Julie Herres on How to Save Money in Your Practice | FP 60

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Julie Herres on How to Save Money in Your Practice | FP 60

Do you make some of the common money-wasting mistakes? What are some quick and easy things you can start doing in order to save money for the end of the year? Are there important perks about hiring an accountant to assist you?

In this podcast episode, Whitney Owens speaks with Julie Herres about how to save money in your private practice.

Meet Julie Herres

Julie Herres is an accountant and the owner of GreenOak Accounting. The firm provides accounting, bookkeeping & tax services to private practice owners throughout the United States. Their mission is for every practice to be profitable!

Julie and her team have worked with hundreds of private practice owners, so they are uniquely positioned to be a trusted advisor to clients. Julie also hosts the Therapy For Your Money Podcast, where she talks about all things money & finance for private practice.

Visit her website and listen to the podcast.

 

In This Podcast

  • Common financial mistakes practice owners make
  • Tips for practice owners to save money for the end of the year
  • Why is it important to have an accountant?

Common financial mistakes practice owners make

1. Not saving for taxes

As soon as there’s profit in the practice, you will start paying taxes, so you can see it as a good thing. Julie’s rule of thumb is set aside 25% of your profits, what you bring home, for paying taxes.

2. Not having a separate business account

Some practice owners co-mingle their private and business accounts. With a separate business account, you can easily track income and expenses. This is the money you will need to be saving 25% on.

3. Practice owners do not pay themselves intentionally

They either do not know or do not know how much to pay themselves. They may also use business money at odd times and they end up spending a significant amount of business money on personal duties, however without that intentional pay, the amount that you have used on yourself gets lost.

4. Not having records of their finances

Julie recommends keeping business records. Track things throughout the year instead of doing everything at the end of the year. There is a lot of valuable data in small amounts.

5. Not knowing deadlines

Keeping track of what is due and when. Knowing the deadlines will save you money for not having to pay consequence-money.

Tips for practice owners to save money for the end of the year

Accelerating expenses

The expenses are deducted when they happen, not in the future. Buy things that you need before you need them.

What I do want to caution is that I never want to accelerate an expense that is not needed. A deduction is not a credit. (Julie Herres)

Consider giving bonuses to employees before the end of the year

Make sure to run the bonuses in time for the current year period.

Invest in a retirement account

Think this through before the end of the year, speak with your accountant for ideas.

Consider hiring a consultant

There is an increase in hiring a consultant to assist you in expanding and investing in your business.

What we’ve noticed across our clients … is that we noticed that year over year there is about a 30% increase in income on our clients who have a coach or consultant or are working with someone and actively working on their business. (Julie Herres)

Make sure you have mileage records

If you travel for your business in any capacity, you can reimburse yourself for your millage through millage records. Keep them for your tax at the end of the year.

Take an office deduction if you meet the requirements

You can take a home office deduction to reimburse yourself for home office expenses. If you are entitled to it, take it and make sure your documentation is in order so that you can prove that your deduction is legitimate.

Top off your HSA accountant

Contributing to HSA makes it tax-free, it is definitely worth looking into.

Re-evaluate your legal entity

Check this with your accountant to see if you need to change anything for the end of the year.

Why is it important to have an accountant?

They are a trusted advisor who is going to help you with business decisions in your practice. Accountants can do the legal work so that you can focus on building your practice while they deal with the fine print. Having someone to run legal decisions through will save you time and money.

They can also assist you with keeping up with your tax deadlines. They can talk you through different scenarios and will be familiar with your business and therefore can help you make important numbers-based decisions.

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Meet Whitney Owens

Photo of Christian therapist Whitney Owens. Whitney helps other christian counselors grow faith based private practices!Whitney is a licensed professional counselor and owns a growing group practice in Savannah, Georgia. Along with a wealth of experience managing a practice, she also has an extensive history working in a variety of clinical and religious settings, allowing her to specialize in consulting for faith-based practices and those wanting to connect with religious organizations.

Knowing the pains and difficulties surrounding building a private practice, she started this podcast to help clinicians start, grow, and scale a faith-based practice. She has learned how to start and grow a successful practice that adheres to her own faith and values. And as a private practice consultant, she has helped many clinicians do the same.

