Latest / The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business / How to be the CFO of Your Business

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How to be the CFO of Your Business · The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business

• 0:00
  Coming up on this episode of The Spiro podcast.
• 0:04
  So you can look at your PNL for this month and review it the last month
• 0:08
  or you can look at it this month, a year ago.
• 0:11
  So maybe May 24 versus May 23
• 0:14
  to see the health of your business.
• 0:17
  And when you do this, you can truly begin
• 0:20
  to anticipate what your business is going to do.
• 0:24
  And anticipating what your business can do
• 0:26
  is a key to understanding the health of your business.
• 0:30
  And is it time to scale back or is it time to put your foot on the gas
• 0:34
  pedal and grow?
• 0:36
  Welcome to the Spiro podcast.
• 0:38
  Managing your real estate photography and videography business
• 0:43
  with your hosts, Todd Kivimaki
• 0:45
  and Craig Magrum.
• 0:49
  Hello and welcome to the Spiro podcast.
• 0:52
  Spiro is a software platform to help you
• 0:55
  manage and grow your real estate media business.
• 0:59
  My name is Todd Kivimaki.
• 1:01
  I am one of the host and owners and founders of Spiro.
• 1:04
  And I am just by myself today.
• 1:06
  So this is a little bit different.
• 1:08
  You guys are probably all thinking, Wait a minute,
• 1:10
  this is a different voice to begin now.
• 1:12
  Craig normally does this and he is the better part of this podcast.
• 1:17
  So if this is your first time joining sorry, you don't get Craig today,
• 1:21
  but Craig is on a much needed and well-deserved vacation.
• 1:25
  So you're getting me today and I'm excited to be on here with you today.
• 1:29
  Got some exciting topics to talk about.
• 1:33
  Something that's very relevant to your business might not be the most fun to do,
• 1:37
  but I'm going to give you some tips on how we do it at our business
• 1:41
  and how I manage the companies with this process.
• 1:45
  So first off, I'd like to start off with a few Spiro updates.
• 1:50
  So inside of Spiro you will see all of these updates live and launched.
• 1:55
  So I'm going to go through a quick list here.
• 1:57
  Give me a minute on the clock and I'll let you know what's new.
• 2:01
  The Merge fleet,
• 2:02
  which is our logic based video editor, now supports vertical video.
• 2:07
  So if you are not offering video, you're like, Hey,
• 2:09
  I don't know how to shoot it or how to edit it.
• 2:12
  We've got you covered.
• 2:13
  We have a free training course.
• 2:15
  The merge fleet inside of Spiro will edit for you.
• 2:18
  If you're not a spiro user, you don't have to be, to use the merge fleet.
• 2:23
  You can sign up for a free spiro account and you can click Merge Fleet
• 2:27
  and you can process inside of Spiro
• 2:29
  just your videos and then you can deliver those some other method
• 2:32
  if you would like.
• 2:33
  Of course, Spiro will streamline it for you,
• 2:35
  but it is an option you don't have to be a Spiro user
• 2:38
  of your jobs to use the merge fleet.
• 2:41
  We've revamped invoices, so now you have a couple of custom boxes
• 2:45
  where you can put a memo,
• 2:49
  your Tax ID, whatever needs to be on there to keep you legal.
• 2:51
  It's all different anymore.
• 2:52
  You're out in the world, but that is on there.
• 2:55
  Multi-Time zones are now much more supported in there.
• 2:59
  We did a full launch to “Translations”.
• 3:01
  So if you are in a different country
• 3:05
  and your clients are speaking a different native language.
• 3:08
  Spiro can now translate for you.
• 3:10
  So Germans, Spanish, French and Danish all inside of Spiro.
• 3:16
  So excited about that. For our international users,
• 3:20
  we put your logo on
• 3:21
  the tracking page, put a few more currencies in there.
• 3:25
  You guys are giving us great suggestions and we really appreciate that.
• 3:28
  We have started a new board
• 3:31
  where you can actually put your suggestions and you can also upvote
• 3:35
  other users suggestions.
• 3:37
  So if you just want to visit Spiromedia.featurebase.app
• 3:42
  you can find that there.
• 3:43
  Also, I'm going to email this out in a newsletter, but one more time
• 3:46
  spiromedia.featurebase.app
• 3:50
  You will get our Spiro user board.
• 3:54
  Feel free to post something there.
• 3:56
  See what other people are suggesting.
• 3:59
  And if you see something you like, you can upvote another as well.
• 4:02
  So we wanted to add that on there
• 4:04
  to be more transparent about what we're working on in the meantime.
• 4:09
  Cool.
• 4:10
  Moving forward, a few more Spiro updates.
• 4:12
  I'd like to let you know about when you rearrange images
• 4:16
  and your client downloads them.
