work with your spouse. Month-end close. Maybe, I don't know, maybe you wake up early. Maybe your spouse is the one who gets them on the bus during month-end close. Maybe your parents or like your grandparents or your aunt or your uncle, your cousin comes over in the evening to help out with dinner one night a week during month-end close to help take care of the kids while you work late that day, if you want. Now, with all that being said, if if if sacrificing the gym, sacrificing friends, sacrificing weekends, sacrificing time with your kids, if all of that sounds terrible, then don't do it. I'm not saying you have to. You could probably have 10 or 15 clients and never make any sacrifices and just live a very comfortable life and make $7, $8,000 a month and be very happy. 15 clients a month, not a big deal. But if you want to grow to the point where you've got 30, 40, 50 clients, then you will have to make sacrifices. But if you don't want to, don't do it. Do whatever you want. Do whatever you makes you happy. That's the cool thing about being an entrepreneur.
Okay. Sleep bank before. So I typically wake up at 5:00 a.m. every morning, but the last two or three days of the month, I try to sleep in over the weekend. I try to sleep in. Sleep bank. I'm a firm believer if you get 10 hours of sleep, two or three days in a row, then you could probably survive off of five or six hours of sleep the next four or five days. So, sleep bank, catch up on sleep the weekend before, a couple days before month-end close. That way, you can wake up early, stay up late, get the work done. Enjoy the last week of the month. Consider consider batching a few social media posts in the last week of the month. You're going to be much less busy in these last two weeks of the month. So, I've got a social media marketing guide on my website for sale, harrisburgbookkeeping.com/store. It's linked in the description. It'll help you with your social media marketing plan. But consider batching some of your social media work. Just enjoy the last week of the month. Do some extra sales calls. Do some marketing. Hey, maybe even call off early. Spend some time. Go pick up your kids from school early. Go to the park with your kids. Hang out with your spouse, hang out with your buddies, whatever. Go shopping, whatever you like to do. Maybe the last two or three days of the month, treat yourself. Relax, take some time off, spend some time with the family because you're going to have to make sacrifices the next week during month-end close.
And then finally, track how long this takes you. Track how long it takes you to work on the clients during month-end close so that you can adjust your quote process. Figure out what you like doing and what you don't like doing during month-end close. That way, whenever you onboard your next client, you know, hey, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do sales tax. I don't want to do payroll. I'm just going to do bookkeeping. I don't want to do accounts receivable. I'm just going to do bookkeeping. Whatever that looks like for you. Figure out what you like doing and what you don't like doing and track to see how long it takes you to do the work. And then figure out how much you're quoting and how much you're charging. And then you can kind of figure out, you can kind of reverse plan, reverse engineer how much you're making per hour and then adjust accordingly.
That's it. Hopefully that was helpful. Last thing, like I said, I'm growing Zip Capital. So if if you found my videos helpful, if you're an accredited investor, which means you have $200,000 of annual income or a $1 million net worth, I would encourage you to take a look at my investment fund. I'm offering 8% up to 12% fixed returns. Everything I do inside of Zip Capital is backed by real estate. So, I invest in real estate debt. I charge my borrowers a fixed annual interest. That's how I'm able to pay you fixed returns as well. So, consider investing in Zip Capital. Register on my website. I would love to chat with you if you're an accredited investor and want to invest. Thanks for watching. I'll see you all next week.