Thanks For Listening!

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Faith in Practice is part of the Practice of the Practice Podcast Network, a network of podcasts that are changing the world. To hear other podcasts like Empowered and Unapologetic, Bomb Mom, Imperfect Thriving, Marketing a Practice or Beta Male Revolution, go to practiceofthepractice.com/network.

Podcast Transcription

[WHITNEY]:
We’re opening the doors again to Group Practice Boss for December 29th through the 31st. So make the end of this year count. Head on over to practiceofthepractice.com/grouppracticeboss to be added to our email list and to hear more about Group Practice Boss.

Welcome to the Faith in Practice podcast. I’m your host, Whitney Owens, recording live from Savannah, Georgia. I’m a licensed professional counselor, group practice owner, and private practice consultant. Each week, through personal story or amazing interviews, I will help you learn how to start, grow, and scale your private practice from a faith-based perspective. I’m going to show you how to have an awesome, faith-based practice without being cheesy or fake. You too can have a successful practice, make lots of money, and be true to yourself.

________________________________________

[WHITNEY]:
On today’s episode of the Faith in Practice podcast, I have Julie Herres. Julie is an accountant and owner of GreenOak Accounting. The firm provides Accounting, Bookkeeping and Tax Services to private practice owners throughout the United States. Their mission is for every practice to be profitable. She and her team have worked with hundreds of private practice owners so they are uniquely positioned and a trusted advisor to clients. She also hosts the Therapy for Your Money podcast where she talks about all things money and finance for private practice owners. Julie, thanks for coming on the show today.

[JULIE]:
Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

[WHITNEY]:
Yeah, I had heard your name in the community for a long time. And then I finally got to, I guess, not host but kind of monitor your talk at Killin’It Camp virtually. Oh, boy, you shared so much good content. I like saved all the slides. And I actually have referred to them several times since already when I’m looking at my finances. So I had to have you on the show.

[JULIE]:
Okay, I’m so glad to hear that. Thank you.

[WHITNEY]:
Yeah, yeah. Well, why don’t you share a little bit with the audience about yourself and kind of how you got into accounting? And then I’m really curious how you started working with private practice owners?

[JULIE]:
Sure, yeah. So I have an accounting firm, we are a team based, just outside of Washington, DC, although we are spread across the US. And we serve clients, literally all over the US, north, south, east west. And years ago, when I started my firm, I was a generalist, but then I worked with a really amazing client who’s still a client today, who had a large group practice. And then through referrals, he started sending me a lot of his friends to my firm, and we started noticing trends across the private practices who were profitable and the ones that were not as well. So the practices that were struggling and the practices that were really successful and profitable, we were noticing trends across that. And so that’s when we, as a team became much more intentional about focusing our efforts on private practice, because we realized, we can really, really move the needle, because we’ve seen under the hood of so many practices, we know what works, and what doesn’t. And so we can really help our clients by just sharing this information of what they can expect at each stage of practice. But also, what are some best practices financially as well.

[WHITNEY]:
Perfect. Now, I want to hear about the trends, now I’m interested.

[JULIE]:
Oh, yeah, well, so just one, for example, is that we see often the first hire be a part time contractor, right? That’s kind of what we see most often. And then after that there’s another part time contractor and another and then eventually, that goes to usually a more full time model, right. So those initial part time contractors might stay. But generally speaking, there’s a point where all of a sudden, there’s full timers, and there are some practices where it just expands still, in that part time contractor model. I think the biggest practice I’ve seen was 24 or so part time contractors, and they were each doing like two to three sessions per month. So, the owner was still doing, like 75% of the work. But there’s then 20 plus people to manage and schedules and billing and and and, and just, you know one of those trends that we see often is practices with lots and lots of very part time contractors, they just don’t tend to be profitable. Whereas just having two or three full timers, that tends to be way more profitable, right? So that’s the kind of thing that we can talk through with our clients and say, hey, have you considered a full timer? And just last week, we were having that conversation with a client who said, well, can I even do that? I can’t offer them benefits. And our client had never considered that she could have a full timer even if she didn’t have health insurance for that, like that’s the kind of stuff that we can answer and guide our clients through.

