#206 – Navigating Finances as a Parent-Entrepreneur: Insights with Candy Messer

Welcome to the Money boss podcast, where we empower parents to make smart financial decisions and take control of their financial future. I'm your host Anna Sergunina and today we have a special guest joining us. Please give a warm welcome to Candy Messer, a profitability advisor with extensive experience in bookkeeping and helping entrepreneurs build successful companies. Candy understands the unique challenges faced by parents who are also entrepreneurs, or have a side hustles. Her expertise in removing compliance burdens and identifying profitable issues, has provided countless business owners with peace of mind and the freedom to focus on what they love. Candy is the co-author of business success with ease and navigating entrepreneurship. She also is the host of highly acclaimed biz help for you podcasts available on YouTube and multiple podcast channels. Join our conversation. Candy thank you for joining us today on the Money Boss Podcast. That is pleasure to have you.

Well, thank you for the invitation. I'm excited to be here and talking with you today.

I am to so as an advisor to your clients, you have a really deep understanding of their financial challenges that they're facing in their businesses and is entrepreneurs and possibly side hustlers, because that's the trend these days. Right? But I wanted to they explore some of the you know, ideas and advice you have for parents, right? Because this is the community that we tailor here to and how how can our parent listeners juggle this idea of being an entrepreneur, starting a business, you know, being in it and also bright juggling responsibilities as a parent, you and I just chatted briefly behind the scenes, your grandma three young ones. So secondhand firsthand, you know, so I want to kind of connect all of those dots. So if that's okay with you, let's dive in.

Sure. I mean, first of all, I would just say I totally get the overwhelm, right, I've been there. I've been an entrepreneur now for 20 plus years. And so my kids were little when I started on this journey. So I remember how hard it was, like all the hours that you put in. And sometimes you feel like you're not even making a lot of money with all the efforts that you're putting in, and it takes a while, you know, to get to where you're actually generating revenue. So my first thing that I tell people to is, if you're thinking of starting a business, or you are already working, but you still have that job on the side, it's not a bad thing to keep that for now, right? Because if you can have that guaranteed income, and then you could be expanding your business on the side, at first, it will allow you to find those ideal customers. So what happens a lot of times when people start a business, they think I just want to quit my job. And I'm going to focus on this, and I'm going to make this much money. And they have this dream, which is fabulous. But sometimes they overestimate how much they're gonna make, or they don't realize all the expenses that are going to go into it. And so the profit just isn't there. And then now they're panicking and having to find customers wherever. So if you can actually have that cushion at first and then build your business, get the word out there and work with the customers you really want to work with. I think you'll be happier in the long run. I think that's point number one.

Yeah, yeah, no, I agree with that, too. Because a lot of times as I work with them on creating their personal financial plan, right, it comes up a lot, because like, what do you have to you know, meet? Like, what are your obligations on on a monthly basis? Like what do you have to put in a bank so that you can feed your family and still continue right? Funding Your goals? Because like, one of sorts of conflicting questions comes up a lot to like, what where do you invest the most of your energy, time and money when you building a business? Right? Are you like investing to save for your goal? So like, like, how do you do you have suggestions? Like, where to focus your attention on all of this?

Well, you may tell people the same thing, but I think you can't put off your own future planning as well. And so so many of us do, right? I mean, I was guilty of this, too, where, you know, I don't have enough money right now to put away for my future and a 401k or, you know, whatever Roth IRA, whatever it is, for many years, I didn't do that. Right? And that was stupid, to be honest, right? Because I lost time. Right? The whole thing about having investments is you have the compounding and all of that too. But I was young when I had children and young when I started my business. And so at first we thought, well, you know, we have time, right? We're very young. We have plenty of time, but honestly that probably wasn't the wisest decision. But we did you know what we did? So I would just say still, don't completely forget about your future and planning for your retirement. And then yes, kids, college is important, but not everyone is necessarily going to go to college too. So don't necessarily sacrifice your future, because of what you think your kids are going to need, right? There's options. And yes, it's, it could potentially be a little bit painful when college comes around, if you don't have enough, but there are grants, there's potential scholarships, there's, you know, other things you can do too. So I think that would be one thing that I would say, is really talk to a financial advisor who can guide you on what you should be putting away, they might be able to help you, like you said, you probably can sit down with them, or you have probably a guideline that you could share with them that says, at least put away, you know, 5%, or something, you know, it doesn't have to be a lot, but put away something. So I think that's one thing that I would recommend as well.

