Episode 139 Podcast Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):

If your business finances live at your kitchen table and the person doing them is the person that you’re trying to build a life with, it might be time to be able to separate the two. G’day everyone. Rob Kropp and Dan Stones here from Pravar Group, and welcome back to another episode of The Trade Den. Good to have you back, Dan. How are you?

Speaker 2 (00:23):

Very good. Thank you, Rob. A bit fired up today. I’m looking forward to this topic. Your misses isn’t your bookkeeper. It’s one that it hits home really hard, and if you trace it all the way back to people in business, it’s something that a lot of problems stem from the bookkeeping being inaccurate, from the problems with the numbers and all those sort of things. So I think this is one we’ve been sitting on for a while, but it’d be good to. I feel like it’s a bit of a release today, so it’ll be good to see. But I think when we start this conversation, in all seriousness, we know how it happens. I mean, a business starts, it’s all hands to the wheel. You’re not flush with cash. You’re looking to trust people, bring people in that you know care about the business like you do.

(01:00):

So I think this idea of your misses starting as your bookkeeper is something we can all understand, but we’ve got to get beyond that at some point.

Speaker 1 (01:08):

Yeah, I think it makes sense. When you’re getting your business up and out of the ground, it kind of makes sense to be able to have someone in there that you trust paying bills and doing payroll because having someone in your accounts and looking at your financials, money’s a very sensitive topic. And I think when you’re trying to scrimp and save and bootstrap a business to get it up out of the ground, I can understand why it happens. But when you’re getting a business that’s turning over one to two or three, a million dollars or more, I think a lot of people underestimate the importance of this role. And to be honest, it might be the accountant in me, but I believe it’s one of the most important functions within a business. And it’s one that really does need to be dealt with by a professional who understands tax implications and compliance and everything, not just someone who’s kind of filling a gap, which is what a lot of partners do in a lot of businesses.

Speaker 2 (02:02):

Yeah. At that level, the knock on is more than just, “Hey, have we got money in the account? Are we keeping track of who’s paid us?” It goes beyond that and it is compliance, but beyond that, it’s also knowing what margins you want and pricing that comes out of that. Everything that flows out of your numbers starts with how the books are kept. So I think you’re right. It becomes a convenience to a real risk. It’s a risk in the business if your numbers aren’t accurate, if you’re ignoring the regulations on payroll. I mean, we just started Payday Super and all those sort of things recently. There’s still people that we’re picking up on that when their books aren’t done well.

Speaker 1 (02:37):

Yeah, correct. And I think that a lot of business owners underestimate the responsibility, the duty, the obligation, the responsibility they’ve got as a director within their business. They set up a company, sign their life away, and off they go.

(02:50):

But really as a business, you’re an agent on behalf of the ATO and you’ve got responsibilities around understanding. There’s so many compliance and tax things like the understanding of GST and what you can claim and what you can’t claim and the understanding of payroll and superannuation and just general compliance within a business. And if you’ve never done a bookkeeping or an accounting course, you just don’t understand it. And you might think you’re just doing the right thing with the information that you’ve got at hand, but that cost can either show up in extra accounting fees because they’ve got to slop up with all the mess, or it just shows up because you get in trouble with fines and everything from the ATO because you’re just not compliant. So there’s a lot to be said around treating this like a real function within a business, not just a convenience factor of having your partner in there just to save some cash.

Speaker 2 (03:46):

Yeah. And I think also what starts as a convenience is there’s pressure with that, right? It is a critical role as you’ve just outlined, and you’ve got your wife, your partner, whoever it is in there, who’s trying to fit it into their own life. Sometimes there’s kids that are in the middle of that. They’re trying to do it in scraps of time throughout a day and a life that they’re trying to run. It usually starts unpaid as you’re getting out of the ground, as you said. They’re not classically trained, they’re not up to date in terms of the compliance and all of that sort of thing. I think the other one is how do they voice the fact that they don’t want to do it? They can’t usually resign. I think that strain on a relationship comes in pretty quick too.