[WHITNEY]:
That’s great. I hear all the same things with the people that I consult with and yes, I do have to remind them, you don’t have to offer benefits even though that’s a great thing to offer. When you’re first starting, you don’t need to do all that.

[JULIE]:
Right and there definitely comes a point where for recruiting and retention it makes sense to add that, but initially, I mean, the ACA requirements are 50 full time employees. So you definitely don’t need to have health insurance, you’re going to maybe be able to recruit a different kind of full timer, someone who maybe have a spouse who has health insurance already. So it might be a different kind of person that you can recruit, but we can definitely get some full timers without offering health insurance.

[WHITNEY]:
That’s great. Well, I want to talk today about mistakes that people make with their finances, we’d love to hear you go through some of the biggest ones that you notice with private practice owners.

[JULIE]:
Yes, so I would say number one is by far not saving for taxes. So taxes are a fact of life, if you’re making money, then you’re going to have to pay taxes. And I say that as a good thing, right. Because if you’re not paying taxes, that basically means you don’t have any profit in your practice. So as soon as there’s profit in the practice, you have to be saving money for taxes. As a rule of thumb, I like 25%, of the profit, not necessarily of the gross income. So if you’re taking $100 home, if you put 25 of those dollars into a separate tax savings account, you should have just about what you need at the end of the year. But I’ve seen so many times your practice start in that first year, it might be a partial year, there’s not a whole lot of money being made, right, so there wasn’t a tax burden.

And then the next year, year two, all of a sudden, things are going great. They might have hired, they’re making $100,000, for example, like they’ve spent, the practice owner, it happens all the time, has spent every last dime of it, because finally it was a good year, you know, they’ve got a new car and maybe bought a house or you know, it’s gone, the money’s just gone. And then that creates a tax situation where you’re catching up for sometimes two or three years to come where we’re getting them on a payment plan with the IRS and with the state. But then you still have to even catch up for the current year. So you’re paying for a previous mistake for years to come. So saving for taxes. I just wish everyone did that. So that’s, that’s number one.

[WHITNEY]:
Yeah, let me get clarification here. You were saying, if I brought home $100, I should save $25. Is that what you said?

[JULIE]:
Yes. So as a rule of thumb, that’s a good place to start, obviously, by going to see your accountant, you can get a much more accurate percentage. But if you’re not going to pay for a consultation with your accountant, or if you don’t have an accountant, like if you’re starting with 25%, that’s a good place to start. And what I mean by that is the 25% of what you bring home, right. So hopefully, there’s a separate business account, because that’s one of the mistakes we see often is commingling of business and personal funds. So if there’s a separate business account, all the income for the business is coming into that account, and then all the expenses for the business are being paid out of that account, there will come a point where the owner is going to pay themselves, right. So they might take $100, $1000, whatever that dollar amount may be, where they’re taking that home to pay for their personal expenses of transferring from the business account to the personal account. And so that’s the money that you need to be saving 25% on because most legal entities are pass through. And so that would be a sole proprietor, single member LLC, a partnership [unclear], those are pass through entities. So that means that all the profit from the business flows through to the personal tax return. And that’s where it’s taxed, so that the business itself doesn’t pay tax at the federal level. But all the profit flows through to the personal tax level, or to the personal tax return. So when you’re taking money home, if you’re saving some of it, then you should have money for taxes when the time comes.

[WHITNEY]:
Yes. And so would you say the same for group practice owners? If you own a group practice, the money you pay yourself, take 25% of that, is it the same?

[JULIE]:
Absolutely, exactly. It’s the same. So that profit amount tends to shrink, right as a percentage of the gross income for group practices, just because there’s a lot of people to pay, a lot more people doing the work. But the same applies if you’re taking $1,000 home and you’re saving part of that. And if you’re doing profit the first year, there would be a profit or tax account where you would save that money. That’s a good rule of thumb, you should be pretty close. Great, great.

[WHITNEY]:
What other problems do you see for finances with practice owners?

