Cleaning Business Life
Cleaning Business Life is your must-listen weekly podcast for cleaning business owners who want to scale smarter, not harder.
Hosted by Shannon Miller, founder of Klean Freaks University, and Jamie Runco, CEO of Above All Cleaning Company, this podcast delivers the strategies, systems, and insider knowledge you need to build a thriving, profitable cleaning business.
No matter where you are in your journey—whether you're launching your first cleaning company or scaling to seven figures—Cleaning Business Life gives you the tools to streamline operations, maximize profits, and grow with confidence.
Each episode dives deep into topics like:
✔️ Building scalable systems that create efficiency and long-term success.
✔️ Product reviews & recommendations to equip your team with the best tools.
✔️ Expert interviews with industry leaders sharing real-world insights.
✔️ Q&A sessions tackling your most pressing business challenges.
✔️ Industry trends & strategies to keep you ahead of the competition.
Tune in every week and take your cleaning business to the next level! 🚀
Want to get a hold of us, please email us at cleaningbusinesslife@gmail.com
Cleaning Business Life
CBL EPISODE # 103 Interview-My Virtual BookKeeper.com; Erica Paynter
Erica Painter, the visionary behind My Virtual Bookkeeper, transforms chaotic financial records into insightful, profit-driven reports for cleaning businesses. In this episode, Erica enlightens us with her journey and passion for effective bookkeeping, emphasizing the significance of engaging professionals with a teacher's heart. She shares her expertise on managing rapid business growth, likening it to balancing platters as a waitress, and the importance of asking the right questions when working with accountants to establish clear financial goals.
Listeners will gain a deeper understanding of navigating multiple income streams using platforms like QuickBooks, Square, and Jobber. Erica highlights the intricacies of integrating these tools and offers practical advice on simplifying financial operations to avoid duplicate entries. Discussions extend to the importance of key performance indicators such as gross profit margin, cash flow, and customer retention rate, and how new interactive reporting features and AI integration can enhance the tracking of these crucial metrics.
Exploring the transition from sole proprietorship to LLC, Erica discusses the need for legal protection and the psychological shift required when becoming an employer. She also shares insights on maintaining financial organization, including the Profit First method, and the value of separating business accounts for different purposes. The episode is rich with anecdotes and strategies for building a lasting legacy in the cleaning industry, while underscoring the mindset needed to justify pricing in a service-based environment. Join us for a wealth of knowledge and actionable insights tailored for those in the cleaning business landscape.
Here is her contact information:
FREE RESOURCES: Making less than 6 figures & DIYing your bookkeeping? Grab my free guide: myvbk.com/cblfreeguide
Making 6+ figures & want to save on taxes? Book a free call: myvbk.com/cblfreecall
Let’s connect! Friend me: facebook.com/erica.paynter Follow my biz page: facebook.com/myvirtualbookkeeper
It can be crowed when trying to figure out who you are going to learn from
Erica Paynter is the brains behind My Virtual Bookkeeper, a bookkeeping firm for cleaning companies, and the creator of Clean Co. Cash Flow Academy and the Clean Co. Collective. She’s on a mission to help cleaning business owners make sense of their numbers without boring them to tears! Erica’s all about turning messy books into profit-packed powerhouses.
Up your cleaning game, join over 6000 Cleaning Business Owners most of whom are located here in the United States.
Questions? Feel free to reach out!
Shannon Miller: cleaningbusinesslife@gmail.com
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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIjMz_-9YyiFvNVIgb61iYg
To order All-Natural Cleaning Products: www.purevergreen.com
See Shannon's latest courses: www.KleanFreaksUnversity.com
Erica Painter is the brains behind my Virtual Bookkeeper, a bookkeeping firm for cleaning companies and the creator of Clean Co Cash Flow Academy and Clean Co Collective. She's on a mission to help cleaning business owners make sense of their numbers without boring them to tears. Erica's all about turning messy books into profit-packed powerhouses and having a little fun along the way. When she's not crunching numbers or geeking out about cash flow, you'll find her cheering on entrepreneurs and sharing tips to help them thrive. She's here to prove that bookkeeping doesn't have to suck. Sporting in progress. Welcome everyone. Today I am joined with Jamie and Miss Erica with Virtual Bookkeepers plural, not just her, my virtual bookkeeper, my virtual bookkeeper.
Speaker 1:I apologize, that's okay, I'm reading it backwards on your screen.
Speaker 3:We do have a team, okay. So so, yes, is it backwards on my screen? It is, it is. You want to know what's funny? So when I first uploaded this, it was backwards and I was like, well, they're gonna think I'm crazy, so it must be. It's supposed to be backwards to me, whatever. Yes, now I know, I believe that's the way it works on zoom, but now I know now I know my virtual bookkeeper yes, yes, my virtual bookkeeper, who is very fluent.
Speaker 1:She actually goes to accounting conferences. I've seen her go to Florida and a couple other places and um is constantly building her business and I don't remember you had said how many people work under you.
Speaker 3:Um, right now I have three Yep.
Speaker 1:And this is your first official year, or your second year.
Speaker 3:This is my we're in 2025. This is my fourth year All right.
Speaker 1:So you're you're seasoned and you know what's going on and you got all the help that you need, so I think that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Right. Thank you A lot of a lot. I see you in the groups quite often and I love that. No, you're not an accountant. Oh yeah, I'm not a tax pro. I am an accountant.
Speaker 3:I'm not a tax pro. I try to make sure that everybody knows. I will try to give you as much information as possible, but I always advise, when it's tax related stuff to seek their accountant.
Speaker 2:So which is great, because today I have a meeting with my accountant and I said, oh, we couldn't have done this at a better time. What are some great questions that I should be asking? You're looking for a bookkeeper or an accountant.
Speaker 3:Right, okay. So so when you have um, is this your first time meeting this accountant?
Speaker 2:no, this is my several times meeting this account. I will tell you that I don't know how happy I am with the, the communication, and I get it. You're busy, you know, I get it. I'm not the only client, um, but I'm still new to learning. We've had such a growth. I don't know that if um I I put it out there. Uh, I've had a 536 percent growth spurt since working, which is not normal in the industry you have to be fabulous, you do, you have to be prepared to have such a growth.