Speaker 1 (04:27):

It does. And then that’s when the conversations happen at nine o’clock at night over the kitchen table or when you’re both sitting on the couch doomsday scrolling, watching shit on TV and both looking in Instagram, then all of a sudden it’s like, “Hey, have you paid that bill?” Or, “Hey, where are we up to with this one? Or did you get that invoice out? Or where are we up to with that?” And this is then when arguments around money and all those types of things come into play. Running a business is stressful. Running a business and trying to balance that with family, but then is stressful. That’s another layer to it. But then running a business where you are carrying the stress and then your wife or your partner’s carrying the financial stress, that’s a whole nother layer of pressure that sometimes you just don’t need.

(05:09):

And by getting someone in there who’s objective and they’re professional around it, they understand the obligations and the role and the responsibility, and this is their chosen career and their path, it can save so much on the family side of things because you’re not having arguments, you’re not carrying the pressure and the stress and the shit that goes on with running a business and having someone in the role who probably doesn’t even want to be there. You can eliminate a lot of stuff that goes on just by treating this role correctly.

Speaker 2 (05:43):

Yeah, definitely. Let’s break it down then and put some structure about the conversation before we get too far into it. First thing we’re going to look at today is going to go through, well, how do we get here? How to become this default position that you’re in and why does it fail and go sideways even when they’re seemingly good at it and then all of a sudden it all sort of drops away? So that’s the first thing. Second one we’re going to look at is what does it really cost you to have that person in? I think this is where people discount or they over exaggerate the convenience and the benefits without looking at what’s really going on. So we’ve got to have a look at that. And then third, how do we, if this is a situation for you, how do you fix this or how do you start to change it without it sounding like you’ve just sacked your misses from the job and then you’ve got to front up at night on the dinner table and go, “Yeah, how are you today? How was your day?” So how do you actually do this the right way? Because there is a way to do it where you can do it and not slam your relationship into a wall for the next three months. So yeah, let’s get stuck into that and let’s start on with this part one of, it’s a role that nobody really chooses. And I think this is the whole point. Was there a decision made to do this role or was it just a sense of deep breath? Yep, I’ll do it. Yeah, it was assumed and that’s what it was. So how your misses got the job in the first place is usually why it fails.

Speaker 1 (07:05):

Yeah, it’s interesting. A lot of the clients that we’ve got who are tradies, often their partners are teachers and nurses and they’re in that space, but very few have come from an accounting or bookkeeping background. And especially a lot of the clients we’ve got, they’ve got young families and the wife or partner’s a stay at home mom and they’re trying to raise a family. And so it’s like, well, instead of paying someone 15 grand a year, why don’t you do it? And she’s probably looking at the owner and going, well, he’s tired, he’s stressed, he’s fallen behind, he’s paid work, he’s no good at it, I’ll help out. So from both parts, both parties have a bit to blame here where the wife or the partner is a little bit like, I’ll help you out and I’ve got a bit of time around the kids and it’s kind of a convenience factor, but the trade is a bit like, I’m drowning here.

(08:01):

I don’t want to spend the 10, 15 grand or whatever it’s going to be to pay it. Why don’t you just do it? And then it’s all of a sudden just conveniently more stuff gets delegated out and then you get stuck in this situation where it’s a shit fight and no one’s really spoken around how this is going to work.

Speaker 2 (08:17):

Yeah. As you said that, it came up for me as well that sometimes it’s like an unwanted promotion where someone’s coming to help with admin. I can file a few things, I’ll go and run this down to the post office. I’m doing a bit of admin here and there, but then it morphs from being admin to bookkeeping. And as we know, admin and bookkeeping are two very different roles. So the can you sort this out becomes, hey, can you do the books? And all of a sudden it’s just levelled up to a thing where it just doesn’t need to and probably shouldn’t go.