• 4:17
  We now add a sequence number on them so that they are in the order
• 4:21
  that has been rearranged. So that was a much requested update.
• 4:23
  Happy to do that for you guys.
• 4:26
  Also, if you want to disable the sign in page on the order page, had a few of
• 4:29
  you wanted to do that, you can turn that sign in pop up off.
• 4:33
  They would just click in the upper right hand corner.
• 4:37
  We have an enhanced white
• 4:39
  email, white labeling and domain white labeling.
• 4:42
  We've improved the iPhone download page
• 4:45
  and also condensed the invoices just a little bit more.
• 4:51
  Just a few more.
• 4:51
  This was a much requested rich previews on the property website.
• 4:55
  So if your clients are pasting your property website
• 4:58
  onto social media, it will now put a preview image for them.
• 5:02
  So I'm going over my minute.
• 5:04
  I'm going to stop there. I have a few more here.
• 5:06
  They all hit the newsletter.
• 5:07
  I'll let you read those yourself.
• 5:10
  If you're not in the newsletter, you can sign up.
• 5:12
  Visit Spiro.Media to find out more.
• 5:15
  All right.
• 5:16
  Well, we hope that you guys are all having a great busy season
• 5:19
  at our real estate media company, which is called Wow Video Tours.
• 5:23
  We are having a very exciting year.
• 5:26
  Firstly, it is our 20th year in business.
• 5:30
  Wow. You know what?
• 5:31
  I think over that 20 years is I'm so blessed
• 5:34
  to be able to do this for 20 years.
• 5:35
  And when I started this 20 years ago, I could have never imagined
• 5:39
  that we would shoot 12, 15,000 shoots a year.
• 5:43
  And I'd have the staff and the team that I have.
• 5:45
  And so if you are out there, you're thinking, How am I gonna get this started?
• 5:51
  You can do it.
• 5:53
  You really can.
• 5:54
  It just takes some positive thought, It takes strategic thought,
• 5:59
  but it also takes in mentors who along the way,
• 6:01
  hopefully we can bump you and push you in the right direction.
• 6:05
  If you have questions along your journey, we answer those for you.
• 6:09
  You can feel free to reach out to me.
• 6:11
  hello@spiro.media.
• 6:13
  Let me know what questions you have.
• 6:15
  If we don't know the answer, then we're going to find an expert
• 6:18
  that we can bring on to the podcast to share that.
• 6:22
  Also, if you are on the other side of that coin
• 6:25
  and you have had some success in your business and you've
• 6:28
  grown your business and you want to start giving back, feels good to give back.
• 6:33
  If you want to start giving back.
• 6:34
  And if you'd like to be a guest on the podcast, feel free to email me as well.
• 6:39
  hello@spiro.media and let me know a little bit about your story.
• 6:43
  And then now we can look to have you on to share
• 6:46
  kind of some unique things that you've done to help grow.
• 6:49
  Great.
• 6:50
  Now transitioning into our main topic today, now this is one
• 6:54
  that is vital to your business
• 6:59
  and unfortunately this is one that I find a lot of times
• 7:02
  gets pushed down the priority list.
• 7:05
  You know, at our Wow, our media company typically
• 7:10
  what's urgent today the shoot's availability an unhappy client
• 7:15
  that pushes to the top
• 7:18
  of our priority list and rightfully so.
• 7:22
  Sometimes I say that with a little asterisks.
• 7:26
  Our number one core value at WOW is
• 7:29
  clients are our number one priority.
• 7:33
  So we try to align all of our staff
• 7:36
  to use that when they are troubleshooting, when they're answering the phone,
• 7:42
  answering an email, to remember that as a company,
• 7:46
  we want our clients to feel like they are our only client, our best client.
• 7:51
  They are our number one priority.
• 7:54
  So when you have a core value like that, it can become pretty heavy
• 7:58
  because you strive very, very hard to make everyone happy.
• 8:05
  And saying that
• 8:06
  you also begin to set yourself up for a little bit of failure. I had a coach.
• 8:10
  Tell me once,
• 8:12
  because I'm a people pleaser by nature,
• 8:15
  saying yes to everyone
• 8:18
  is actually saying no to someone or to many.
• 8:23
  So sometimes you just have to say no and then you can say it in a polite way.
• 8:28
  You can say, Hey, I'm sorry,
• 8:31
  I can't do that, or I'm sorry.
• 8:33
  Maybe another photographer can help you out better.
• 8:37
  That's a difficult conversation to have,
• 8:41
  but sometimes it's necessary
• 8:43
  to say no so that you can really prioritize
• 8:46
  what is important to work on
• 8:50
  and grow your business.
• 8:53
  So today we're going to talk about your bookkeeping.
• 8:57
  I know how many of you just turn me off,
• 9:01
  right?
• 9:01
  I know you're like, Oh, come on, Todd.