[JULIE]:
So I really, really like to see practice owners paying themselves intentionally. And so that’s one of the mistakes that we see often where practice owners either don’t know how or the logistics or how much. So they often come to us and say, well, I’m actually not paying myself, I haven’t taken a paycheck from the business. And while that might technically be true, once we open up the records and look at what’s actually going on through the business account, they might be paying their mortgage through the business account, they might be paying their grocery bill, the kids after school activities. So they’re not paying themselves intentionally but they’re taking money out of the business account without a rhyme or reason. And that is not good because it can often disguise cash flow problems in the business and make it look like the business isn’t profitable, when actually what’s going on is that there’s some overspending happening on the personal side. And you just can’t tell because they’re just taking it out of the business account and pilfering the cash there.

[WHITNEY]:
Yeah, I actually, like feel scared hearing you say that because it does happen. And it’s a scary thing.

[JULIE]:
Yes, well, and sometimes it’s almost good news, right? Because the practice owner will come to us and say, like, I don’t think my business is profitable, where’s the money? And so when that is the case, that’s actually a good thing. Because then we can fix it right? We can put them on a personal budget and say, okay, you get $2500 every two weeks, or whatever that dollar amount may be, and then be intentional about it, right? Because then, when that money is transferring to your personal account, and all of a sudden, that personal account goes close to zero like it, you can feel it more strongly that, hey, I really need to control my personal spending. Because cash is like oxygen to the business. So if you’re taking all the cash out, and then there’s not enough money to pay your business rent, like that is a problem. But often is on the personal side, and not actually on the business.

[WHITNEY]:
So true. Do you have any other tips?

[JULIE]:
Yes, so having records I think is super important. I personally love QuickBooks Online, I think it’s a great tool to use. So I would highly, highly recommend having business records. And so a mistake we see often is, especially for smaller practices, not really tracking anything until the end of the year. So either at the end of the year, they’re just putting all of it in a spreadsheet and sending that over to their accountant. And while that is enough for compliance right, so that’s enough and sufficient to do the tax return. There’s so much good, helpful data in those numbers. If you’re not looking at it throughout the year, you’ve just wasted that opportunity. So I like QuickBooks because it will download transactions for you. And you can see you can run, you can slice and dice the information, you can look at a profit and loss by month, you can look at by week, you can see when is the money coming in? Are there times of the month where cash is tight or where I need to be planning a little bit more carefully? Whereas if you’re just doing bank balance bookkeeping, where you’re just pulling up the app on your phone and look at how much cash is in the bank that doesn’t tell you the whole story. That’s not all of the information.

[WHITNEY]:
Yeah, so I’m gonna make a confession. And you’ve probably heard this from practice owners, when I was a solo practice, I literally wrote checks for everything. And I had the little balance sheet, you know, within my checking account.

[JULIE]:
In the checkbook.

[WHITNEY]:
Yes, I would write everything down. And then at the end of the year, I’d put all my receipts and categorize everything, and it took so long. And then when my accountant was like there’s this thing called QuickBooks, I was like, huh, 10 bucks. Oh, my gosh, like, where have I been?

[JULIE]:
Right? And that probably took you a whole weekend, right at the end of the year.

[WHITNEY]:
Oh, forever. I mean, maybe even longer than that. And it was such a headache and stressor, too. And, boy, what I also love about QuickBooks is my accountant can like go in there and see everything live, and she can make the adjustments that need to be made, instead of like at the end of the year finding out oh, here’s all this stuff I didn’t know.

[JULIE]:
Yeah, and that’s why I highly recommend QuickBooks Online. There is a QuickBooks desktop and some people prefer it. But I like the collaboration where what I see is what you see as well. So if we’re fixing things in QuickBooks, like our clients can see it live. And it’s not, there’s no hostage situation with the data right where someone’s got the latest version, and then we’re overriding that. So I like the collaboration piece of it very much.

[WHITNEY]:
Yeah, yeah. Any other mistakes?