Yeah, I remember, I don't know where I got this, this phrase, but I've had it in my report to our, for a long time as this is I can remember being a financial planner, but it's something like you can't finance your retirement. But if you have to finance your kids college education, you can always do that. So it's like what this idea is like, yes, it's great to be an entrepreneur, it's great to start a business and do all of these things. But you still have to think about like, what's the long term, I'm guilty of that too. And you're highlighting that as well. Because the idea of starting a business or creating a different life for yourself, you hope that whatever it is that you're doing is gonna pull pay off, right, five times, 10 times and whatever. So this like, putting a pause on what you're said, compounding interest over time, is a tricky one. So one of the things you mentioned that I want to really get clarity on, in in context of flow of money in the business, because I think it's it's a confusing concept to a lot of people. So in the business, you have revenue coming in, right? Or if you're selling products, if you're charging for your services, and then at the end of the day, right, the focus should be on what your profit is, right? If it's a real true business, right? We can get on this on this as well. So let's like, what's the difference? What is the difference between revenue or cash flow your business, and then like, really what you get to take home, which is profit, right?

This can be very confusing for people, especially those who don't really like the concept of understanding numbers and math. And they're like, I just don't want to know. But you still you need to focus on that. So revenue is just the top line number, how much money have you brought in? And then you have to look at expenses. And this is where a lot of businesses fail? Because they don't properly plan for really, what is it going to take for me to bring in the income, usually it takes longer, and you have less upfront than you think you're going to. And then the amount of money it takes you to generate your business often is higher than you think. Right? And so sometimes you'll have a negative, you know, what your expenses are greater than your revenues, you have a negative value at the end, which is a net loss or you know, a negative profit, right? The profit is basically what do you have leftover after you have your revenue less your expenses? One of the confusing things that happens too, is the difference between profit and cash flow. So people sometimes if they're looking at financial reports, they see a profit and they're like, oh, great, you know, I've got money in the bank. But that may not be true, because you can have liabilities that you have to pay down. There's other things, maybe you actually bought equipment, which is a good thing, right? You're growing, you need to buy equipment, but oftentimes, you have to depreciate that over time. So the money's out of the bank. But, you know, you don't get to capture that expense immediately. Now, sometimes you can, depending on what you're purchasing. But another thing that confuses people, too, is they're living off of the profit a lot of times, right, so but the IRS is going to say, well, you have profit, you may have spent it, but you still owe tax on that. And so that come as a surprise to people that don't realize I have to reserve some of this money that is showing as profit so that I could pay the tax man. And so that is sometimes where the confusion lies. And I actually had someone come to me one year. And she said, I don't understand how the IRS can say that I owe them $10,000 Because there's no money in the bank. And that's where I had to educate her and she was referred to me by someone because she was in his financial situation. She got herself into some trouble, because the IRS wanted her to pay a bill and she didn't have the money. And I had to explain to her the difference between cash flow and profit you've lived off of this money. So yes, it's spent. You don't have it in the bank. But the IRS says you owed a portion of that because you know, your tax bracket you had to have that. So I said it's important to reserve the amount of money just Like, if you're working at a job and you have a paycheck, they take taxes out every time you have a paycheck, like put money aside every time, you know, you're going to maybe look at it once a month or twice a month, but look at how much do I think I'm going to owe and start putting that away in a different account. So you don't see it in your operating account and start building that up and make sure that you pay that tax.