• 9:02
  You just set it up to be this vital thing.
• 9:08
  Gave us this spiel.
• 9:09
  You know, we're seven, 8 minutes into the podcast now,
• 9:13
  and you're telling me we're talking about bookkeeping?
• 9:15
  Oh, yes, we're talking about bookkeeping
• 9:18
  Today. Why?
• 9:21
  Because it is vital to your company.
• 9:24
  Why did you start a business in the first place?
• 9:29
  Okay, think about it. Why?
• 9:30
  I'm going to give you some time.
• 9:31
  This is going to be we're going to interact today.
• 9:34
  Why did you start a business in the first place?
• 9:39
  Maybe some of you
• 9:41
  don't want to work for a boss you didn't like.
• 9:45
  Maybe some of you wanted to build
• 9:47
  something that you owned.
• 9:51
  Maybe some of you wanted to wake up
• 9:52
  and be invigorated and enjoy what you do every day.
• 9:59
  Maybe some of you is just a goal.
• 10:01
  Maybe your parents, maybe your aunt or uncle owned a business
• 10:05
  and you have that entrepreneurial spirit.
• 10:10
  Maybe for some of you,
• 10:12
  and I'd say a lot would reduce down to this reason
• 10:17
  is that you wanted to take control of your future.
• 10:22
  And some of that
• 10:24
  depends on financial freedom, right.
• 10:28
  You know, how many of you out there listening
• 10:30
  right now you might be on the way to your next shoot?
• 10:33
  You might be this might be, you know,
• 10:36
  some other time you might be exercising right now.
• 10:38
  I don't know how
• 10:40
  I don't know how motivated I am of your.
• 10:42
  Listen to me. When you exercise,
• 10:45
  I don't know why I thought of that.
• 10:46
  Maybe nobody listens to me when they exercise. So
• 10:51
  if you listen to music, you might be a little more productive with exercising.
• 10:55
  So I'm cracking myself up, y'all today.
• 10:57
  This is
• 10:57
  typically the point in the podcast where Craig saves me
• 11:02
  from my rambling stops and he saves me
• 11:05
  and he says something very intelligent, but I don't having the day.
• 11:09
  So. Okay, let me let me reset here for you all.
• 11:13
  So how many of you out there
• 11:15
  listening right now
• 11:18
  know your finances?
• 11:23
  You might feel busy
• 11:27
  and it's busy season,
• 11:31
  but does that correlate to
• 11:35
  the fact that you're
• 11:37
  financially good or do you not know?
• 11:42
  Do you know what you're spending?
• 11:44
  How many of you out there you might not be as busy,
• 11:49
  but maybe you're more
• 11:50
  financially sound than last year?
• 11:55
  You know what's interesting?
• 11:56
  I'll give you a quick example of that inverse relationship
• 12:01
  where typically when we're busy, at least for me, when I'm busy,
• 12:06
  I feel like financially that's always going to correlate.
• 12:10
  It doesn't If you're super busy right now
• 12:15
  and you're not careful with your expenses,
• 12:19
  you're not knowing what you spend,
• 12:22
  you're not careful with your invoicing,
• 12:25
  you don't know if you've collected,
• 12:28
  then being busy is not
• 12:32
  related to, in this case,
• 12:36
  being financially good and stable.
• 12:40
  So I did a metric section,
• 12:42
  I did a metrics session, Eli
• 12:44
  Jones and I did about a month ago.
• 12:47
  And if you want to watch the replay, you can find it on his YouTube channel.
• 12:52
  @It'sEliJones on YouTube and just click the lives.
• 12:56
  And one thing that our largest client who has turned in somewhat
• 13:02
  of a mentor of mine,
• 13:04
  said to me once,
• 13:07
  I told him something about photo or video, and I can't remember what it was,
• 13:10
  but he said to me, Todd, is that what you think?
• 13:15
  Or is that what you know?
• 13:20
  So I think I'm busy.
• 13:24
  I feel busy.
• 13:25
  I think I'm financially responsible.
• 13:27
  But is that really what you know?
• 13:32
  So that's why I would argue with you
• 13:33
  that knowing your finances
• 13:37
  is extremely important.
• 13:40
  Okay.
• 13:40
  Let me ask you a question.
• 13:44
  Who is the CFO of your company?
• 13:50
  So the chief financial officer,
• 13:53
  who is the CFO of your company?
• 13:57
  I would say
• 13:57
  for probably 99 or 100% of our listeners,
• 14:02
  that person is, you.
• 14:07
  Okay.
• 14:07
  I don't know that any of us have a business
• 14:09
  big enough to have a CFO position.
• 14:12
  We did at WOW, a year or two ago
• 14:14
  and we realized we just didn't need a CFO position.
• 14:17
  We brought that back in.
• 14:19
  I took on a lot of that responsibility, along with the leaders of the company.