Speaker 2:Somebody that's just starting off making a hundred thousand is dying to make that five hundred thousand dollar mark, but there's definitely steps to get there. Growing pains too, it is, and and um it's. You're trying to hold some platters as like, like a, a waitress, and it feels like it could be spill at any time on the consumer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I feel like when, when you're talking to any, any professional, I mean, we're not just talking about accountants, bookkeepers, but any professional that you are paying to help you I feel like they should have the heart of a teacher. If you can't explain to me what you are telling me in words that I can understand, then you know, am I really getting the value out of it? So there, there went my. That's number one, okay.
Speaker 1:Erica put out a post on Facebook to facilitate her not saying I'm very often so. She offered someone a gift card. I believe it was a Starbucks or an Amazon gift card Amazon person who guessed the amount of uhs and ums she was gonna say during this interview. So it's actually totally hilarious. She caught herself. So by yourself on the back, miss Erica, I'm done.
Speaker 3:I'm done. I had, I had one person who guessed six and one who guessed like 20,000 or something. So you know we'll see. But so when it comes to hiring a professional, you definitely want to make sure that you hire somebody who is willing to explain things to you. You know, just taking your paperwork and running your taxes. And I will just say that there are so many good tax pros out there that just don't have the people-y personality, and that's okay. You know, they're not all going to have it, and some people are okay with working with those people and that is fine. There's like marriage, there's somebody for everybody.
Speaker 3:But I just feel like, especially when you're trying to grow your business, it's important that you do understand those numbers and you do understand what they're telling you. And I hope that everybody who works with me knows that if they don't understand, they can be like hey, Erica, slow down, can you explain this to me? Because not all of my clients have the same education level when it comes to I shouldn't say education level, but the same experience with understanding everything. And so I just, you know, sometimes I glaze over stuff kind of quickly because it's second nature to me, and but if anybody were to ask me. You know I'm more than happy to sit down and explain. You know what I'm talking about, what they can do differently to make it better. You know things of that nature.
Speaker 1:And having financial goals and we're going to talk about, and then you get to the second phase, where the business actually pays you, and then you go to the third phase. What do I do with all this cash? How do I make it not passive but so that I'm earning income? There's five steps to that, but it's super important to have someone who understands our industry and I'm not trying to say exclusivity. However, there's a lot of nuances with the cleaning industry and everyone. I've had people pitch me for service industry, service industry, service industry, service industry, and we have our own little niche for a reason and I'm sure you'll see this too, erica, or you already have because you specialize in the cleaning industry just for cleaning businesses. So there's the margin mark right Of what person like Shannon runs with the solo method and you've heard me say 55, 25, and 20. Then other people run with 60, 40. Some people run 55, 40. It just depends on where they are at in their business. So it's great to have someone who is fluent with the cleaning industry.
Speaker 3:Yes, I agree. I think that when you break into an industry, when you open a cleaning company, you're in the industry, but when you start a bookkeeping company you're not in the cleaning industry. And so when you start, you know niching down I hate that word because you know I don't even know if it's niche or niche or whatever, but anyways it's niche or niche or whatever, but anyways but it's. You know you're really getting rid of a lot of prospects because you know I went from I can serve everybody to I can serve, you know, this small percentage of people. But the more cleaning companies that I get, the more I realize how much more I can serve them and I get super excited about doing that and helping them.
Speaker 3:I love sitting down with them and going over everything and kind of seeing those aha moments Like, oh, I can do this. So, especially when it comes to the KPIs and it's hard because benchmarks are so different, the KPIs and it's hard because benchmarks are so different residential, commercial, short-term rentals, you know solopreneurs, large corporations, so there's not a one size fits all. But you kind of have to see what works for your business, what works for your, your demographics, you know where you live, that kind of stuff, so. But it's all about making goals and getting to that next step.
Speaker 2:So do you only work with residential, the residential community, or is it residential commercial?
Speaker 3:All of the above. All of the above yes, I, I mainly most of my clients are residential. I have some well I take that back Residential and short-term rentals. My clients happen to be near vacation areas, where you know you have a little bit of both, and then I have a few clients that kind of dabble in residential and commercial.
Speaker 1:Gotcha Now, from your experience that you have dealt with for the cleaning industry, do you find that most of them are like beginners, brand new? Are they in the middle of the road? Are they more seasoned? Cleaning individuals, cleaning my my clients in particular.
Speaker 3:is that what you're asking about? Okay, so my clients in particular. Uh, actually, my first cleaning client was cousin and she had just started a cleaning business and went ahead and went out and took a risk on me, which I was super thankful for. So she was just starting out. But everybody else tends to be, you know, three, five years in years in. I have a few that you know haven't dealt with coaches at all and they are, you know, just kind of doing the best they can with what they know how. I have some that are growing quite quickly because they're, you know, working with coaches. So I have a little bit of everybody, okay.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. That's awesome. Yeah, I love the education part of it as well, and coaching them.
Speaker 2:that that's important, yeah, no, I think a coach, having a coach and a mentor, it is so important. Um, I, while we're on that, I want to shout out for Shannon making the top 20 on I saw that zen maid, that I I almost cried, I, I probably did and I just was so such a she deserves this.
Speaker 2:So congratulations, shannon yes, um, I agree, yeah so what are some questions that I should be looking at? What should I be looking at? Because the way okay. So we have QuickBooks. I know a lot of people do. I began with FreshBooks and my accountant absolutely hated it.
Speaker 2:I get several sources of different income. So I have Square, I have Jobber and I have Vidmo, so there's several things coming in and her trying to figure out why we communicate when we get together, we talk so well together, like she's a great friend, it feels like and but my, the like I said the communication is not there. So she's trying. She has access to all of my, she has access to jobber. To try and break it down, because I was just going in manually and it just felt like that's the way I should have done. It is, go in manually to put in what we make and she's like, oh no, just so she's trying to break it down of how much the fees are for everything. It just has gotten really complicated. I guess what my question is is what should some of my questions be?
Speaker 3:I just so I have a question for you. Yeah, go ahead. Why are you using square jobber and venmo?