[JULIE]:
Not knowing the deadlines. That’s my last big one. Especially when there’s a change of entity, for example, knowing when like if you’re going from a single member, LLC to an S corp, there’s a different tax deadline for that. There’s a different tax form for that, right. So just keeping track of what is due. So I know, this episode will be what mid December, so we’re getting ready for 10-99s. So those are all due, 10-99s and W-2s are due by January 31st. Like there’s a lot of important deadlines that have pretty significant consequences if you miss them. So know when the deadlines are and what needs to be filed when, because that’s going to save you a lot of heartache. So January 15th is when the Q4 quarterly estimated tax payments are due, then March 15th is when partnerships and S corp tax returns are due. So lots of different little little deadlines, but they’re all important.

[WHITNEY]:
Yes. And that’s why you hire an accountant to know it all for you.

[JULIE]:
Yes. Because like that doesn’t need to use any space in your brain, right? That’s why you should have someone who’s on top of that and will say hey, by the way, time for your tax return. That’s exactly what you need.

[WHITNEY]:
Yeah, that’s right. All right. So I’m excited to talk about ways to help save money at the end of the year, you know, we’re gonna air this right before the end of 2020. So what are some tips that you have to help business owners save here at the end of the year?

[JULIE]:
Yes. So the one of the most common ones that we use is accelerating expenses. And so what I mean by that is that most practices are going to be cash basis. And what that means is that the expense is deducted when it happens, not when the expense is incurred. So if you buy something on December 31, that deduction happens in the current tax year, as long as it clears the bank account, right? So if you’re, if you’re, if you’re buying it, but you’re not not paying until January, then that deduction happens in January. So if there were purchases that you were thinking of making in Q1 of 2021, you can accelerate those and make them in December. And that might be things like buying a new computer, redoing some of the decor in your office and buy new couches, for example, there’s a lot of great year and sales, and this year, especially there might be even more than usual. So buying the things that you need earlier than usual. Sometimes with software, you can also prepay for software in December, where you might get a deal for paying in one lump sum versus throughout the year. So that might make double sense, right. So you might be paying for a software all up front in December versus month to month. And so that will increase your deductions in the current tax year.

But what I do want to caution, though, is that I never want to accelerate an expense that is not needed. So a deduction is not a credit, right. So if you’re spending $1,000 on a computer and just just use round numbers, that means that if you’re deducting the $1,000, from your taxable income, that means you’re saving about 25 to $30 in taxes depending on the tax rate. So if we were assuming a 25% tax rate, you’d be saving $25 or $250. So if you’re spending $1,000 on a computer, you’re saving about $250 in taxes. But if you didn’t actually need a computer, you’re still out $1,000, so it’s not a good deal. If you don’t need something, you shouldn’t be buying useless things. And I do see that often, at the end of the year. So don’t buy things that you don’t actually need. That’s not a good deal. I’d rather see you have $750 left in your account, then spending $1,000 just to save $250. Did I explain that in a way that makes sense?

[WHITNEY]:
You explained it perfectly, in fact, I wrote your quote down, a deduction is not a credit, that is like what I’m taking with me.

[JULIE]:
Okay. Deduction is not a credit, not the same thing. So a tax credit would be different and tax credits are much rarer. So. So accelerating expenses, a great, great thing to think about, especially mid December, think through, like, what would I have purchased in January, and do it now. If you have employees, it’s also a good thing too if you’re going to give year end bonuses, make sure you run them in time that they show up on a current year pay period. So if you run them in January, that’s going to be a deduction for next year. So right thinking through, like, what are all the things that I need to take care of before the end of the year.

It’s a great time of year to do retirement planning as well. There is a little more flexibility here in the sense that if you’re doing a SEP or if you’re contributing to an IRA, which wouldn’t be done through the IRA, would be done for you personally, not through the business. There is time, it doesn’t have to be done before the end of the year. But it’s a good time to think through is there enough money to do those things, that’s a good time to reach out to your accountant to talk through that, to your financial planner, and see if you’re eligible. There are some contribution limits if you’re a high income earner. But generally speaking, you can contribute $6,000 to an IRA either or just a regular IRA, that’s pre tax. So that would be a tax deduction or a Roth, which won’t give you a tax deduction in the current year, but it will never be taxed again. So that can be depending on your tax situation this year, a Roth might be a great deal. If you’re in a lower income tax bracket this year, then you might be in a future year because you’ll never pay taxes on that money again. So looking at those things.