• 14:24
  So if you don't have a CFO at your company,
• 14:29
  you are responsible for all the finances
• 14:34
  of what's happening.
• 14:38
  Now, Maybe some of you have a bookkeeper,
• 14:40
  maybe some of you have a
• 14:43
  relative or a family member that helps out.
• 14:46
  But I would still argue that it is extremely important
• 14:49
  for you to know these numbers.
• 14:52
  So I sit in a coaching call
• 14:54
  once a week and by a coach.
• 14:58
  His name's Austin Cheviron.
• 14:59
  He was a realtor and he coaches other realtors.
• 15:04
  If you want to look him up, Cheviron has an I in it.
• 15:06
  C h e v i r o n
• 15:08
  So I sit in weekly and he coaches and he asks this week,
• 15:16
  What is required for you to be the CFO?
• 15:22
  So I'll ask you that question.
• 15:23
  I'm going to reuse Austin's question What is required for you to be the
• 15:27
  CFO of your company?
• 15:29
  What comes to mind?
• 15:31
  Okay.
• 15:31
  How many of you are thinking,
• 15:33
  knowing your finances,
• 15:34
  knowing QuickBooks, FreshBooks, whatever you use,
• 15:38
  reconciling the bank account?
• 15:41
  Okay.
• 15:41
  I would say no, that's that's not the correct answer.
• 15:45
  Maybe skills needed, but what's required?
• 15:49
  So the number one requirement
• 15:51
  to be the CFO of your company
• 15:55
  is time.
• 15:57
  You have to spend time in your bookkeeping.
• 16:03
  How many of you out there listening
• 16:07
  time block
• 16:09
  on your calendar and you set a reoccurring calendar event
• 16:14
  to work on your financials?
• 16:18
  I don't do this.
• 16:19
  I do this. We do this once a month.
• 16:21
  So by the seventh of the month, we need to have all of our expenses
• 16:26
  categorized inside of our bookkeeping software
• 16:29
  and we'll go on to software here in a little bit.
• 16:31
  I'll tell you exactly what we use in the processes,
• 16:34
  but inside of your bookkeeping software,
• 16:37
  inside of our bookkeeping software, the only thing that I previously had
• 16:41
  had said on my calendar was
• 16:42
  I need to have my expenses and my team's expenses categorized
• 16:47
  and I'm going to add more time to my calendar
• 16:50
  to weekly review those expenses and my finances.
• 16:57
  And I would suggest that you do the same.
• 16:59
  Now, one of the beautiful things is we don't need a whole lot of time.
• 17:04
  Once you have a good process, we don't have that large of businesses,
• 17:09
  okay?
• 17:09
  Even at Wow when we're doing 12, 15,000 jobs
• 17:12
  a year and a few million in revenue, there's not that many.
• 17:16
  It's not overwhelming between the leaders and myself.
• 17:19
  We can handle it.
• 17:21
  And actually working in it gives you a better pulse
• 17:24
  on your business.
• 17:27
  So you've got to find some time to do your finances. It's
• 17:33
  the number one requirement to be the CFO, which you all are of your company.
• 17:39
  Okay.
• 17:39
  So once you have some time blocked aside, you know, potentially
• 17:43
  this is morning time that's what Austin suggested.
• 17:47
  Just block out a little bit of time in the morning
• 17:50
  once a week, maybe twice a week.
• 17:53
  And our morning brains are typically our stronger and more clear brains
• 17:58
  and you don't need a lot of time on it, maybe an hour a week, two, 30 minute
• 18:02
  blocks to know what's going on, block out that time, put it on your calendar
• 18:07
  and then you're saying, hey, Todd, what do I do?
• 18:10
  So I'm going to tell you what we do and how I manage
• 18:14
  the companies that we own with finances.
• 18:17
  So we have a subscription
• 18:20
  to QuickBooks, and we've used a few of them.
• 18:23
  We've used QuickBooks.
• 18:24
  I've been in Freshbooks
• 18:27
  and also we actively used Xero for many years at Wow as well.
• 18:33
  We switched from Xero to QuickBooks
• 18:35
  and this podcast and is not sponsored.
• 18:39
  I'm not getting anything by saying one of these names.
• 18:41
  I'm just telling you what we use.
• 18:43
  We pay for it and why we made the change.
• 18:48
  We found that
• 18:48
  Xero is more geared towards non U.S.
• 18:52
  users.
• 18:53
  So some of the some of the financing practices
• 18:57
  and some of the logic in there is just more geared towards
• 18:59
  some international practices and it just felt a little bit
• 19:04
  not aligned with what we wanted in the U.S., especially the PNL
• 19:10
  and the way some of the some of the things structurally were set up.
• 19:14
  So we use Xero for many years and we this year,
• 19:18
  the beginning of the year, just transition in the QuickBooks, the online version
• 19:23
  and QuickBooks Online is a subscription based model.
