Fingerboard Brand Taxes, Business Tips & Accounting Advice | The Fingerboarding Dad | S4 E159

On this week's episode of the podcast, we welcome a very special guest Kyle, also known as @thefingerboardingdad on Instagram!

Kyle works in the accounting and bookkeeping industry and joins us to break down the financial side of running a fingerboard brand. We dive into taxes for fingerboard businesses, how to track income and expenses, and common financial mistakes that small brands make when starting out.

We talk about separating personal and business finances, using tools like QuickBooks, and why bookkeeping is important if you plan on growing your brand. We also discuss tax deductions for fingerboard brands, including events, travel, sponsor packs, and equipment used for competitions.

Kyle also shares advice for small brands trying to stay organized financially, how event organizers should think about taxes and revenue, and why hiring a CPA can sometimes save you more money than it costs.

If you run a fingerboard brand, host events, or are thinking about starting a business in the fingerboarding industry, this episode is packed with helpful insights to keep your finances on track.

If you enjoy the show, please like, follow, and share!

If you haven’t been keeping track, we have weekly episodes! Audio versions out on Wednesday and video version out on Thursdays!

⚑CONNECT WITH THE FINGERBOARDING DAD⚑ 

 Instagram ➜ https://www.instagram.com/thefingerboardingdad

Transcript

speaker-0 (00:05.1)
Welcome to USAFBL Fingerboard Podcast. I'm your host, Levine Cunningham. Today I've got Kyle, also known as the fingerboard dad on Instagram. Kyle, welcome to the pod. How you been? Good. I'm excited for this episode.

speaker-1 (00:14.54)
yourself. Appreciate you having me.

Me? We're trying not to bore everybody.

speaker-0 (00:21.45)
No, we're not going to bore everybody. Maybe a couple of people, but we've got a banger of an episode for you guys. We're going to talk about the most taboo subjects, money, taxes, maybe some politics. Now I'm not going to talk about some politics, but we're to get into some money and some reading some taxes. We've got tax season is in full effect. April 15th is the deadline. Unless you file an extension, everybody's been for the most part, you know, making money.

trading, selling, buying, doing their thing. Some people own brands for those people. You may want to tune in. We've got a lot of insights, a lot of tips, a lot of things you should be doing, things that you shouldn't be doing, what to avoid. But once again, this is not tax advice. Always consult a qualified tax professional whenever you're dealing with taxes, business-related expenses, stuff like that. We are very heavily experienced.

I am a corporate accountant and a over a decade entrepreneur. And I've got Kyle here telling your, tell them your stats, tell them your qualifications.

speaker-1 (01:26.35)
So qualifications. All right. So I actually own a bookkeeping firm and then work for another one. And I've been in this accounting, bookkeeping, finance space for probably the last decade now. I've worked with a lot of small to medium sized businesses and even like a few fairly large ones. Like we had a client that was on Shark Tank probably five years ago. mean, last time I left off for them and they were probably doing like

$15 million a year up to just, you know, your solopreneur, like mom and pop type businesses, which I kind of prefer working with, honestly. But, you know, we do everything, sales tax, monthly bookkeeping, reporting, all that good stuff.

speaker-0 (02:16.846)
Definitely. So you're very well experienced with dealing with a lot of the stuff that the finger boarding brands are going through or getting ready to go through depending on if it's your first year in business or second year in business.

speaker-1 (02:30.126)
Yes, and you may recognize the name because I've probably reached out to most of you. You know, I'm trying to keep this thing going and I know it's not something everybody knows, you know, what to do. Everybody has text questions. What can I do? What can I do? So I've reached out to pretty much as many brands in the space as I can. I'm just, hey, you know, this is what I do for a living. You have questions, comments, concerns, like hit me up, talk, you know, doesn't doesn't always have to be how much are you trying to charge me? Like.

I just want everybody to succeed and grow in the space and keep everything going. And you can't if you end up owing 20 grand in taxes.

speaker-0 (03:07.982)
It could be tough. can be tough. know a few brands that are struggling with taxes and I know several brands that aren't even reporting taxes. So if whatever does get caught up to them, it could be a 20 grand kind of situation as well. So I'm excited to get into this stuff today. We're going to get into, we're going to primarily just scratch the surface a little bit. Let me know in the comments if you want us to go even deeper into some of these strategies, some of these tips and things of that nature. If it helps you guys out, definitely leave us a like and a follow.