I very much agree because it's it gets confusing, especially like when you are as if you're just starting your business, right? Or it's a thing that like you just said, you still have your full time job and you're doing this on the side, well suddenly, like, oh, I have all this money in the bank account. But you haven't yet worked out a system where you actually pay yourself, right? Like, you know, if you're working in a business, like what's your paycheck, so that, that can be a trouble on its own too. So working it into into your overall expense, I had to learn that I struggled with this concept too. I have been a financial planner for 20 years, but I've owned my business for the last 10. And so even though like I should understand all these concepts and the nuances or how this works, but only goes looking at, you know, profit and loss statements and balance sheets, I'm like, alright, but the money's same thing, but the money's not in the bank. So it took a while to kind of wrap my head around this idea of like, okay, the numbers are on, you know what they are, and you kind of have to find a happy medium. So I've learned fairly quickly enough that I should have at least as a business owner a salary, right, so that then when I'm looking at my end of the year numbers, right, and the year, usually not at end of the year, that kind of like, in in the spring, because we're doing taxes and like, where's my paycheck? So I, at least that's my, you know, own experience, like, Okay, you gotta get yourself paid. And initially, when you just like, try and try and ramp up, it may not be like the forefront of what you're looking at.

Right? A lot of times people are thinking of, I just have to cover these expenses, right, as long as I make enough to cover, you know, the rent, the utilities that you know, the marketing that whatever, and they don't think about, I need to budget in not just salary, but again, taxes and other things like that, too. So it's really important to look at that. And again, it's important to look at the profit, that's more important to look at than revenue, in my opinion, because you could be increasing your revenue, but the cost of generating that revenue could be increasing significantly as well, too. And so sometimes you might be more profitable when you're actually bringing in less revenue.

Yes, I agree with that, too, especially when you start hiring people seem to grow. That's a whole other level. So you mentioned taxes a little bit. Um, are there any suggestions or ideas you have like for folks to because that's another complicated level of, you know, understanding, like how the taxes would work out, you know, what, how do you structure your business, right, from sole sole or sole proprietorship to S corp and all of that stuff? So like, Are there any ideas or like, quick suggestions you have for someone to kind of just kind of have it in the back of their head. And of course, they should talk to a professional, that's handled. But but for the conversation today?

Well, like you said, you should talk to your CPA or tax planner to because more than just your business affects the tax that you owe, right, especially if you're a sole proprietor or if you're like an S corp, or an LLC, the income that you generate from your business flows into your personal, and then on your personal income tax return, everything gets calculated. So there's going to be things that maybe make your tax higher, or there could be deductions you could take. So it's really important for your CPA to sit with you and look at everything that's happening. But in terms of your business, again, there's estimated tax payments that you're supposed to be making that often people don't realize, because again, they're not thinking I'm supposed to be paying in throughout the year. Again, if you had a paycheck, it'd be taken out every time you were paid. You're supposed to make four times a year, estimated tax payments, and so that's April, June, September and January. And I tell people you can't just say it's every quarter because it's weird. It's not like every three months it goes again the first time from January to April, you have three months, but then April to June, you have two months, then you go from June to September three months and then September to January for so it's kind of weird the way they have the schedule, but you are supposed to be paying in kind of that portion of your tax that is due and once again your CPA can look at what did you owe last year? Well, we have to pay in at least you know that much and split it up by the four quarters. But I always recommend sitting down with their CPA at least once a year but twice years even better. So like around this time of year now is great to be talking with them and then close to the end of the year, so that you can make any adjustments necessary that could potentially affect the tax that you're going to owe. So at the very end of the year to, if it looks like, you're very profitable, you're gonna have a lot of tax, if there's something you're thinking about purchasing, maybe you need a piece of equipment or, you know, maybe there's a software that you want to invest in, it's a few $1,000, and you're like, well, that's a little bit expensive, well, maybe you do want to invest before the end of the year to reduce what you're going to have in taxes. On the other hand, maybe it wasn't the greatest year, and you might want to put off something so that you have less expense, a little bit more profit, and, you know, kind of go from there and then put off into the future, again, to kind of reserve cash. So it's important to really look at it all as a whole. And figure out, what do I need to do?

How, how do you recommend when you like doing this kind of assessment, because I've I've always recommended to clients who have businesses, is to apply the same structure as you would apply personally, like you have your checking account to pay your main bills, right, and then you should have an emergency fund. So like, same thing, right, as you're starting to grow your business, or, as you doing right now, like once you get some money, like set aside some funds, because unexpected things should happen. So how do you save for those like? Or maybe perhaps you have an opportunity to invest in your business, by whatever hiring, you know, doing more marketing and stuff like that? So how do you how do you accumulate these additional funds for future expenses?