• 19:27
  I'll let you check it out.
• 19:28
  You probably need the lowest subscription.
• 19:31
  We'll get into payroll.
• 19:32
  I see some of you asking payroll questions.
• 19:34
  I'll give you our opinion on payroll here in a minute.
• 19:37
  But regardless, if you use QuickBooks,
• 19:40
  FreshBooks, Xero, you need a budget.
• 19:43
  There's many others out there.
• 19:45
  You need to find a software system that will allow you to sync
• 19:50
  in all of your bank and credit card fees feeds.
• 19:55
  Excuse me.
• 19:56
  So inside of that, what I mean by that is once you set up an online system,
• 20:02
  so I'll use QuickBooks, for example,
• 20:04
  once we set up QuickBooks at the beginning of the year,
• 20:07
  the first thing I did is I went in and I added
• 20:11
  any bank or credit
• 20:13
  card that we would have a business expense on.
• 20:17
  So I added our four or five bank accounts.
• 20:20
  I added all of the credit cards, my credit cards, the teams credit cards,
• 20:25
  the sales teams, credit cards, anything that will have a business expense on it.
• 20:32
  Okay, So why am I doing that?
• 20:35
  Well, if you want to maximize your taxes
• 20:39
  and optimize for taxes, you need
• 20:43
  to make sure that anything that you charge for your business
• 20:48
  gets categorized and sent to your CPA
• 20:54
  at the end of the year before you do taxes.
• 20:57
  So one thing that I struggle with many years is when I started Wow,
• 21:02
  there was no difference between Todd and Wow, and it was very small.
• 21:07
  I was making just a little bit amount of money with real estate media,
• 21:12
  and I would there was no division
• 21:14
  between my personal expenses and my business expenses.
• 21:18
  And I very quickly changed this because it got to be very difficult
• 21:22
  to remember what I charged on my personal card.
• 21:26
  That was actually a business expense.
• 21:28
  Okay, So if you're out
• 21:31
  coffee with a client
• 21:34
  and you charge that on your personal card
• 21:39
  and say it's $20
• 21:42
  and you think, oh, what's $20?
• 21:44
  It's just $20.
• 21:47
  Well, if you're not writing off that $20,
• 21:51
  then you're not saving the tax on that amount.
• 21:56
  And if you're saying, hey, it's only $20, like what's the tax on it?
• 22:02
  It's going to add up maybe one $20.
• 22:04
  Transaction's not going to sink you.
• 22:06
  But if you do that every day, 52 weeks out of the year,
• 22:11
  ten, 20 years in business, that is going to add up
• 22:15
  to be a ton of money that you did not write off on your taxes.
• 22:20
  And that is rightfully so, a business expense.
• 22:23
  So what I would encourage you to do is at this point right now, no matter
• 22:27
  how big or small you are, you should have
• 22:31
  personal credit cards and bank accounts
• 22:34
  and you should have business credit cards and bank accounts.
• 22:38
  I do this. I keep them all my wallet.
• 22:40
  I have my personal credit cards.
• 22:42
  I have Wow, credit cards.
• 22:44
  I have my Spiro credit cards. Okay.
• 22:46
  Because those are all separate
• 22:49
  entities that I need to sort the expenses.
• 22:55
  So we're sinking
• 22:56
  all of those credit cards and bank feeds into QuickBooks
• 23:00
  so that you actually know everything you're spending.
• 23:05
  You know, you're it's easy
• 23:07
  to spend money in the world today.
• 23:10
  It's so right.
• 23:11
  I mean, you take the credit card, you tap it on the thing,
• 23:13
  and literally a half a second later, it's boom, it's done.
• 23:17
  You know, it's not like back in the day and I don't know how many of you I'm
• 23:20
  dating myself here, but it's not like you have to stand there
• 23:23
  and write a check to somebody, you know, take 2 minutes to write a check.
• 23:27
  You fill it out, you sign it, you'd have a carbon copy.
• 23:31
  You'd hand it over to the person at the register.
• 23:34
  You know, when we took a little bit more time writing a check and it wasn't
• 23:37
  so easy to spend money, you remember a little bit more
• 23:40
  and you have your credit, you have your checkbook transaction.
• 23:44
  Well, we don't do that anymore.
• 23:46
  No matter where we go, our phone, our credit card, we tap it
• 23:50
  and we've just spent money.
• 23:52
  So you
• 23:53
  need to know all the money you're spending
• 23:55
  A proper CFO would do that.
• 23:57
  And remember, that CFO is you.
• 23:59
  So inside of QuickBooks, we sync all of our bank feeds, it's super
• 24:03
  easy to do, just sign in to the account and then you hit sync
• 24:07
  and then all of those come in as what they call transactions.