Man. All right. Well, let's get more into the finger boarding background of things. So like, when did Kyle like start finger boarding? How did you go from like accounting to finger boarding or just a finger boarding to accounting? Like tell us that story.

speaker-1 (03:53.998)
Gosh so Don't hate me. I Have never really skated. I can't even stand on the skateboard. So I was strictly a Tony Hawk Pro skater, know, we've LaBam Jackass like tech deck era kid 90s kid I'll be 30 35 this year. So that was like peak peak living for me and obviously, you know tech decks were

huge growing up and then haven't thought about that until I had my son in 2020, hence the finger boarding dad title and just basically started reliving my childhood like Pokemon again. I used to work on the floor and put Pokemon on the TV form where I just sit there and crawl around.

speaker-0 (04:46.07)
weird how some of that stops coming back.

speaker-1 (04:48.414)
yeah, like, we're just nostalgia. Everything nostalgia. And then it went from like Pokemon to again, I don't know if you can see like, I was a big dub like 90s attitude era, like WWF guy, which again, hadn't thought about in, in years and started like the rabbit hole of collecting like WWE action figures again.

speaker-0 (05:16.238)
Who's your favorite guy? Okay, the rock,

speaker-1 (05:17.4)
Can you see the- yeah, I know he's a listen, I know he's like a little corny now cause he's in everything and everything's like-

speaker-0 (05:26.634)
arrow where like he couldn't be touched him and feel like Stone Cold Steve Austin like they just like moved my childhood so far forward it's crazy.

speaker-1 (05:36.908)
Yeah, I that was like, I'll still go back and watch like any kind of documentary they do or series on 90s wrestling. It's just like Chef's Kiss, just so good. Again, it's not really my thing now. But yeah, man, like Dwayne, I've literally just like a Dwayne Johnson collection over here. Again, don't judge me. I know he's a little corny now with everything, but like there was like those first kind of like walking tall, like the rundown, just like the best movies.

so went to that and then I don't know what happened where I thought, man, they still make tech decks. I got one off of eBay and then somehow stumbled upon, T tuning and then it just kind of escalated from there basically. And that was probably three, probably like three years now. I've like been back in this hobby very heavily, obviously. mean, it's literally my whole office back here. So.

speaker-0 (06:34.926)
But where are you out of now?

speaker-1 (06:36.398)
Central Pennsylvania, like the Altoona area, about like two hours from Pittsburgh and like three and a half from Philly.

speaker-0 (06:44.8)
I mean, I try to bring a major event to your state like, know,

speaker-1 (06:48.91)
the

speaker-0 (06:59.138)
Sometimes you just gotta pack up the kids and just roll out, man. That's the way.

speaker-1 (07:03.874)
Yeah, you know, we're trying to build the Pittsburgh scene a little bit. And ironically enough, I found a guy in my town used to fingerboard maybe like five years ago. He used to make some boards and stuff. He makes a lot of like knives and EDC stuff. Justin Cook, Cook Tools. I don't know if anybody listening has heard of him. A tattoo artist. actually just did my like official fingerboarding dad tattoo.

speaker-0 (07:33.002)
Awesome!

speaker-1 (07:33.678)
fit perfectly as somebody who finger boards and

speaker-0 (07:37.806)
You guys aren't even like friends anymore. You guys are like best bros.

speaker-1 (07:41.176)
Basically, yeah basically I send him stuff, you know, I'm trying to suck him back into the hobby, but yeah, we're trying to grow it

speaker-0 (07:47.842)
You guys are like two peas in a pod. Like once you start talking ink and like all kinds of stuff, like that's peak bondness right there. That's theoretically for life.

speaker-1 (07:53.577)
yeah.