Speaker 1 (08:45):

Yeah. In coaching, we talk around the right way to structure a business is you always think position first, person second, process third.That’s the right way of doing things. But in this instance here, it’s always person first, “Hey, can you just do this?” Then there’s no processes built around it and there’s no position description. There’s no clarity around roles and times and hours and there’s no training, there’s no budget, there’s no systems and processes. No pay. No pay. And they’re just doing stuff for free because they get treated like they’re free and no wonder the missus is kind of getting the shits going on, working all these hours. I’m not getting paid for it. Yeah, our family does, but I’m getting the shits because I’m doing stuff that I probably hate doing and I’m just lumped with this stuff that I don’t really want to do.

Speaker 2 (09:38):

Yeah. Why do you reckon that is though? When you say it like this, it’s like, well, why would you? I am trying to run a legit business. I’ve got a going concern that’s a million one and a half, two, whatever it is. Why do you think people still do this? What’s the draw or what holds people back from making that break?

Speaker 1 (09:56):

Probably two things. The first one is the cost factor, like you save a bit of money by getting your misses to do it. You do save that money, but a lot of people look at it as what am I saving? Whereas I always, I try not to look at what am I saving? I’m always looking at, well, by getting the right person in or leveraging that way, what does it create for me? So most people look at it going, what can I save versus what does it create? And so I think the first thing is that they’re looking from a savings point of view when you’re bootstrapping a business in the beginning. The second one is just the trust factor. I even know within this business, I still pay all the bills. I’m the only one with access to the bank details because I don’t want people in my bank accounts. You’ve heard horror stories of people who’ve got access to bank accounts and then pillaged money and fraudulently done the right thing. But I don’t mind business owners still keeping control of the bank account.

(11:02):

But I think just the personal nature that comes with money around payroll and people’s pay and sensitive information. So I think the cost savings and the trust factor are the two big ones for me.

Speaker 2 (11:14):

Yeah. And it does take time, but I think as we do this today, we move beyond, well, how did we get here into, well, what’s it costing and the impact of that? Hopefully it starts to peel away that sort of factor that, like you said, I love what you said there, what does it create or where’s the opportunity that comes from making the break out of this? So let’s look at the impact of this and just sort of see where we go on the impact on two areas in particular, the relationship side and the business side. Let’s start off with relationship because I think this is another, it’s a sinister one and it has probably more impact in the long run than the business side, but impact on relationship when it goes bad in this sense, the inability to clock off for me is a huge one.

(11:57):

There’s no downtime. It’s always business. We’re always on, we’re always open and that pressure that comes with the role is always there.

Speaker 1 (12:04):

Yeah. You think a tradie who’s fairly on the tools a fair bit and then they’re coming home and doing paperwork at night, being with the kids over dinner and then they’re finally sitting down going quotes, invoicing, paperwork. That’s often done at the laptop at night. And so guess when you’re going to ask accounts questions like at nine o’clock at night when your missus has had a tough day, she’s been dealing with the kids and she’s tired and worn out herself. She might have got her own job that she’s doing and looking after the kids and running the household. And then all of a sudden she’s tired and worn out, you’re tired and worn out and the only chance you get, instead of talking around life and relationship and what you want to do as a family, you’re talking around invoices and cash flow and that.

(12:53):

So I think that’s the biggest impact I think on the relationship is that it doesn’t create home and business separation. It just becomes all meshed together and that becomes a big issue.

Speaker 2 (13:06):

It really does. And I think it comes back, no one gets married to say in sickness and in health and in twenty four seven administration of your business. It never happens, but that’s the thing that really does cause a lot of friction in a lot of, especially family based businesses when they run these roles. If you get it wrong, you’re almost on a collision course at some point if you don’t really treat it the right way. The other one is I think the cash position. Every business as we talk about has that cash thing. How am I going to do payroll? How am I going to make this? How am I going to pay this bill? Hey, I’ve got this supplier. The cash flow burden, it’s often the worst position to be in the business.That’s the real pointy end of stress in the financial side of the business.