Speaker 2:I just ended up that way. Okay, so this is my logical thinking and this is this is the truth. This is I am a business owner. I'm still learning and I'm still doing it. So I use square, it takes, I use Square, it takes out automatically. If anybody I run before I had Jobber, they give you all these folders. You know that right. They give you all these folders that you can make out of sight, out of mind. So anybody's credit card that I run it automatically. I that's where I pull my 30% from With Jobber it just automatically. I can take it and do an instant transfer and it goes to my bank, whatever those fees are associated with it, and that's how I pay. I have like four. I have like four in my personal bank. I have four different accounts one for business, one for payroll, one for savings and one personal Right. So does that make sense? That's my logic.
Speaker 3:Well, the reason I'm asking is because a lot of people do that for money, Like they're like oh, I use Venmo because you know I can get transfers for free, which is understandable, However so let me back up a little bit there's a difference between tax accounting and managerial accounting. It sounds to me and I could be wrong, but it sounds to me like your accountant is for tax accounting, so basically she wants to see your total income minus your taxable deductions so that she can get your taxes done. That's the idea. She wants to get it as close to accurate as possible.
Speaker 3:Managerial accounting is having all of that done monthly or quarterly, so that you have that full, actual picture of what's going on, so that you can make those financial decisions that you need to make in your business. And as a bookkeeper who focuses on managerial accounting, one of my pricing well, part of my pricing calculator is how many accounts you have. And if I'm charging you for a Venmo account so that you can save 2%, then are you really saving that much money? You know, and I know that some clients, especially in industries where you're working with a consumer itself it's so hard to get people to switch things, you know.
Speaker 3:I've been paying you this way forever.
Speaker 2:I don't I don't even have a checkbook anymore or I don't want to run my credit card, whatever it may be you know, which is understandable.
Speaker 3:But you know at the same time you have as a business owner, first of all, you can do whatever you want. That is the beauty of owning your own business you can do whatever you want. But if you minimize those different accounts it does make things easier. So with my company, what we do is we actually integrate Jobber into QuickBooks, and so what it does is it creates an invoice in Quickber. So if you have things broken down by, you know residential or one-time cleanings or deep cleans, or you know bi-weekly, however you have it set up in Jobber, it um, it sets up the products and services in QuickBooks, just like it has in Jobber. It sets up your customers in QuickBooks, just like it does in Jobber, and it opens invoices and it closes invoices depending on, like, if it was a Jobber payment, it'll close the invoice for you. Otherwise we have to go through and do some matching.
Speaker 3:But either way, it keeps QuickBooks true. It keeps it true to what's going on in Jobber and it's not just a big lump sum, which isn't wrong. I'm not saying that way is wrong. That way is just how tax pros like to do it, because that's their job. Their job is to, you know, come up with this stuff for taxes. So I personally think that you know I understand why you're keeping square and that's OK, but maybe as time goes on, you know, pick which one you like better. And as time goes on, you know, as you lose those clients, you know, maybe stop setting people up on square, or jobber, and, you know, do the other one and that's what I do and I've asked her to actually integrate and she goes.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm afraid it's going to register it twice.
Speaker 3:It registers it twice if you don't do it right. So yes, here's what will happen, and it also depends on whether you're filing taxes on a cash basis or accrual basis. But if it's a cash basis, then you can have 35 bajillion invoices in QuickBooks and it only registers the money that actually hits your account or you put in a different way. But we're not going to go into all that, but the but. If you're doing accrual basis, then it only registers invoices and sales receipts. It's not going to register any other. I don't know how to explain it, but I promise there's a right way to do it.
Speaker 1:That's not what she's talking about.
Speaker 3:There is a right way to do it to make sure that it will not duplicate your income. Yes, and there's checks and balances also. That we do every month or quarter, depending on your package, but we have. Well, I take that back. We do our quality control every month, Even if you only get your reports quarterly. We do quality control every month because if I have to ask you a question from three months ago, you're going to look at me cross-eyed. So we do quality control every month to make sure that we don't have these duplicates of any way, shape or form.
Speaker 2:Awesome. So they come to you and then you have different packages. You'll have a month, somebody a client that's monthly, or a client that's quarterly, or a client that's what like six months to a year.
Speaker 3:Quarterly is. The is the max we go. So what it looks like to work with us is first we hop on a call and we see if we're a good fit. You know, and I don't ever want anybody to feel like they're signing their life away with somebody that they don't even know. If they like so, then I would you say that's super important, yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3:And so then I require all of my potential clients to have a diagnostic review, and what that means is I get access to their QuickBooks and I do an extremely deep probably too thorough, but that's just how my brain works review of their QuickBooks.
Speaker 3:I have a 40 plus point inspection. It's kind of like taking your car for an oil change, but it's because I really want them to know what we're starting with. Then it is a paid diagnostic review and then if, for whatever reason, they decide not to continue back up when I do this diagnostic review, when I'm done, I also give them a proposal, a proposal to clean up what's in the past and then a proposal for the monthly in the future. But if they decide that they can't afford me, they don't want to afford me, they have changed their mind. They were talking to multiple people, you know, and they want to go with someone else. They have this detailed report that points out all of their QuickBooks issues, and so I might not tell them how to fix it, but at least they'll know what needs to be fixed. So they still walk away with a tangible, you know something to walk away with.
Speaker 2:I love it Same. I feel like you're right. I feel like whenever you're first starting out, your clients probably don't realize that they need a bookkeeper. So I see I could see the three to five year mark is like okay.
Speaker 3:I no longer want to do this.
Speaker 2:I'm getting there it's like, okay, I, this is, this is beyond me, and it's it's like, like I said, it's like being a waitress and you're about ready to tip your, your tray over into a client's lap. Sometimes, sometimes, um, especially whenever you have growth spurts like this, and and there's, you go through all these little growth spurts, like like I am, and it's just it's great that I have somebody to talk to, but you can only tell this person so much, because they, you know they can't capture everything.
Speaker 3:Well, they can't unless they have a full picture. And if your books I'm not saying your books are a hot mess, so don't take it this way but if your in general books are a hot mess, I can't really tell you anything, except for they're a hot mess, like I can't gather any actual data from them to give you any form of advice or any of that nature, because I don't know what I'm looking at. So it is important to make sure that it is up to date regularly, at least monthly, so that if you do have a question for your accountant you can say log in, look at this. Can you help me?