• 24:10
  So those are all either money you've spent
• 24:14
  or that's money you've earned.
• 24:18
  And we need to
• 24:19
  you need to begin to categorize these transactions.
• 24:23
  So you're going to have things related to
• 24:25
  car expenses,
• 24:28
  phone, Internet equipment.
• 24:31
  You're going to have supplies and meals, entertainment.
• 24:35
  You're going to have all of these different categories and then some.
• 24:39
  And categorizing
• 24:41
  those transactions under the correct category is going to be important.
• 24:45
  Okay.
• 24:45
  So we do this at Wow, we do this monthly right now,
• 24:48
  and I'm going to transition into doing this weekly.
• 24:51
  So we go in and we sync all of the new transactions come in
• 24:55
  every time we've tapped a credit card and we've spent money, it comes in,
• 24:59
  it tells you the vendor and it tells you the amount.
• 25:02
  Now we have a process at our company where we save all the receipts.
• 25:07
  Okay, So I'm holding up some here now.
• 25:08
  I save some paper receipts.
• 25:10
  The sales team we have, there's an app involved where you can scan,
• 25:16
  you can take a picture of a receipt and it will go right back into QuickBooks.
• 25:20
  Now you need to be on a higher
• 25:23
  subscription to have that app.
• 25:24
  You don't really need it.
• 25:25
  The main thing is, is that you need I would at least snap a picture
• 25:28
  of your receipt because when you think you're going to remember it,
• 25:32
  So you're at Starbucks, you're at the grocery store,
• 25:36
  you're quickly grabbing a box of cookies to take by a real estate office
• 25:40
  and you think, Oh, I'm going to remember what this transactions for.
• 25:44
  You won't. You just simply won't.
• 25:47
  And then you're
• 25:48
  going to get back into QuickBooks and you're going to look at that thing
• 25:51
  and you're going to be like, Why did I spend this $27 on?
• 25:56
  Okay, so save those receipts,
• 25:59
  find a way, snap them, the app works great,
• 26:03
  or just keep you can keep a stack of receipts
• 26:06
  and legally Now ask your accountant on this.
• 26:09
  We save receipts as well, copies of receipts
• 26:12
  so that if we were ever to be audited, we could go back and we could
• 26:14
  show that that was a receipt.
• 26:18
  So get all those transactions in and figure out what you've spent.
• 26:21
  Okay, that's super important.
• 26:23
  Now, the next question that I get a lot of times is
• 26:27
  this is a Spiro question, but this is a question regardless
• 26:29
  of what system you're in or if you're not in a system.
• 26:33
  Will Spiro sync with QuickBooks and
• 26:38
  there's two answers.
• 26:39
  The first one is, yes, you have to do it through a webhook where you manually set
• 26:43
  it up, send a zap over, and it will create an invoice in QuickBooks.
• 26:46
  However, I will tell you that you do not need to do that.
• 26:50
  Spiro will manage all of your invoices
• 26:54
  and all of the collection of the invoices is inside of Spiro.
• 26:58
  We don't need to create duplicate invoices
• 27:02
  inside of QuickBooks to mark those as paid and unpaid.
• 27:06
  Okay, Spiro will do all of that for you.
• 27:08
  There is no reason to create duplicate invoices.
• 27:11
  In fact, I sit with my accountant this week.
• 27:14
  On Monday, and
• 27:17
  it's been about a year since we talked.
• 27:19
  And I do like to sit with my accountant, my attorney.
• 27:22
  I like to sit with these individuals
• 27:23
  just to give them an idea as to what's happening in my business
• 27:27
  and see if there's any gaps that I don't know about.
• 27:30
  And I asked Katie, I said, Hey, Katie, this is the way the process works.
• 27:35
  Everything's managed inside of Spiro.
• 27:36
  Do you want me to create duplicates inside of QuickBooks?
• 27:41
  She immediately said, No,
• 27:43
  no reason to do that.
• 27:45
  We do not need to do that.
• 27:46
  That's only going to lead to confusion and duplicate work that's not needed.
• 27:51
  Okay, so you're probably asking me now.
• 27:54
  Well, Todd, what about my income?
• 27:56
  How do I get my income into QuickBooks from Spiro?
• 28:02
  And my answer is from your bank feed.
• 28:06
  So all of your payments are taken inside of Spiro
• 28:10
  through your stripe square, authorized dot net, through your credit card processor.
• 28:15
  Then from your credit card processor,
• 28:17
  there's distributions from that account to your bank account.
• 28:22
  Okay.
• 28:22
  So if you go to your bank account, your log in, and you'll see that
• 28:26
  income coming in and it will be a lump amount,
• 28:30
  it'll be from many, many invoices that right there
• 28:36
  serves the purpose of getting all of your income into QuickBooks.
• 28:40
  So you don't need the individual invoices.
• 28:42
  That's what Spiro does for you.