Yeah, it was just perfect, you know.

speaker-0 (07:58.434)
Let's get into the money. No one likes to talk about money. No one likes to about money.

speaker-1 (08:01.89)
They do not. Okay. No, we don't judge. listen and we don't judge.

speaker-0 (08:07.742)
I know we listen and we don't judge. If you're selling a deck, you're selling an item, you're selling a park, you're selling an obstacle, you're selling grip tape, you're selling t-shirts, you're selling finger boarding products, you're making money. It just happens. I don't know how the world works that way, but it's just like you sell it. People give you cash for it. You're making money. What do you do with that money? That's a whole nother discussion. And we're going to kind of get into that. We've got money being made all over the place. Most people.

They're legitimate. They've created an LLC. They're keeping up with all the taxes. They're keeping up with their state tax. Like they're filing taxes underneath their LLC. Like they're doing all the stuff. Then there's a pretty large portion of the scene that's just like, I made 10 decks. I sold 10 decks. I'm pocketing the cash.

speaker-1 (08:58.734)
Again, we listen and we don't judge.

speaker-0 (09:01.134)
Listen, we don't judge. listen and we don't judge. Cool thing for you guys is, that until you hit about $601, it's not really a really an issue. If you're under like 600 bucks, you make 10 decks, you sell 10 decks, keep the cash. If you're in this to make money or in this to make a profit, that's the intent. Then the IRS looks at you a little bit differently. They do. They're like, all right, your intention is to.

speaker-1 (09:24.622)
Unfortunately they do.

speaker-0 (09:30.062)
create something and make a profit off of it. We've got a tax sheet. You've got to be set up as either a sole proprietor and LLC, whatever, which one of those, you know, makes the most amount of sense for you, depending on, know, whether you have a day job, night job, whatever, and other sources of income, things of that nature. We can kind of get into that just a little bit. Like I said, we're not tax advice advisors. So this is not tax advice. Always consult a qualified tax professional. Disclaimer. Disclaimer out there.

speaker-1 (09:57.422)
This is just two dudes with a conversation.

speaker-0 (10:00.654)
Dudes have been doing this for a while and we see a lot of things happening and I'm like, man, you guys got about a month to figure out your tax stuff. And I know people, they're either filing it, not filing it, or they're waiting to the last minute. So I know this is definitely going to reach, hopefully reach the right people. Cause you guys got to think about it. You guys got to, you know, set it up. Cause once you file it, you know, you can do an amendment, but once it's kind of in there, it's in there and you can't really change it. Go around it and stuff like that. So if you get audited, red flagged, those are things that you do not want happening.

speaker-1 (10:28.526)
Like he said, I think, and it's not just finger boarding. said, I have quite a large client base and I see, I mean, it's not just, it's a lot of people. I need small business. Like a lot of people just don't know. You you just start a business and again, cart before the horse scenario. And the last thing you think about is, crap, I have to file taxes. Well, what do I have? Just like a box of receipts and I need to find an accountant and here you go. Like, please do. Bank statements.

And you'd be surprised how many people do that. We did our bathroom redone five years ago by like a fairly decent sized, like construction guy here. And I was just like, Hey, who does your, you know, your bookkeeping, whatever. says, I just take a box of receipts and give it to my CPA. And I truly don't even know like why CPAs take that stuff anymore. Like no amount of money would be worth it for me for somebody to say.

Here is a bunch of receipts. Can you put my books together? Like somebody that large. It just like no man. Like I'm no I'm not like I'm not doing it.

speaker-0 (11:37.09)
For someone that loves numbers like myself, like that scenario gives me unknown PTSD. Like I don't think that's ever really happened to me, but like this, the thought of that just gives me chills. Like just sorting through four or 500, maybe even a thousand. I don't know how big this box is, like, you know, how much money they're spending and stuff. like that box could be crazy. It could have, you know, a few, several hundred receipts from gas to electric bills to

speaker-1 (11:56.43)
Yeah

speaker-0 (12:05.176)
payroll taxes to like just all kinds of stuff. And you're just like, you got to sort through all of this and categorize all of this just so that you can actually start, you know, dealing with the actual numbers. It's crazy.