Speaker 1 (13:50):

Yeah. The greatest level of psychosocial stresses comes from money problems.That’s the biggest amount of pressure that anyone can feel. And I think that you’re right, when you’ve got someone who isn’t married in the business and they’re objective to it as a third party, they don’t feel the stress like you do because they’re not emotionally attached to the money. And so if you’ve got an external bookkeeper, it’s not their money. They’re just there to do a task, yet it’s your family’s money. So you’re going to be more emotionally triggered and emotionally attached to people who don’t pay on time or employees that might take the piss or a customer who pushes back on a bill and doesn’t choose to pay that.You’re emotionally attached to that because that’s your family’s money. And so when it’s your misses doing it, not only you as the owner running the stress of running the business, your misses is now carrying the stress of the bookkeeping and the accounts function, that together, that’s a recipe for disaster and that’s where a lot of the problems show up in the marriage and then money problems become a marriage problems.

(15:02):

That’s the issue.

Speaker 2 (15:04):

Yeah. I think for your partner, it’s more than a job. It always will be. It’s almost like it’s same as you feel it as a business owner. This is more than just work for me. There’s more to it than that. There’s a sense of this is more than just a job. So I think that’s something to consider as you look at what is it really costing me to have my misses in that role.

Speaker 1 (15:24):

I think from the misses side of things, you got to remember that for most of them, they’re not numbers people. They’re not bookkeepers. They’re not accountants. And it’s probably something they don’t love to do and it’s not something that makes them feel fulfilled. And so what can happen over a period of time is that your misses does it in the beginning out of convenience and a cost saving factor, but it gets to the point where it can turn into doing it out of a feeling of guilt and obligation. And what happens is they do it out of obligation for you. That creates resentment within the relationship. And it also means that they become off purpose because they’re doing a bookkeeping function when really they would rather be a teacher, a nurse, something in arts and craft, writing something that’s completely different to being in a business and all of a sudden they’re feeling this resentment and obligation to you.

(16:25):

That’s what deteriorates the relationship is they’re feeling unfulfilled within themselves.

Speaker 2 (16:29):

Yeah, absolutely. And they signed up to be a partner, not an employee of yours. So I think it’s a huge one. So please don’t underestimate that side of it. Now, the other impact is on business. And I’m getting into rant territory here.This was the release I was talking about, right? Because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, untrained doesn’t mean that it’s a little bit slower. It doesn’t mean you’ve got to sort of build in the sort of, well, it’s the untrained factor. Untrained means it’s wrong. And this is where the problems kick in. We see all sorts of stuff when this goes wrong and it’s got to be called out for what it is. It’s not just sort of, well, let’s just make an exception because they’re not trained. That doesn’t work that way with the numbers, as you said.

(17:12):

The obligations are real. You’ve got to lodge correctly. So things like, I could start anywhere, but drawing, sitting in overheads, other income, just putting stuff to the wrong things has huge impacts that end up in wild, wild assumptions being made on how this business needs to run based on where it is or how we think it’s going.

Speaker 1 (17:33):

Correct. It’s even things like incorrect claiming of GST. We were talking about this before we hit record. It’s like on certain things like insurances and registrations and everything for a lot of those more council stuff, there’s elements where there’s GST claimable and GST free elements, like GST included GST free. And when you’re paying a bill like that, if you’ve got your chart of accounts set up wrong, you could be claiming GST on invoices like that when you really shouldn’t be. And if you get audited, the ATO will just come through and go incorrect, incorrect, incorrect, you’ve been claiming GST. A, you’ve got to pay that back or B, there’s fines. And so there’s a lot to be said around the understanding from a compliance and taxation and legislation and the side of things from this accounting function that if you get it wrong, there’s a lot of flow and effects that can impact the business because you’ve been fronting up to the ATO or ASIC saying, sorry, I wasn’t aware is just not good enough.