[WHITNEY]:
that’s great. So I want to kind of put a plug in here and get some info from you on this about consulting, because a lot of times we find that people are wanting to do consulting, they’re uncertain about investing the money in it. That’s, I mean, and I understand I remember feeling the same way when I started my professional consulting. And so I’d love to hear kind of some stats around that. What have you noticed with people that do invest in consulting and it sounds like, I mean, you probably would agree with this, that investing in the end of the year in some kind of consulting is a good idea for going into 2021.

[JULIE]:
Sure, I think that’s a great way to set yourself up for success, especially if you’re investing in a package where it might be for a couple of months, or a membership program where you’re paying upfront, like, that’s a great way to accelerate an expense. But, Whitney and I were chatting just before the episode and what we’ve noticed across our clients, and of course, our clients may not represent the entirety of the industry. But we noticed that year over year, there’s about a 30% increase in income on our clients who have a coach or consultant, are working with someone and actively working on their business. And I think that’s really, that’s much higher than I had expected. When we went in looking for this data, we figured there would be some kind of increase, but we didn’t think it would be this high. And of course, there’s always the correlation versus causation conversation, right? Of course, someone, if you’re investing in yourself and investing in coaching, you’re ready to really put the pedal to the metal, right. And so there’s that accountability there. But it really does make a difference. And we were seeing something very similar also with our clients who sign up for our CFO level services where there’s a lot more accountability and a lot more work that we do alongside them. So very, very interesting. It really does tend to move the needle really quickly.

[WHITNEY]:
Thank you for that. And you know, I kind of said this at the beginning of the episode, but we’re launching Group Practice Boss, which is a Facebook membership community. And so yeah, when Alison and I were talking about when should we launch, we were going to do January, and then she said, you know what, like, let’s launch it in December, because then people can go ahead and pay up front for the year, and have that part off their taxes and actually end up saving money in the long run for something they would have purchased anyway.

[JULIE]:
I love it. I love that Alison thinks that way. I think that’s great. And the nice thing is you can start the year running like right, you’re already kind of ready and set up. I love it. I think it’s great.

[WHITNEY]:
Thanks. Wonderful. Any other tips on this, on investing money at the end of the year?

[JULIE]:
Yes, well, so other tax saving tips like it’s a great time of year to make sure that you’ve got your mileage records, like if you are doing any kind of travel for your business. And that might be traveling from the administrative home office to the location where you see clients, if you’re still doing that, or any errands that you run for the business. You can reimburse yourself for the mileage if you’re using your personal car, but you do have to keep mileage records. And so making sure you have those pieces in order to give to your tax preparer at the end of the year. It’s a great time to think about that. And if you haven’t done that, it might be too late for this year. But you can set yourself up right now for next year. And QuickBooks Online has a mileage tracker, you just have to install the app on your phone or you can use another app like MileIQ, there’s a bunch of others out there. I know it sounds really small, but it’s not unusual to have a couple thousand dollars in tax free money from mileage reimbursement for mileage that you would have driven anyways. So you might as well take advantage of it.

[WHITNEY]:
Yeah, I do think a lot of people miss out on that one.

[JULIE]:
I really do too. You know, 2020 has been the year of working from home for many of us. And so there’s a good opportunity to take a home office deduction or if your listeners have an S corp, setting up an accountable plan where you can reimburse yourself for home office expenses. I think that’s a great deduction that’s often missed, because people think it’s a, there’s this urban legend that it’s a red flag for audit. And that may have been true in the past, I have not found that to be the case in recent years at all, that has not been my experience. So if you’re legitimately entitled to a home office deduction, take it. You just have to document with all of these things, you do have to have documentation. So that in the rare case that if you were under audit, you could prove that the deduction is legitimate, right. So that’s kind of where things tend to fall apart. Under audit. If you don’t have records, then the deduction can get thrown out. But if you really are keeping the records that you need to be keeping, it’s a legitimate deduction, you should definitely take it.

[WHITNEY]:
Yeah, that’s super good advice. Thank you for sharing that. Any others?