• 28:44
  If you want to run any type of report, it's in Spiro.
• 28:48
  If you want to see what invoices haven't been paid, it's in Spiro.
• 28:53
  We just launched a couple of months ago A beautiful metrics dashboard.
• 28:57
  Do you want to know what your revenue is this month or this year?
• 29:00
  It's in Spiro average order value, unique clients, number of new clients
• 29:06
  cash collected, number of jobs, that is all inside of Spiro.
• 29:10
  There is no reason to do that in QuickBooks.
• 29:13
  The main thing that you need out of QuickBooks
• 29:16
  is you need to categorize your transactions
• 29:18
  so you can optimize your taxes and part of that to
• 29:22
  get your taxes is to be able to build a PNL and see a balance sheet
• 29:25
  that will take your income and your expenses.
• 29:28
  That's all you need.
• 29:30
  It's actually pretty quite
• 29:31
  it's actually quite simple
• 29:34
  once you do it a few times.
• 29:37
  Okay, so all of your income goes
• 29:40
  from Stripe into your bank account
• 29:44
  and then your bank account is connected to QuickBooks.
• 29:48
  Hit the sync button that comes in and that is categorized
• 29:51
  as your revenue.
• 29:53
  So now we have our revenue in.
• 29:55
  That's the top line of your PNL.
• 29:58
  PNL stands for your profit and loss.
• 30:00
  It's a financial statement that's incredibly important,
• 30:03
  that is structured in a way where you have your top line revenue from there.
• 30:08
  Then you need to categorize all of your cost of goods or COGS, COGS
• 30:14
  cost of goods sold in our business and real estate media.
• 30:19
  Your cost of goods is your cost of your photographers.
• 30:27
  And if you're your only photographer, I would suggest that you pay yourself
• 30:32
  as a photographer inside of spiro set your photographer payout.
• 30:36
  It can track it all for you.
• 30:38
  What that's going to do is as you grow, you will be able to see
• 30:42
  if you're financially able to hire more photographers.
• 30:46
  So treat yourself just like someone you're going to hire
• 30:49
  and put those fees into your cost of goods.
• 30:54
  Right?
• 30:55
  So your cost of goods is going to be your photographers.
• 30:57
  It's going to be all of your editing.
• 31:00
  Okay.
• 31:00
  So any costs related to the goods or the service that you've delivered,
• 31:05
  your editing, it's going to be your Spiro fees.
• 31:09
  Okay.
• 31:09
  Any other system that you have that's
• 31:12
  related strictly to the cost of goods?
• 31:16
  We have a few others.
• 31:17
  We have some small ones. We deliver a
• 31:20
  a USB, a USB case so our clients can order USBs
• 31:25
  with a beautiful case design and we send it out to them.
• 31:28
  They give it as a closing. Yes.
• 31:29
  So we have the expenses of the USB
• 31:32
  drives, the cases, the USB cases,
• 31:35
  and then some of the shipping and the cost of goods.
• 31:39
  So we put that in our cost of goods.
• 31:41
  And after you have your top line revenue minus your cost of goods,
• 31:46
  you get a number, you subtract those two
• 31:50
  and that's called your gross profit, okay, not your net profit.
• 31:53
  This is your gross profit.
• 31:55
  So from there and if you're if I've lost you for like,
• 31:59
  Hey, Todd, I don't know anything about this.
• 32:01
  The cool thing is, is that inside of QuickBooks, it's going to do this for you.
• 32:05
  Just make sure that you categorize editor expenses, photographer expenses
• 32:09
  into be cost of goods, and it will do this automatically for you.
• 32:13
  That's the beautiful thing about using a system like QuickBooks,
• 32:16
  Xero, FreshBooks, Freshdesk, Freshdesk is ticketing FreshBooks.
• 32:22
  But that's the beauty of using a system.
• 32:25
  Okay, now
• 32:27
  all of your other expenses are still categorized.
• 32:31
  These are things like your software subscriptions.
• 32:34
  Adobe,
• 32:36
  maybe a CRM, anything else that you have
• 32:41
  music,
• 32:43
  editing libraries, things like that that is all categorized in there.
• 32:47
  Now one thing too, here's a tip I want to give you is when you are
• 32:51
  categorizing those, go ahead and look at
• 32:56
  what might be wasteful.
• 32:59
  You know, how many subscriptions do we have nowadays?
• 33:02
  We have a million of them. Okay.
• 33:05
  I can't tell you how many times
• 33:06
  I hit our bank account and I would see the subscription
• 33:10
  and I'm like, Wait a minute, do we even use this anymore?
• 33:15
  You know, that's 30, 50, $100
• 33:17
  a month of subscriptions that are just sitting out there.
• 33:22
  So look for those subscriptions.
• 33:24
  And if you don't need them, this is a great time to be top of mind
• 33:27
  because you see it, go to that website and cancel that thing.