Speaker 2 (18:36):

No, not at all. And it goes well beyond just, I know how to use Xero and do a bank rec or something like that. The other one I’ll say, and I will bring it up, not knowing how an end of month period works and a sign off there and I haven’t got to it today. I’ll get to it next week and next week becomes the week after. And what happens then, you might be starting to put stuff in from a previous period, like you’re in the middle of October and you’re doing stuff still for September. And all of a sudden we look at a P&L in coaching and we see this happen all the time. A 30K profit turns into a 10K loss and unless we’re looking for it, that just gets whitewashed. So we’re thinking a business is going or a business owner’s going, I made 30K profit in October, this is great.

(19:19):

The next month it shows up as a 10K loss. And all of a sudden you’re sitting there going, what the hell happened? And what’s the knockout of that is the decisions that can and can’t be made are wildly out of whack. And what should be happening never happens because the data’s wrong in the first place.

Speaker 1 (19:34):

Yeah. When we teach the bookkeeping function in our leverage programme, we use an acronym called ACT, accurate, complete and timely. And that’s super important around this. And when you’ve got your misses doing it or Mrs. Sister or Yanni or whoever it is doing it who shouldn’t probably be doing it, if they do it as a part-time role to fill in gaps around other things that they’ve got other priorities in their world, it’s probably not going to be accurate because they’re not skilled and experienced in this area. They’re not trained. It may not be complete because they’re falling behind because they’re filling in a gap around other priorities in their life. And it may not be timely because they’re not staying on top of it when they need to be. So all this comes down to visibility. Your financials is the heart and soul of your business.

(20:23):

It’s the information and the data that you’ve got from your financials influences your decision making, your strategic decision making in business. And if you don’t have accurate, complete, and timely reports that are correct, then what are you making decisions on? You’re flying blind. And that’s why for more businesses than not, they’ve got to treat this function as the most important function within their business, not just something that they get someone that’s convenient to fill a gap around.

Speaker 2 (20:53):

Yeah, absolutely. And even then, you can know your numbers and what the numbers mean and I understand the concepts and I need to understand my gross profit margin. I understand what that is. But if that data is wrong, who cares? It’s meaningless. You might as well put whatever number you want, call it whatever it is, because it’s not going to help you in the long run. So I think it goes without saying that you have to have the accuracy in there for sure. The next thing I want to talk about is it is the business and it’s not so much just an accounting and the knock-on effects, but how do you performance manage your misses? Good luck with that. I mean, what we see in this one is you don’t. That’s the answer, right? It’s very hard to. You can’t treat them like an employee when you want to.

(21:36):

If you think you can, try it and see how it goes. But most of the time we sweep it under the carpet. We put up with it. We allow these things to carry on month, month, month, month, year on year on year, and it never gets better. And the knock on of that is just horrendous in both the business and the relationship really.

Speaker 1 (21:55):

Yeah. What starts is a business problem shows up in a relationship problem. And that’s the reality of what happens is because good luck trying to sit down and have a performance management conversation with your misses around and using our clip framework and sitting down and going, “Well, you know what? We agreed that you would do this last week and you didn’t do it and good luck with that.” It just does not happen. You’ll just get a punch to the head. But then it shows up in relationship issues because she’s got the shits with you, you got the shits with her because there’s no accurate, things aren’t getting done when you said that they would. Conversations happen at nine o’clock at night. It’s just a recipe for disaster. And so what starts as a business problem flows into your relationship, which then fuels back into business and all of a sudden you’ve got this melting pot of issues that keep going on within the business and relationship.

(22:43):

And no wonder so many business owners have relationship problems, especially in this instance like this.