[JULIE]:
So I also think it’s a good time of year to look at if you have a health savings account, an HSA, it’s a good time to top that off. If you have extra available cash in the business, fill that baby up and there is a little bit of time after the end of the year. It’s not like December 31st it’s over. But that’s one that people often miss. But contributing to an HSA makes that money tax free and then as long as you’re using it for health expenses, then you never pay taxes on it. So that’s a slam dunk if you have a plan that allows an HSA definitely worth it. It’s also a good time of year to look at your legal entity again. So as the business grows, it’s good to have that conversation with your accountant every year, every couple of years, to see if this is still the best entity for tax purposes for you? Because there are certain things we can do at the end of the year to change that if it’s no longer the right entity.

[WHITNEY]:
Yeah, that’s great. I’m writing all these down, then I have em, wonderful, and they’ll be in the show notes for everybody as well. That’s perfect. And now I know you’ve got a few other things you wanted to run by, some other bullet points.

[JULIE]:
Yeah. So um, one thing that you and I chatted about a little bit, you know, why is it important to have an accountant, and I know you’ve been a big proponent of, you know, business owners really should have an accountant that’s a trusted advisor who’s going to help you with the different decisions in your business, right. And so this year, in particular, I’m thinking of the PPP, a lot of private practices, got the PPP, there’s still a lot of things that are unclear around that program. But I really think that as a practice owner, like that’s not where you need to be spending your time, reading the documentation on the SBA website on the IRS website, figuring out what they’re doing. But that’s our job as accountants. So we, if you have an accountant there, they should be taking care of that and then relaying that information to you in a way that’s helpful to you. So we’re keeping an eye on that we’re advising our clients on is it time to apply for forgiveness or not? What will be the tax ramifications? What is the information that we have now. But having someone where you can run that by them can be really helpful. And for a lot of our clients, as of right now, as of the time that we’re recording, the PPP does create additional tax, just because the forgiven expenses are no longer deductible, that’s what the IRS said this summer, there may be some change. But as of recording, that’s still the case. So we’re making sure that our clients are aware of that, but are also saving additional funds, just in case that does stay taxable, we’d rather have too much money than not enough in the tax savings.

[WHITNEY]:
Yeah.

[JULIE]:
But then, it’s also a great idea, especially as the year end comes around, to have someone who’s going to remind you like, hey, 10-99s are due, hey, or W-2 is going out, right. And you may have, if you’re using a payroll provider, like Gusto, who does that for you, though, that may be done, but some that are often forgotten are your landlord is supposed to get a 10-99, you’re probably not paying them through your payroll service, any legal services that you’ve paid for during the year, if that’s over $600, they’re supposed to get a 10-99. So they’re going to help keep you compliant with all those things. But I think even more important than that, they can talk you through different scenarios and what’s going on in your business. And the accountant is going to be intimately familiar with what’s going on in your business. And so they can help you make data driven decisions based on what’s going on in the numbers, where sometimes practice owners will, we’ll ask our clients, how did you decide to open up this new location? For example, they said, well, I talked to my friend, and they opened it up. And that ended up being really good for them. So it was based on a conversation with a friend, but they don’t know, did the friend make money. Did they have a bunch of cash reserves in the bank to fund this expansion? Right. So you don’t necessarily know all the background, whereas just last week, we were chatting with one of our clients. And we said actually, we get that this is a great opportunity for expansion, but you don’t have enough cash right now to support that expansion. So we think you should wait. Right? So like that’s the kind of decisions we can help talk to where it’s a little bit less emotional, and much more data driven.

[WHITNEY]:
Yes, that’s awesome. Well, Julie, I know you’ve got some freebies for the audience today. Could you talk about your mini course?

[JULIE]:
Yes. So I have a mini course available. If you go to greenoakaccounting.com/faith one of the questions I get asked the most and my team as well in the business is, what should I expect, financially in my business? So what kind of profit can I expect? How much should I be spending on fill in the blank, right? That might be rent, admin help, software, whatever it may be. So we’ve created a mini course that talks about four stages of finance, four financial stages of private practice and what you can expect at each stage. So we go from the solo one person practice to a small group practice with a couple of part time contractors, a what we call a medium group practice with a few full time employees and then the large group practice over a million dollars. And we talk about what you can expect to make and spend at each point of private practice.