Speaker 1:Exactly. I have a couple of questions Just for the people in the audience. Let's go back to KPIs, because people are going to reach out and go. Erica said KPIs. Nobody elaborated on them. What exactly are KPIs and what KPIs do you look for for the cleaning industry?
Speaker 3:I don't know Chat, gpt it. No, I'm just playing, so I have to bring out my cheat sheet for this one. Okay, so actually we just we're just now incorporating, as of December so, the reports that are going out this month we have interactive reports, which I am loving because you can, they're real time. So if I send you one thing that we have sorry, I'm going to answer your question, I promise. One thing that we have is we have accounts called Waiting on Client. So if we have a question about something and we ask them a question in the portal, we code it to Waiting on Client for the moment, so that we, you know, have it sitting somewhere so we can reconcile for the moment, so that we, you know, have it sitting somewhere so we can reconcile. But we need some more information.
Speaker 3:While it's there, your reports will show waiting on client. Well, it shows up on your profit and loss as, say, an expense. So let's say you have a $50 meals expense. That could be you just went to lunch with your husband, or it could mean that you bought food for your employees so that they didn't have to leave work. Well, one is deductible, one's not. Well, if I have it on the profit and loss it's going to show as deductible, but if it's actually a meal with your husband, it's not. And so I have this Right. And we're talking about business and all that fun stuff, exactly so. But so the interactive reports. So let's say, I issue them today and it has it under waiting on client and then you get back to me tomorrow and then I fix it. You know, three days later, when you log back in in a week, it's updated. It's not a PDF where it hasn't changed. So I'm loving our interactive reports. They give variances between, you know, month to month, year over year. I know that sounds like ah, but basically it gives you a comparison of how you're doing from year to year, month to month. So, with that being said, we are trying to. It just got released so I haven't been able to fully dive in yet, but I think it has capabilities to create certain KPIs in there, so that when I issue the reports it will already be in there. And you know it would be nice if you knew what you were looking at. So I'm going to have some education to go along with it.
Speaker 3:But, to answer your question, there are quite a few. I'll give you the top eight. I won't go into detail unless you have, you know, lots of time, because this is a whole presentation in itself. But you have your gross profit margin, which is your top line revenue, minus your cost of goods sold. Cost of goods sold is anything that makes you money. So the supplies make you money because they're used. You know you're using them at people's houses and your labor is making you money. Then you have your net profit margin, which is your top line revenue, minus all of your expenses. So that is those two KPIs. Actually, those and the next two are basically any business.
Speaker 3:So you have your cash flow. You know the money coming in and the money going out. Cash flow is not income and expenses alone. It could be money from a loan is cash flow. Money paying a loan off affects cash flow. So, and neither of those are income or expenses, it's just money coming in and out of the business. And then you have your accounts receivable turnover. So if you're this is usually more in the commercial industry where you invoice them and sometimes you're having to wait for your payment how quickly you're getting paid.
Speaker 3:Then you have your revenue per job. So you would just take your total revenue divided by your number of jobs and whatever that period is, and that will give you your revenue per job average. Then you have your labor cost percentage, which is your labor costs divided by your total revenue, times 100. And that tracks how much revenue is used to cover labor costs, which is usually your biggest expense. Yes, and then you have your customer retention rate. So this one I can send you guys screenshots so you don't have to write it all down. But the customer retention rate is the number of customers at the end of a period, minus the number of customer excuse me, minus the new number of customers during the period, divided by the number of customers at the start of the period, times 100. I know.
Speaker 3:Anyways, I can give you this stuff in the show notes if you want, but it shows the percentage of retained customers over the period of time. Then you have your job completion rate, which is your completed jobs divided by your total scheduled jobs, and that measures your operational efficiency and reliability. And I don't know if I'm almost done or not because I lost count, but you have your operating expense ratio. So that's your operating expenses divided by your total revenue and that tracks how much of the revenue is spent on operational costs, which is generally anything other than cost of goods sold. And yes, that was the last one I got for you.
Speaker 1:Thank you Because. I know they're going to reach out to me.
Speaker 2:KPI stand for key performance indicators right.
Speaker 3:Yes, thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we have to know these. You have to know your key performance indicators and this is where you become an actual business owner, knowing at least the minimal amount of this. Right, I will say that I have the top tier on Jobber and they've also introduced this new thing with AI. Of course, you can ask it what's my KPIs and it gives you a whole list. But I've also incorporated, because I'm on the top tier, you can incorporate how much you pay for your, what you're paying your employees an hour with the job. I have not set it up, although I can set it up for chemicals used. I mean, it can break it down to chemicals used on a job or job. You know it. Just I I have not done that part yet, right?
Speaker 3:So Well, and and the the data, these I mean I can even say for myself you know the data that I spit out and the data that jobber spits out is only as good as the data that goes in. So if you have a bunch of you know nefarious you know invoices and payments, or you, you know you quoted this person this much but you actually did this much, but you closed it out for this amount you know the original amount and pocketed the rest or whatever it may look like, you know it's only as good as the data that goes in. So you definitely have to take the time to make sure that the information that goes into Jobber is correct and that goes to your bookkeeper is correct and to your accountant. Otherwise, the information that comes out is bound to be incorrect.
Speaker 1:Okay, I love all of that. Jobber has come a long ways. I mean, they're adding in new features, which I totally love. But, yeah, I mean, they're adding in new features, which I totally love. But yeah, I agree with you 1001% on that. And, for the audience, explain the difference. I have a very lead accountant and they have other accountants and then they also have bookkeepers on the side and they have tax people on the other side. But explain what that is to you and your business so that the audience understands the differences.
Speaker 3:Okay. So the first thing is it depends on what state you live in. So in states like Texas, you are not allowed to tell anybody you're an accountant unless you are a CPA, which is kind of not fair. I have a bachelor's in accounting. I haven't gone for my master's just because I like my husband and he's going to be like you're going back to school again, but technically I'm an accountant.
Speaker 3:Bookkeeping is more the idea of going through and making sure that the data is correct in QuickBooks.