But for me, what I do I actually have a few accounts that I have, and so I look twice a month. Okay, what do I have right now that has come in, and I'm going to allocate a percentage to tax that goes into one account that's there, so I can make those estimated tax payments, one for future expenses. So there are things that I pay once a year to like, some of my software I purchased once a year or insurance, I don't like to pay all those little fees, like every time you make a little statement, they're gonna charge you $2 or $5, or $7, or $10, right? For me, I'm like, those fees, I'm not willing to pay that, right, I'll just pay up front the whole thing. And so basically, twice a month, I am putting away what I know, like basically, I'd look at what am I going to pay over the course of one year, and I divide that by 24. And that's how much that I put away as a minimum for that future expense. Now, if I know that I want to be hiring someone soon, and I want to make sure that I'm reserving money for that, too, I might put more in there. But that's one of the things have a future expenses. And then I have a tax account. And then I have a general operating account, there's a few more that sometimes you might want to have for different reasons. And we don't have to go into all of those right now. But basically, the point is having multiple accounts. So your operating only has what you really want to have in there for operations and you can save for other things. And of course, saving for your future in some kind of account doesn't have to be a basic bank account, because those make nothing right as we know. So have an investment account where you can be putting money in for your future again and building up some value but at least generally speaking for businesses, those are what I recommend.

Oh, like someone listening right now. They're like, Okay, well, I got all this stuff going. I'm you know, my business is up and running. And so how do you like, at what point on this journey? Do you determine that, like, you got to sit down and talk to professional. I knew early enough, even on my financial financial planner, I do not like accounting, which is like financial planning. So I knew going in that that was not the thing for me, it's just does not sit well. So like, I was like, this isn't one of the expenses I had to build in, right in doing this. So like, do you have some guidelines for someone to think about this? Right. So one of

the things I do say is some of these things look at it as an investment for your business and not an expense right? Because yes, you're gonna pay money for certain things. I say go to a trusted CPA, not just h&r block or something to write. And that's because you can build a long term relationship. They're gonna understand your personal and your business, and h&r block or those other types of companies, there's a lot of turnover, they can't represent you if you're audited in most cases. I mean, it would have to be someone higher up, but just the general tax preparation person can't, you know, and so that's an investment that I say you really should be making. When it comes to like legal fees. If you need to have contracts created or things like that. pay an attorney. Don't just get a template because it may not apply in your state. Right. So it's things like that, like look at is it worth doing? And in most cases, yes. So when it comes to someone like my industry, for bookkeeping, if If you are putting it off because you hate it, I don't love the numbers, or I'll get to it someday, and you're not getting to it, it's going to become more and more burdensome for you. And then when the CPA is reaching out and needs information to do your taxes, you're going to be overwhelmed and frustrated, like someone in that situation really needs to put into the budget, like you said, a professional, if you still love the numbers, and it's not totally taking away the time you have for what you should be doing in your business, then you could still do it on your own if you want to. But a lot of times, if you look at how much time are you spending doing it? And what would you get, if you invested that time in networking, in sales calls in you know, whatever that is to drive your business forward, it still might be in your best interest to find a professional to do it for you so that you could focus on the parts of your business that are really going to drive revenue.

I like to invent the investing angle, for sure. Because that's like, reframing some of this on this is more money I need to spend on doing this, this and that. No, it's not. It's an investment. So one thing too, I'm speaking a lot from mistakes I've made, but this is how you learn, right? I didn't focus early enough in my business on building a credit. You know, I mean, it's a common thing. Everybody knows about this, right? Like as a as a, as an individual, you should focus on building a good credit history. And you know, making sure you check your credit score consistently. Now, it's different for the business. And so it took me a while I didn't like I didn't need to have a credit. You know, for the business. I you know, a few years into the ownership, I got a credit card, right. But it's still like attached to my name, I'm still the one signing on it. So let's talk a little bit about like, what what suggestions do you have for somebody early on to get that piece, right? Because it will come handy one day,