[WHITNEY]:
Yes, thank you. That was what I found so helpful at Killin’It Camp, those slides, so I just want to attest to the audience. I love this. And I’ve been referring to these often and so make sure that you go check it out and check out the course, it’s so nice of you to offer it to the audience today.

[JULIE]:
It’s completely free. It’s on Teachable. So just go to greenoakaccounting.com/faith and you can access the mini course and see how you line up against averages too.

[WHITNEY]:
Yeah. So Julie, if somebody is listening today and they’re like, wow, I really need an accountant, Julie’s awesome. How can I work with her? What should they do?

[JULIE]:
Absolutely. So head over to greenoakaccounting.com, there’s a big button that says schedule a consultation. So if you click on that you can schedule a no pressure consultation with our team where you can find out about our services and to see if it’s a good fit for you.

[WHITNEY]:
And I can tell you guys, I’ve heard Julie speak several times. And then I know people who work with Julie as private practice owners and hands down, GreenOak Accounting has been super helpful for them. So if you don’t have an accountant, or maybe you’re just not happy with your accountant, then check out GreenOak Accounting to meet your needs. So yeah, Julie. So I always ask everyone at the end of the episode, what do you believe every Christian counselor needs to know?

[JULIE]:
Yes, so I noticed in our clients who are therapists, there’s a lot of guilt about making money. But I see that’s even more prevalent in our faith based practices, where there’s a lot of guilt around profiting from your mission, right. And so there’s a lot of sliding scales. And there’s not a lot of focus on profit. So what I would like to share is, every practice deserves to be profitable, there should be profit in every practice. And if you don’t focus on the profit, if you don’t make money, then eventually your practice will close and then you can’t help anyone. So focus on the profit as a way to sustain your lifestyle, but also to grow the team, right. So as your team grows, if you are still keeping an eye on profit, that means everyone gets paid on time. And that’s a really good thing, right? Because then you can help even more people. So there’s really an exponential reward to keeping an eye on profit. And it’s not a selfish thing. It really does help your mission in the long run.

[WHITNEY]:
Thank you. I appreciate you sharing that I’m, I’m preaching that all the time. So I love hearing an accountant say it to them too.

[JULIE]:
That’s what you hear as well. Right? Is that true?

[WHITNEY]:
Yes. All the time.

[JULIE]:
Yeah. You don’t need to feel guilty about making money. Like every practice owner deserves to get paid for the work that they do in the practice, and the risks they take on as a business owner, but also the good that they do in the world in their community. I truly, truly believe that.

[WHITNEY]:
Well, Julie, I know you’re a busy lady. So I appreciate you taking the time to be on the show and to hang out with us and for the free course and just everything that you do for private practice owners.

[JULIE]:
My pleasure, thanks for having me on.

[WHITNEY]:
Julie just did an awesome interview. I love hearing about how to save money at the end of the year. And she provided tons of tips. So I’m sure if you’re anything like me, you pulled out your paper and pen and you’re writing it down. So I’m glad to offer you that information today. But the one I want to focus on is consulting, that what she had found with people she worked with, that they had saved, well they actually had earned I guess you would say 30% more as a business because they invested in consulting. So as the year comes to an end, if you’ve been thinking about doing consulting, this is a really good time to go ahead and do that. If you’re interested in specifically working with me, maybe it’s a mastermind or individual consulting, go to practiceofthepractice.com/apply and you can apply to work with me. Or you can send me an email [email protected]. And then we’re also launching Group Practice Boss, which is for private practice owners who have at least two clinicians in their practice, three including themselves. And it’s a Facebook membership community with tons of information where we really help you grow your group practice. So if you’re interested in that, head on over to practiceofthepractice.com/grouppracticeboss to get more information and potentially to sign up so you can save money at the end of the year by starting the 2021 year on the right track. Thanks for listening.

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[WHITNEY]:
This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, the Practice of the Practice, or the guests are providing legal, mental health, or other professional information. If you need a professional, you should find one.