Speaker 3:Accounting generally is more like of figuring out what to do with that data, and so I would like to say I'm a little bit of both. I just don't like to talk, call myself an accountant because I don't want people to get confused and think that I do taxes and I, you know that's one of those things I was telling somebody yesterday. I feel like our IRS tax code came from a bunch of toddlers who ate some crayons and then got carried away, you know and, and just drew everywhere because the tax code is out of control, and so I feel better and more comfortable talking with my clients about the real numbers and what's really going on in their business, versus you can and you can't do this, and this is why not that I don't give any advice. You know, there's some things that I'm very comfortable with you know with saying, but it's actually a kind of hairy line. You know bookkeeping and accounting, so, but I kind of lean more towards the bookkeeping because I want people to know that that's what I'm more focused on.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that about Texas. That's very interesting and my interpretation of an accountant is more they're more responsible for the tax liabilities to keep you out of trouble. So they look at all these things and go you either have to pay or you don't pay. You're like I don't want to pay. What happened? So, yeah, there's a, there's a difference, but I had no idea that you could not in the state. Is Texas the only state I'm not?
Speaker 3:sure, I've heard a lot about them that you can't use. You can't even get an LLC with an accountant in your name unless you have a CPA. They're very strict on that.
Speaker 2:I live in California, so imagine that.
Speaker 3:We know about them. No, I'm just playing Both people. Yes. Hmm, imagine that we know about them. No, I'm just playing. Yes. But I did want to point out one thing real quick.
Speaker 3:One of the biggest questions I get is when I start my business, do I need to have an LLC and do I need to be an escort? And I just wanted to touch on that really quick. You don't have to have an LLC, but you might as well. Most of the time it's not super expensive. You're still going to get taxed the same as you would as a sole proprietor. It just adds a little bit of a layer of legal protection, but only if you operate it separately from your personal life. If you're taking all of your income and directly depositing it into your personal account, then if you ever get sued and you go to court, the judge is going to be like but you didn't really treat it separately. But if you are going to treat it separately, might as well get an LLC. Not legal advice, but just saying it does add a little bit layer of protection.
Speaker 3:But as far as the S-corp goes, not a tax pro, so not going to give actual advice, but generally you need to be making a decent net income to make the cost of running an S-corp worth the make the cost worth it because it does save you in taxes once you hit a certain point. That point is going to be different from person to person. It's going to be different as much you know, like their net income, how much they're paying themselves and things of that nature. But it is definitely something worth talking to your tax pro about. And if you have hit 50,000 of net income, it's time to start talking with your tax pro. I'm not going to say that they're going to go oh, you're there. You know that might not be it at all, but but it is a time to say, hey, I'm growing. You know I want to put this on the radar. When should I switch over? And they should be able to look at your numbers and give you a better idea, definitely.
Speaker 1:I was a sole proprietor for years and then when I paid cash for my house I was like, if one of these guys hits somebody, I want to be covered. So that's when I made myself an LLC. And I know in certain states you actually can't even have a business license without the LLC attached to it.
Speaker 2:And that's just. I just learned that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it just a couple of months ago, and some banks won't let you open a business account without a business license and or LLC.
Speaker 2:So I had to have my business license here in California but did not have to have my LLC. But that goes on to me. I just purchased a house and that reminds me that I my accountant, gave me a bunch of hoops to jump, and now we're supposed to be talking about doing S-Corp. Supposed to be talking about doing S-Corp, so LLC, but LLC. So far what I've seen is it's about 500 bucks here in California again.
Speaker 3:So you know in Virginia I think it's 75 or a hundred to get going in North Carolina. It's like 200 and something.
Speaker 1:I think it's like 175 bucks, right yeah.
Speaker 2:Not so dropping the bucket.
Speaker 3:Plus, it feels it's, it's exciting to see your business name. You know, when you're just getting started to see your business name on a little sheet of paper and it's like it's official, so it's a little added bonus.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, every step of the way, do you have some more questions for the audience when you're? What kind of? If I was looking for a bookkeeper, what kind of questions should I ask you potentially, or another bookkeeper, to make sure that we're going to? I mean, yeah, there's a likability and, yes, there's a stature and you have your license and all the normal stuff. But let's get down to the nitty gritty and ask, like, what type of questions if? What? I ask you, erica, if I was looking for a bookkeeper, so that I can make an educated decision on our business partnership?
Speaker 3:Yes. So first you'd want to say where do I sign up, erica, and I would. So basically, I would say you know how often am I going, how often will I get my reports? Uh, what if I have questions? You know how? What is the turnaround time in your response? Um, I don't know. Let's see here. Um, you should have pre-submitted this question, ma'am.
Speaker 3:I just thought of it, I'm sorry. No, it's okay. I mean, generally, when I have conversations with potential clients, it's more of a conversation style. You know, I like to ask them, you know, what's going on in their business, and then I let them know if I can fix their pain points. And I'm very honest, if I'm not the right fit, I'm going to tell you you know I don't want.
Speaker 3:It costs a lot of money for me to get a client onboarded and I don't charge onboarding, and so I'm not going to waste my time and money or your time and or money if I don't think that I can help solve the problems that you have usually give, unless you're a total red flag client. Uh, I can usually give you, uh, some references of somebody who might be a better fit. Uh, you know, you could ask you know what's your minimum price? I have it laid out in my, uh, my booking software, so when you book with me, there's, uh, it's not really prerequisites to work with me, but it's like most people who work with me, you know, are these 10 things and you know I have my minimum, my minimum monthly price, my average monthly price, so that people can go oh well, you know, not everybody's going to get the minimum, and that's understandable, and so that, just so they have an idea, uh, you know how much minimum revenue I would like for them to be making and and that's more for their affordability.
Speaker 3:You know, I do have people who make less than my minimum that work with me, but I kind of have that there, because most of the time if you're not making that much. You're a little more price sensitive, which is fine. There are bookkeepers out there for more price sensitive people, and I'm not saying I'm the most expensive because I'm not more price sensitive people, and I'm not saying I'm the most expensive because I'm not, but I really like to deliver. I really like to deliver, you know. So I want to make sure that that some people don't care about the KPIs, they don't care about the reports, and that's okay. Those people, you know there's a bookkeeper for those people, and you know. But I want my clients to care about those things. I want them to care about whether they did better this year than last year and if not, where did we go wrong?