• 33:31
  All right. So you want to optimize
• 33:34
  your spending.
• 33:37
  Okay.
• 33:37
  and another reason why I suggest that you do this more frequently
• 33:41
  is because nobody wants to do it once every six months and then realize you
• 33:45
  just paid $100 a month for a subscription that you don't even use.
• 33:49
  That's 600 bucks down the drain.
• 33:51
  If you do it monthly or weekly, you can cancel that thing immediately.
• 33:56
  All right.
• 33:57
  So hang on with me.
• 33:58
  We're going to bring it all home here, y'all,
• 33:59
  and then I'm
• 34:00
  going to send you on your next shoot and we will be done for this week.
• 34:03
  Okay.
• 34:04
  So top line revenue minus your cost of goods that gives you
• 34:07
  your gross profit minus all of your other expenses.
• 34:11
  These are operating expenses. This could be called overhead.
• 34:14
  We refer to it as overhead inside of our company.
• 34:17
  It's everything else related to run your business.
• 34:20
  That is not your cost of the shoot, cost of the services.
• 34:26
  Okay?
• 34:27
  And then you subtract those two numbers and
• 34:32
  you get your net profit.
• 34:35
  That's after everybody's been paid.
• 34:36
  And your net profit is what you actually put in your pocket.
• 34:40
  Okay. So that is all in there.
• 34:42
  That's the main break up of your PNL.
• 34:46
  Now, once you have your PNL, the beautiful thing is, is
• 34:49
  you can review this on a month to month, year to year level.
• 34:54
  So you can look at your PNL for this month and review it the last month
• 34:58
  or you can look at it this month, a year ago.
• 35:01
  So maybe May 24 versus May 23
• 35:04
  to see the health of your business.
• 35:07
  And when you do this, you can truly begin
• 35:09
  to anticipate what your business is going to do.
• 35:13
  And anticipating what your business can do
• 35:16
  is a key to understanding the health of your business.
• 35:20
  And is it time to scale back or is it time to put your foot on the gas
• 35:24
  pedal and grow?
• 35:28
  So I know I trow
• 35:29
  a lot of you today, let's just recap real quick.
• 35:32
  The first thing you're going to have
• 35:34
  to dedicate some time to do your finances,
• 35:38
  put it on your calendar time block.
• 35:40
  You guys hear me say this all the time.
• 35:41
  Time block on your calendar, Find the time you are
• 35:46
  your company CFO.
• 35:49
  Find that time.
• 35:51
  Get into a system.
• 35:52
  There's free ones out there as well.
• 35:55
  Get into a system.
• 35:56
  We use QuickBooks sync your bank feeds, sync
• 35:59
  your credit cards, categorize your transactions,
• 36:04
  separate your cost of goods versus your overhead.
• 36:09
  Check all those transactions,
• 36:10
  see if there's anything hanging in there that you can cancel to save money.
• 36:14
  Build your PNL and you'll truly know the health of your business.
• 36:18
  So if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us.
• 36:21
  You can get us a hello@spiro.media
• 36:24
  I know this is just one more thing. I'm thrown at you.
• 36:27
  in busy season, but I can tell you this is incredibly important.
• 36:32
  This is a reason why you started your business in the first place.
• 36:36
  Financial freedom.
• 36:38
  And if you don't know your finances, you might be laying your head down at night
• 36:42
  with that little sinking suspicion
• 36:45
  that you don't know if everything's going okay.
• 36:49
  How am I doing?
• 36:51
  What a great way
• 36:54
  to not what you think, but what you know,
• 36:56
  know the health of your business.
• 36:59
  Just devote an hour a week to your finances.
• 37:01
  If you have questions along the way, feel free to reach out to us.
• 37:04
  You can get us again.
• 37:05
  hello@spiro.media
• 37:08
  Hey, thanks for tuning in this week.
• 37:10
  It was great to spend some time with you.
• 37:12
  Thanks for spending time with us. We love to hear from you.
• 37:14
  If you have questions or suggestions, feel free.
• 37:18
  Reach us at hello@spiro.media.
• 37:20
  If you want to find out more about Spiro’s software it's what we run.
• 37:25
  We've built it for 20 years now.
• 37:27
  It can streamline your business.
• 37:28
  You can sign up for a free account at spiro.media.
• 37:33
  Everyone, just a reminder to be thankful
• 37:36
  for all of your blessings and take time to take a breath.
• 37:40
  Thanks and have a great week.
• 37:42
  Thank you for joining us for the Spiro Podcast,
• 37:45
  managing your real estate photography and videography business.
• 37:49
  This is a production of Spiro and wow video tours.
• 37:53
  You can find out more about Spiro
• 37:54
  is real estate, media, business management software at our Web site.
• 37:59
  spiro.media