right? Well, the first thing is you really should separate business and personal, even if you're a sole proprietor, and a lot of times people think, well, it's just easier, I just have the one account, and I could just run everything through the checking, and I'll separate it later, it's not going to be easier, right? Once again, you're going to be overwhelmed. And then you have to go through your bank and look at your statement and say, Well, this was business and this is personal and explain it to your tax preparer, or you doing the bookkeeping, it's just not ideal. It's also potentially an audit, you know, red flag, right? So and if you're an entity, so if you're a S corp, or C Corp, or LLC, or any of those entities, technically you are supposed to have it separated. And the purpose of having an entity is for protection, right, you have liability protection. If you are combining your business and personal, you lose that protection. So it's really important. And I should just say even if you're a sole proprietor, separate your business and personal. That being said, you know, you will still have potentially, you might still have to apply for a credit card, personally right in your name, because you don't have anything that's representative of your business. But you still have a separate credit card that's only for your business, and then you have a personal card. Some people want to combine it because they're getting miles or cashback or all of that. And it's just say, well, then just pick another card that you get cashback or something on to right. And I always say to someone, really one of the benefits is if you have a credit card, and you pay it in full, right, so you don't have interest and get a card that doesn't have an annual fee, but a lot of them will give you cashback and then you can apply that to your statement. And it reduces what you owe. And so they're basically paying you for using their card. And that's a wise in my opinion, that's a wise way to use credit cards. Now, if you are spending more than you can pay, then that's not great, because credit card is not a good type of debt, you know to have, you're paying more in interest than you need to. So I generally say if you can't afford it, try not to purchase it right until you can, again saving, you know, save cash or something until you have to make that purchase. Now, sometimes you can't, right, if your car breaks down, you need to have a car and it has to get repaired. Sometimes you have to do that. But if you can use your credit wisely, right, then you're going to be building up your credit score your you know, in the future, if you ever need a loan and you have a higher credit number, obviously that's better for you, you'll have a less interest rate. So it's really important to manage what you're using and understanding it may be better to have two credit cards even in splitting your expenses than to have one where you're you know getting up close to the maximum limit because that drives your credit score down versus having to and having a lower credit usage right. So they look at what is the total credit limit you You have and how much are you using? And ideally, it's under 30%. And less hopefully,

huh? Yeah, it's like this distinction is really critical. I don't know, at least in my head, it's like it's, it makes your life so much easier when you have the suppression. So just just to start with that. One thing that I think is worth mentioning, since we have our parent audience here, like, how do you get your kids involved, like, I'm always looking, I haven't done anything with my four, oh, it was four and a half year old in terms of like, you know, a formal business employee. But I see a lot of, you know, social media posts and things like that. And I know there are strategies to start thinking about. So any thoughts on this?

Well, there's two aspects to that I actually had my kids helping when they were little. And as a sole proprietor, or if you're a partnership, where the spouse or you know, the other partner or whatever, they're, you're the biological parents of the children, you can actually pay them a wage, it has to be reasonable for the job they're doing, right. So a four year old, can't make $20,000 a year or something, right, you know, but let's say you help them like sweeping the floor, and you pay them $1 A week, you know, because once a week, they come in and they sweep the floor, or $5, or tenant, you know, something reasonable. But if you have them on payroll, and you would actually set up payroll, and you pay them, then you actually don't have to pay the Social Security or the Medicare or any of that tax. And then you have the expense, that reduces your profit, right? So it reduces what you owe in tax. So when my kids were little, they actually were helping. And that money I put into a savings type account where they weren't actually getting to spend the money, I might give them a little bit periodically, but both of them were able to buy cars when they wanted to have a car, because they worked for it. And then they appreciated it too, because they actually put in effort, it wasn't just like, here you go, here's keys, and you know, they don't understand the value. So I think having them come and do something in your business, that is something they can do easily, but actually gives them a sense of accomplishment too. And they're, you know, very happy that they had something and you can give them some little bit of spending money too. But it also gives you the opportunity to teach them about saving for their future. If you are an entity, you don't get the same tax benefits. But once again, you're teaching them things you're actually able to hire a family member to. So instead of having to find someone outside of your company, which is not as easy as sometimes people think there's those types of benefits, too.