Speaker 2 (22:50):

Yeah, definitely. So these are the costs and these are the impacts and what we’ve talked about so far. Have we got a story? I can think of a few. Have you got one at hand that you can think of where when the shift’s made, what it actually does create? And you talked about that before. I’m keen to come back to that idea of you make this shift, you get the courage to have the conversation, which we’ll go through in a minute, but what actually does happen? And when we see clients do this the right way, what actually does free up and what opens up for them?

Speaker 1 (23:18):

I had a client in mind, he’s a sparky in Southeast Queensland. I don’t want to say names to implicate anything, because it’s a personal thing. But like we’ve been speaking around today, the misses jumped in and did the books out of a bit of obligation and a bit of convenience factor. Business grew, started to get complicated. At the time he was working from home as they didn’t have a premises and they had a number of kids. So she was trying to balance being a mom, bit of her own stuff, working from the kitchen table. So was he from the front office at home and it just got messy. And then the business got to a size where they really needed good information and they couldn’t get it. And it was causing problems at home, to be honest. And in coaching, we have a face to facts conversation and this was one of the facts that they had to face.

(24:12):

He went through the process, which we’ll talk about in a minute around how to have the conversation the right way. The moment he raised it, she felt liberated and she was just like, “I feel free. Finally, I can stop doing something that I’ve felt obligated to do for a very long time.” And she’s felt free to go off and pursue other interests in her own life. So she was back on purpose. She was happier. She’d become a better mom. She became a better wife because she was happy. He was happier as a business owner because he got a dedicated resource in there, could performance manager, did the old ACT that we spoke around before around accurate, complete and timeliness. The numbers got sharper. He got better with his decision making. Business became better. He was better at home. They got their relationship back. Business started growing again and it all worked out for the best.

(25:04):

So we’ve just seen that time and time again, but that’s just a story to reinforce the points we’ve already made today. But I think it just shows that when you have the courage to have the right conversation the right way, it can set a lot of people free.

Speaker 2 (25:18):

Yeah, nice. So let’s go into this. Let’s go in and have a look at, well, how do you do this the right way? How do you do it without sounding like you’ve just sacked them and you’ve got to sit there and run up at home that night? So if we look at it, the mindset I think to start with is it’s not about pushing someone out. It’s not about saying, “Hey, you’ve done a shit job.” It’s about, like you said, liberating and saying to them that this is a role you never chose. I get that and I need to get that back from you so you can have what you want and what you need and you can do it properly and together. So having the conversation the right way is a simple, the way you start the conversation is going to really determine how it goes.

(25:59):

And the way we suggest you do this is just ask honestly at the right time. Don’t do it in the middle of a BAS session or something like that. Pick your right time for it, but really ask the question, “If you could hand the books to someone tomorrow, would you do it?” It’s as simple as that because everything will be written probably on their face. It’s the permission to hand it back is what they want more than the argument about should they, shouldn’t they? Are they good at it? Are they bad at it? And making it all about them. Make it about the role, keep it on the role and just sort of say, “Hey, all you need to do is say the word. We can make this work.” And I think it’s as simple as that to have it. It takes a bit of courage, as you said, even for the client you mentioned. But if you can do it the right way, you’d be amazed at how quickly it can progress from there.

Speaker 1 (26:48):

Yeah, it is. And when you’re coming at from the right angle, like you said, it’s not that you’re making it around the person or their performance or anything like that. It’s really, you’ve got to make it about the position and the function within the business. And if you come to it from the genuine, “Hey, if you could hand this back, would you? Do you love it or do you not love it?” And if they go, “I don’t love it,” and go, “Well, what do you think? Do we look to get someone else into the business who might be able to perform that role? Would that be of interest?” And then you’re not making it about your misses and them not performing, and you’re taking the personal seem to be a tack out of it. You’re parking that personal nature and you’re making it about the roles and responsibilities rather than the person.

(27:34):

I think if you do it with the right intent and though through the right way, it makes a big difference, doesn’t it?