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I think, having a bookkeeper in your realm, on your repertoire in case an opportunity presents itself, how do you know if you can afford a company vehicle? How do you know if you can afford to float all this payroll Because you took on this big job. As we just discussed earlier, a lot of these commercial jobs are net 30, net 60. I would never take a net 60, by the way, ever Not in this economy. I'm literally going to take on net 30s, but yeah, it's there.
Speaker 1:There's a dynamic of knowing what it's like. When we went to well, I I'm speaking for myself when I went to high school and I'm admitting my age here we had to learn how to write checks and balance a checkbook. I don't know if that still happens today or not, but it's just like you had to know where the money went out and where, where it was spent and why it was spent. And you, you can't take advantage of opportunities that land in your lap unless your books are in in order. It just doesn't work. You can guess and hope. Keep your fingers crossed, right? Oops, sorry, I thought I turned this off.
Speaker 2:You have to be able to make business decisions off of those KPIs, those key performance indicators You're exactly right. That you.
Speaker 3:Well, a lot of people look at their bank account balance, as this is how much I have to spend, and it's unfortunately not how it works, it's unfortunately not how it works.
Speaker 3:You know, if you have a $2,500 payroll coming up and you have $4,000 in your account, you don't have $3,000 to go buy the you know latest and greatest vacuum or whatever it is that you want to invest in. And so you know. I like you, jamie, you were talking earlier about how you have different bank accounts. I do too. I follow the profit first method in my business and as it flows through it goes into these different accounts, because then if I want to do my bank account balance method which I still don't do but I can see how much is in operating funds and I know I have this payroll account over here to cover payroll, no matter what happens over here in operating funds. So yeah, it's definitely. You know, having somebody on your side so that you know what you have is definitely important.
Speaker 1:And you always want to have a separate account for payroll. Because we saw an example of this happen many times and I often reflect back to the gentleman who, when we were all shut down and he had the gym and they they make, they're like you can't be open. He's like, screw you, I'm going to be open. There was this whole battle. I believe it was in New Jersey and New Jersey, the state of New Jersey went into this guy's bank account and extracted all of the funds in his bank account without any authorization. I guess he'd pre-authorized the state payments but because he wasn't cooperating, they wanted to shut him down. So they took all of his funds out of his bank account and I was just like you know. I'm going to start teaching people to have a separate account for the payroll, yes, so that you have it, but also so that people can't come in and take it on willingly, unbeknownst to you.
Speaker 3:Right, and it might not even be you know, the government or whatever. It could just be some software that just decides that it, you know, went way up. Or oh, we switched you to yearly because we sent you an email, you didn't read it, so you're exactly right, here's my 5,000 bucks.
Speaker 1:You're like, oh yes, yes, I had that happen to you. I'm like you are canceled and it's really hard to get that money back. And then you're trying to float all this stuff and you know it. Just, it can be very stressful if you're, if you're not paying attention. So I find it interesting because as we all grow together, I consider us all growing together.
Speaker 1:In the cleaning industry, there are more and more sub industries that are helping to care for and groom the cleaning industry, which I totally love, because this one of my passions is to make the cleaning industry recognized as the 23rd trade, that everybody has standards in place, whether they spend the $10,000 program or the $3,000 program or whoever they pick, so that we can all have systems in place so that we can all make money. That's the whole point of all of this. Craziness is that you are creating a legacy that you can sell or give away at another. Maybe your family wants it. I know Jamie has talked about Bodie running the ship after she, you know, retires and all that other stuff.
Speaker 1:So it's, it's exciting to me to see, you know, all of this come into fruition and, um, I love it Definitely. Excuse me, I'm going to like hopefully not sneeze and choke at the same time. Hopefully, not sneeze and choke at the same time. Little nuances, I know that was TMI. I'm sorry I shared that. But, erica, tell people where they can like reach you and get a hold of you.
Speaker 3:And do you have any questions for us? You can't give me this many things at once. You can ask the questions. I'm totally happy, okay, okay. So questions, uh, how about I give you? I'm going to give you the other stuff first so I can think if I have any questions. I don't think I do, uh, cause I know where to find you.
Speaker 2:So it's like you know, I don't, I don't have any questions.
Speaker 3:So the easiest place to find me is to just friend me on Facebook. I friend anybody in the cleaning industry. You just have to like, show on your profile you know that you're actually in the cleaning industry and you're not a stalker, right, exactly. So I mean I probably have some stalkers. That's fine too, you know. As long as they're not actual stalkers, I'm good.
Speaker 3:But, that's the easiest place to find me. I have my Facebook page, my virtual bookkeeper. I'm just not as active on that as I am my personal page, because I'm just a personal kind of person. I actually had a prospect reach out to me recently and you know we were chatting on facebook messenger and then finally she she said why are you so personable? She said all the bookkeepers I've met they're not personable and I'm like, which I tend to disagree. I know a lot of bookkeepers, and I know you know plenty that are personable, but I don't know if I used to be a hairdresser, so I think I missed that. You know that behind the chair, kind of talk. But let's see here. So those are the two easiest. I have my website, my VBKcom, that's virtual bookkeepercom, and that's where you can find more about me. You know kind of like the services I offer.
Speaker 3:I have a free Facebook community called Clean Co Collective. It's just now getting started. It's not as active as I'd like it to be, so I would love all the new members Is that what you're called if you join a group? I'd love all the new members to join and start chatting, because it is specifically for cleaning companies or cleaning company owners who want to gain financial clarity, who want to grow their business and connect with like-minded entrepreneurs. So if you go on over there, you can kind of connect with other people. I know there's a lot of cleaning groups out there. This one is more geared to you know, your financial health, I guess. And then I have two freebies that I would like to give away. The first one is for everybody. It is going to be cleaning companies like yours are overpaying in taxes 10 deductions you can't afford to miss in 2025. So that's numero uno, and you can find that at myvbkcom. Backslash CBL free guide.
Speaker 1:We're going to get that in the show notes.
Speaker 3:Free guide, yes. And then my other one is going to be for a free call, and these are going to be for people who are making over $150,000 and are using QuickBooks, who want me to help take a look at their books and see if they're overlooking the top three deductions that most cleaning businesses don't take advantage of. And so free 30 minute call with me just to go over and make sure that they are taking advantage of all those deductions. So, and that will also be in the show notes, but it is mybbkcom backslash CBL free call.