Yeah. Okay, so there's so Okay, seems like I just wanted to clarify, there's different depending on how your business is structured, from sole proprietorship to S corp like for, for I think, for a lot of people, if they're sole proprietors, there's still a way they don't have a salary, right, because that's not how their business is structured, but they can still do the same thing. In terms of giving their, their their children opportunity to earn and teach them a valuable lesson. Yes. Okay. I like that. There's, I mean, there's a lot more advanced strategies that we're not gonna get into, into today. But I just want to kind of see that, as I'm honestly exploring that myself, so I'll have to figure we'll have to come up with a job description. I mean, it's actually have to be pretty legit, right? Like, it can't be just,

I agree. No very, very, very valuable lessons. I know before we hit recording, you mentioned to me that you have any free guide to help our listeners to understand like all the financial lingo because we've talked about some of these terms is using. So I'd love for you to share with our audience what it is and how they can get their hands on it.

Sure. So it is a guide to financial lingo, which basically gives all kinds of terms that are used in accounting, so you understand, you know, profit and operating expense. And I talked about the difference between cash flow and profit and what could affect it, you know, and even talking about I didn't really mention too much today. But there's two different methods of accounting for your things on a cash basis or accrual basis. And that can make a big difference just on which method you're using. So it talks about all of those different things. And we could actually have someone reached out I forgot the exact website, I should have given it to ahead of time or brought it up, but I can send you the link. But I believe it's like my website, affordable bookkeeping and payroll.com/free-report. But if you tried to go there, and it's not quite right, you can send me a message, we can give you the link to click and download it. But it is a free guide. I forget how many pages it is. But it's lots of terms to really just explain. So you can understand what those financial terms mean, and understand your financial reports.

No problem. We can also we'll include it in the show notes so our audience can get it. Yes. Well, I'd love for you to share how I know you have your own podcast too. And then you also put out very neat educational videos on YouTube, and I follow you on LinkedIn. So please let us know how we can stay in touch.

Sure. So like you mentioned, I have a podcast, it's called biz help for you. And my goal is to educate entrepreneurs, help them be successful, because too many start don't really have all the resources they need and fail. And so my passion is really like give you what you need to really help you be successful in a vast array of fields, not just finance. But I actually had an episode that just aired on neuro diversity and how to have that in the business, how you can help employees, you know, be successful. I've talked about legal things, and marketing and all just all kinds of topics. And then you can find that on YouTube and all the podcast channels. I'm like I said, I'm on LinkedIn, Candy Messer, my website is abandp.com. And I do record short little videos to to really just educate on small little topics, again, that you could just get a bite sized piece, you know, a three minute video or something, as well as some training videos.

That's awesome. Yes, thank you so much. I find them very useful. And, you know, just kind of learning and getting more tidbits. So very much appreciate all of that. Well, any last minute thoughts before we close?

All that thing that I wanted to say too. And I don't know if this applies to your audience, too. But there is the employee retention tax credit, if you had a mandatory shutdown or partial shutdown or reduction of services of an income that meets the guidelines, then you could claim this credit. There's a lot of aggressive companies out there charging a large amount of money for assisting you. And I do have training videos also on my YouTube channel that show how to do it if you want to claim it on your own. But if you need help, we can help too. But that is available and it can put cash in your pocket if you do qualify.

Yes, can you can you just clarify one more time for those who are listening because it might be confusing. So what it is because it's I actually literally just threw away a letter that came in the mail. that topic. I'm like, I know this is not real? Because yeah, it just looks too good. But yeah, one one time, so employee retention credit.

much. No, you're right. There's a lot of bad marketing around it because they can these companies can charge you and I'm not sure if they can deliver or not. But there's just Yeah. A lot of MIS misunderstanding and confusion. And is there a deadline for this to be done? Yes. Oh, yes. So

2020 If you qualified, you have to file no later than April of Next year now, I would still say do it quicker than not, you know, don't put it off because if you make a mistake, and then you have to refile it, if you're past the deadline, now you're not going to qualify. And so do it. Now, don't put it off, because the IRS is also months behind on processing. And so you want to make sure that you have it in plenty of time to get that credit.

I understood. Okay, great. Well definitely include you and I will connect afterwards to include some of these links in the show notes. Thank you so much candy. This is very educational for me and I hope the audience loved it. We appreciate your time today.

And thank you for the invitation. I had a great time.