Speaker 2 (27:39):

It really does. And then you can even emphasise the responsibility that comes with, I think the importance of the function, like you said, you can double down on that without it feeling like, “Hey, you’ve got to step up. This is something you can’t get out of and you’ve just got to do it better.” So I think that’s another element that we can touch on. Yes, the role’s there. It’s a real role and it’s got a real responsibility, but starting with the role rather than the person, as we say, all the time in coaching is really important. And then I think there’s also, Rob, the idea of, well, hey, I asked the question and they said yeah, they really want to. What happens there and how do you deal with that?

Speaker 1 (28:16):

Well, I think then that’s when you can then talk a bit about, well, let’s talk a bit. You can then go back and formalise the role compared to something you’ve probably never done before. And you can look at the role, the responsibilities, the checklist, the timeframes, the rhythm around things that need to get done weekly, monthly, quarterly. And we teach that in coaching where it’s like, here’s the role, the responsibility, weekly, monthly, quarterly rhythm of a bookkeeper. And then if your partner still chooses, your misses still chooses to do the role, well, then you can start working together to formalise that and you’ve got a foot in the door to not performance management, but you can then solidify the role and responsibility so that you can beef up that function rather than being pretty loose around the edges, which it probably is at the moment.

Speaker 2 (29:04):

Yeah. And alongside that becomes things like paying a proper wage for it, having set hours for it, having formalised meetings in business hours to deal with this stuff between the two of you. They’ve got the right to turn around and say, “I’m done with this. I want to resign from my job.” So that’s what you mean by formalising the role, I think. So that’s really important too. In terms of a challenge, if we go there at the end of this, I think we’ve already done it. I’m just going to reiterate it as a challenge, and that is to ask your partner that one question this week. If someone else could take the books off you tomorrow, how would you feel? And again, don’t defend anything. Don’t try and get into an argument about it. Just sit back. Don’t talk about the costs and everything you’ve learned here today because that’s not going to work.

(29:48):

Don’t say Rob said, because that’s a no-no too, but just listen to the answer and watch their face as they give it. You’ll pick up on the fact of, “Hey, this is time for a change,” or they’ll Come back and say genuinely they want it to be their role and then you’ve got something else to work with because I think getting this right will just relieve a lot of pressure in the business and on the family front as well.

Speaker 1 (30:10):

Yeah, really, really good. And just tread carefully, come into it with the right intent, have a really good conversation around it. And even if it’s not something you change immediately, but you put a plan in place to be able to work towards over a period of time, it’s worth its weight in gold. And you’d be surprised, you can get a really good bookkeeper in and take a tonne of load off your plate for a very affordable rate. And whether you subcontract to a bookkeeping company, go through your accounting firm, or even hire someone part-time in. A lot of guys that we coach have the mindset going, “Well, what would they even do?” And then we drop in their plate going, “Here’s the role, responsibility, tasks, reporting rhythm.” And they soon go, “Holy shit.” They realise all the things that they don’t have in place because they just weren’t aware of what this person could do.

(31:00):

And that’s what a professional bookkeeper and accounts person brings to the table.

Speaker 2 (31:04):

Yeah, definitely. It’s well worth the time to go through this exercise for sure.

Speaker 1 (31:09):

If your business finances live at your kitchen table and the person doing them is the person that you’re trying to build a life with, it might be time to be able to separate the two. If you’re in that position and you’re ready to make change, the jump across to strategysession.com.au, book in a time that suits and let’s have a conversation around how we can structure your business correctly to be able to give you the family life that you desire. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed today’s conversation. It’s been one of those ones where you know you’ve probably been sitting on for a while and you know you probably need to be able to make change. It’s good for you, it’s good for your misses, and it’s good for the business. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed it and looking forward to coming back to you shortly with another episode on The Trade Den.

(31:49):

Until then, take care.

Speaker 2 (31:51):

See you soon.