Speaker 1:So that is all I got for you. Any questions that you would like to ask us?
Speaker 3:Shoot away. Yeah, when can I be back? This was fun. We're going to have to do this again, so just message me. Definitely.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about maybe after tax season is over, because usually leading up to there's this whole crescendo of what do I they? Everyone has this panic right now. Momentum that happens Like what do I do? Like the whole BOI thing. It's like I'm so over the BOI report, right First. First we have to do the report or we're going to get, then we get it. Then we don't have to do the report because it's been challenged. And then we have to do the report but we have a delayed due date because they've changed their mind and they're not sure about it. So it's still up in the air and then we're not doing.
Speaker 3:It's all voluntary, so I feel like it was created to make me look like I don't know what I'm talking about, because the amount of times I've like commented and then they're they're like, oh no, that was. And I'm like, yeah, it was, but now it's now, then it wasn't and then now it is again. So it's like, yeah, I'm with you. I just, personally, do you feel like it's um unconstitutional? I feel like they have our information everywhere else like what is this, this?
Speaker 3:But I also don't want to get charged $500 a day, so whatever.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it's still. It's still voluntary, as of the. You know what is this? The ninth of of January? Yeah, we're filming these a little bit early, but yes, let's, let's do after tax season. We'll get you back on the schedule. We're doing an interesting show schedule this year so that we can accomplish more and have more free times in the periods that we're not filming.
Speaker 1:I'd love to have you back on, because people have lots and lots of questions, and they do. They have this frenzied pace of freaking out about I didn't pull any money to the side, what do I do? I don't know, and that's my number one question I ask when I get a potential coaching client is I'm like what did you gross last year? And there's usually when they, when there's crickets on the other side, you're like oh, so they're like I have no idea. I'm like so how many cleaning techs do you have? Cause I have to figure out where they are business-wise and they can at least tell me how many clean techs so I can guess how much money they gross. Yeah, and that's all in your head.
Speaker 2:I just I don't know how you do it, sometimes Like wow.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, let's, let's do it after tax season, right, Hitting before summer, or we can do. Maybe we could do a quarterly segment where you come in and say, you know, like, talk about the top three deductions, or hey, the quarterly filings are due on this day, which is also a big thing. I sent out an email, I believe three times last year about hey, your quarterly taxes. I'm not a tax person, but I know your. Your quarterlies are due. Please make sure don't call me in a panic, I'm not a tax person. Your quarterlies are due. Please make sure don't call me in a panic, I'm not a tax person. Right, right, yeah, Don't. It's like swimming in the water and you have that person who's afraid of the water and you're like I can't, I can't breathe. It's just like I'm trying to swim to shore. Hold on, hold on.
Speaker 2:I have a life jacket right here, huh, yes.
Speaker 1:Relax. I am relaxing, as you're like gulping down large quantities of water. Mike, don't drink too much salt water. You're going to throw up. Yes, don't swallow the water, don't do it. So any other questions for us?
Speaker 3:I don't think so I'll probably think of 10 as soon as we get off this call. But yeah, no, I'm good, I think. I think it was a nice little chat.
Speaker 1:Thank you for taking the time.
Speaker 3:We appreciate you being a guest.
Speaker 1:I always love chatting with you because we always have interesting things to catch up on yes, yes, we do, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:And I agree in the fact that you know we can look inside of my business a little bit as the co-host and, like I said, I'm the guinea pig of everything.
Speaker 3:And I was like oh well, let's look at Jamie.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, sometimes not, it's just. I like to say that Jamie's growth is unusual. It's not normal to have 503% growth in a 12 month period. She couldn't have done it had she not had structures in place and systems work. That worked, because it would have. It would have just crashed and burned each time that the growth spur happened, Cause you have to do it in layers and I've talked to people who are like oh, I want to do a million dollars a year, Like I've never seen a company, except for one, do a million dollars in 12 months. You have to have all the systems in place. Usually it takes two to three years to hit the seven figure mark. That's usually the marker that everyone wants to attain. And they're like so do I get to keep a million dollars? I'm like no, you don't get to keep a million dollars, but you get to have a nice chunk of change that you'll have to pay taxes on if nothing goes wrong. They're like well, I thought I got to keep all the money. I'm like no.
Speaker 3:You can, but you better be headed to Mexico.
Speaker 2:He has no idea. He has no idea. I was like you don't even know how the business works. He was like do you know how much we're going to owe? Like $90,000. Jamie, do the math. It's very simple. That's how he told me. He goes do the math, you're going to owe like $90,000. And I said you don't know.
Speaker 3:There's deductions? Right, yeah, there's deductions. Okay, just print out. Print out my sheet, okay.
Speaker 2:No, go download it. He's like, oh my gosh, he'll be fine. I don't want him to see anything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, you know we're all resistant to paying the taxes, which is understandably so, because we work so hard for it. And it's hard when you're the business owner because you see all the money coming in. When you're an employee, you only get the part minus the taxes, but when you're the employer, you see all the money coming in and then you have to like, shuffle it over to the IRS. But I feel like if you have to pay the IRS more and more money, that means you're doing something right.
Speaker 2:Congratulations, you made it.
Speaker 3:Exactly Yep.
Speaker 2:I know Last year I remember I put a post up. I was like know anybody that's excited to see how much they owe the IRS this girl?
Speaker 1:Yep, that's funny, I have a feeling, jamie will just use this as a marker. I have a feeling jamie well, this might use this as a marker. I have a feeling jamie's gonna hit the either five or six figure, six hundred thousand, five hundred thousand or six hundred thousand.
Speaker 2:I believe, though, if I was in a bigger city that had an actual city, I believe I would be at already at the million, at the seven figure mark. Um, it's, it's, it's, honestly, my, my area way up there in the redwoods, for for this I mean, there's only 100 000 people in the whole county, which is 200 miles north, south, east and west. That's how big the county is.
Speaker 3:So I do have a question for you, shannon If you knew somebody who owned a bookkeeping business and they wanted to start a cleaning business on the side, but they don't want to actually, you know, clean like ever, not even my own house Would you, would your systems, be able to help somebody like that? Start from zero to six, seven figures not in 12 months, but eventually, is that? Do you start with people who, like, literally like, were born yesterday?
Speaker 1:There's two demographics. There's the cleaning method I'm going to clean and then transition out into workers and then there's the not touch the mop. So when you are doing, there's a difference of personalities and perspectives. In the total it's doable, but most of the people I work with have been the cleaner. Then they're implementing and transitioning out, but you can do it without touching them up. You just have to have a lot more patience and you do need to have more seed money. Um, the. The method for that that you're transitioning from yourself to a w-2 is called bootstrapping, and the other method is where I have the 20 grand to float the payroll to make this all work and I'm not freaking out to my husband every night because I have it, you got the payroll, the whole dynamic. That goes on. But you can do it, but you have to. In both instances. You have to have the systems in place to make it work.
Speaker 3:As a serial entrepreneur, I I'm constantly smacking my own hand Like, no, you can't do that, focus on what you got. No, you can't do that, focus on what you got. But I do love the industry and it has been a thought of mine in the back of my head Nothing that would happen anytime soon, but it's hard not to think about it when you work with all of these people and you see how well they're doing. And it's not just how well they're doing, but it's another service. I love to serve people. I just I love to. I'm a helper by nature, uh, and I just, you know just another way to help people. So I don't have the brain capacity to do anything extra right now other than what I'm doing, but it's always been there might be a time in the near future.
Speaker 1:You just never know. It's such people when, when we discuss price, this is kind of off topic of what we're talking about. We discussed price and a lot of um, as you know, as you see in the groups um, I can't get this, I can't do this. A lot of it is mindset and a lot of it is mindset of the consumer. The consumer feels because in 1990, when they first were introduced to the cleaning industry and minimum wage was $5 an hour and we used to go in people's curio cabinets and do all these things, that's the mentality, because that's the last time they had a cleaner. So there's, we get it a lot of.
Speaker 1:I can't believe this is what you charge. But the reality is is when you're operating a legitimate business, it costs money and you're not going to make it if you don't charge enough. You got to keep your profit margin in check and if you don't, you'll bankrupt yourself. And I personally have spoken to, I think, eight or nine people that come off the top of my head where they listen to the advice of somebody and they didn't have any idea about the cleaner. The cleaner said they could clean. I'm like not everyone, just because you say you can clean doesn't mean you do a good job. I can go build a house, but it doesn't mean that I'm going to do a good job building the house. Maybe I don't get the trusses just right, or maybe I can't even hang a picture straight. Why would I?
Speaker 3:I mean, it's just like why does this look like a fun house, shannon?
Speaker 1:I love this industry because you get to laugh all the way to the bank. People are like oh, you're just a cleaner, I'm like, yeah, I just keep on saying that.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, it's the same in my industry. You know you have cleaners and then you have cleaning companies, and those are two different things. You know, if you're hiring the you know the young lady that lives next door to you who's maybe in college and trying to fund her college you're not going to pay as much as somebody who owns a cleaning business, but you probably aren't going to get the value either, and that's the same with me. You can probably find a $200 or $300 a month bookkeeper, and you might even find one that does your books properly, but are you going to have somebody that can really help you make those educated decisions and that can really break down? You know your earnings and show you. You know your growth and you know month to month, year to year, and really help you? You know, see the full picture.
Speaker 1:So it's really important to see the full picture. But yes, I tell people all the time, I just tell them you're going to just you're going to laugh all the way to the bank, but there is so much money in this industry. They estimate that the cleaning industry is going to hit the billion mark, like billions, as in double digit billions. I've heard numbers thrown around from 40 billion to 65 billion. We're the number one consumers of the cleaning industry here in the States. Australia and the UK are second If you go anywhere in the world, like in Africa.
Speaker 1:You guys have all heard me talk about Charles, who actually is a carpet cleaner. That's how I know him and we talk back and forth in Messenger and he fundraised and it's called Starving Societies in Africa, save Starving Societies in Africa. I believe I'll have to look up the exact link. But he fundraised by carpet cleaning because his mom was educated, she was a teacher and he saw all of his village kids were uneducated. So he decided that he was going to fundraise for a school in his village. He bought the land, he cleared the land and we're not talking with equipment. He cleared the land with ox, okay so, and he leveled the land and then he just finished on the 31st of 2024, october 31st, and he has a full fledged school.
Speaker 1:This guy has fundraised and carpet cleaned and it's a brand new industry in his country. It's not. They don't have house cleaning there. It's just interesting to see where this all moves around and how it really does impact everybody. Everybody wants a clean house. It's mental health. Everybody wants to have a great space. We're killing germs and we're preventing illness and we're preventing a lot of things by having your home cleaned.
Speaker 3:We're killing germs and we're preventing illness and we're preventing a lot of things by having your home cleaned Well. And you know, back in the nineties, when you know when you were talking about before and even before then you know that was just the start of of two, two income households. You know, before it was the mom stayed home. She, you know, cleaned, cooked, you know did all the stuff with the kids all day. But now, when you're both working, who has time to come home? You know, cook, help the kids with homework. You know do all that and clean. Like you know I we clean, we surface clean at my house, but I hire somebody to come in and do the deep cleaning because I don't want to and I don't have time. You know so.
Speaker 2:And it's not a bougie thing anymore, that it is a. Shannon says it all the time. It is a line item on your budget. It is exactly um it I tell people all the time don't feel bad that you're asking for somebody to come in and help you. It's a necessity, it's a necessity. I agree. Yeah, I have somebody that comes in and cleans my house too, because it's the last thing that I want to do.
Speaker 3:I have it Well, you know I love doing everybody else's bookkeeping. Ask me how many months behind I am on mine. And it's not because I. It would probably literally take me 30 minutes to go in there and update everything in mine, because mine's all streamlined and uh, but it's, you know, it's the same. So it's the same in your industry as it is in ours.
Speaker 2:Just like with the what the mechanics with the cars. I hear that one all the time. Oh, it's just like the mechanics with their cars. They drive the piece of crap cars they should do Yep, yep, crazy.
Speaker 1:Well, ladies. Thank you so much, erica. Once again, thank you. I'm assuming you sent me the links. I saw something pop into my email, so, um, I will look at those in the show notes or, if I can't read it or whatever, I'll reach back out. And it was a pleasure, thank you. Bye.
Speaker 3:Thank you, ladies, take care.