speaker-1 (12:14.23)
Yeah, and I think a lot more people operate that way. Like people probably want to think, I know that's how a fair amount of our clients, you know, are at. And then I will get them onto QuickBooks online. It's like the preferred method. It's not that expensive. Either that or for, think a lot of smaller like finger boarding branches to bring this back to finger boarding. Like at the very least an Excel spreadsheet. But again, I think it depends on one, how much

time you want to spend doing that and how many like how many boards or whatever you're selling. If it's worth like putting this in otherwise, just get a QuickBooks file. You can link your bank accounts to it and it imports everything automatically and then you just categorize it. I probably made that sound a lot easier than it might be, but like at the very least that is what like most people should do again, unless you're just like I'm gonna sell five decks here and there, you know, but if you're really trying to

make some money and grow that would be at the very least a good starting point so you don't miss stuff, get audited, just make sure you're doing the right thing. It's lot easier to start doing stuff the right way than to clean up a big mess. It's just a bandaid, just rip it off for the first time and move forward. Yeah.

speaker-0 (13:33.218)
Well, we live in a time now where there's never been so many tools available to you to help you with your taxes like QuickBooks. I know we mentioned QuickBooks. think QuickBooks is probably the most user friendly option out of, you know, all the other offerings that are out there. So if you guys are looking for a great place to start, if you're especially if you're a really small finger burning brand like I would highly suggest QuickBooks. This is not a sponsored ad. But use my.

speaker-1 (13:59.797)
code

speaker-0 (14:00.654)
Yeah, you might go to check out. But yeah, the QuickBooks is it's so user friendly, easy to work with. The customer support is really good. So QuickBooks, I highly recommend if you're looking for, you know, pretty generic way of just keeping everything on track, that's not too specialized, anything like that. Like that's definitely going to be your go to.

speaker-1 (14:20.43)
It's like I said, it's not use the cheap one. If you do look at that because it is it can be expensive depending on what they try and sell you on. You just got to like watch that. know, again, thinking finger boarding brands small, you don't want to. And most people's reason for not doing that is because it's expensive. It doesn't have to be that expensive. And it's going to save you, you know, spend a little money to save a bunch of money instead of having your CPA charge you.

Five times as much because you just bring them a box of receipts every year that they have to spend a week sorting through.

speaker-0 (14:55.902)
Now to avoid being an accountant's absolute worst client with this box of receipts. I'm old school. I've been, you know, doing this for over a decade, literally probably about 16, 17 years, as far as entrepreneurship goes. I am old school. So I classify all of the vendors by name. So like if I'm making finger boarding decks, I'm like, all right, cool. Like, where are you getting your veneer? I get my veneers from XYZ company. And so like,

I keep all my receipts for XYZ company in a file folder. If I have printing for Plies Mag and I'm like, all right, cool. Like the printing for Plies Mag goes into printing company. All your income, you literally classify it by like, here's my money from PayPal. Here's the statements for those. Like I classify everything by vendor. So I named it by the company and I just keep it in a big fricking filing cabinet. And it's just everything is just labeled. So every time I have a receipt, I print it out or I

you you collect it or whatever, you just organize it, put in the file folders. And then for the most part, I just stack receipts and file folders until the end of the year. I don't have any employees were all 10 99. So I don't have to do anything really quarterly except for a sales tax, stuff like that. But as far as like, you know, reporting to the IRS, that's a yearly thing. And so at the end of the year, I add up every one of the vendors. So

packaging company XYZ. add up all those and then I put it into a massive Excel sheet, which we call like a profit loss statement where you can pretty much just look at all your expenses, all your income and everything is classified under a specific category. And that's pretty much how I've been doing things. Now you have, you know, quick books that'll help you categorize it. But if you're someone that's unique as me that has

a podcast, a magazine, a tour, like a bunch of moving parts of stuff that it kind of gets complicated. You have to be able to kind of separate things into different companies or different, different or deals like that. So it does get complicated, but now you have like AI out there that, know, if you wanted to put your, don't know how much you trust AI, depending on the AI, I wouldn't say like, you know, put all your financial information into AI and be like, yeah, like analyze it. But if you trust AI enough to do that, depending on which AI you're using,

speaker-0 (17:12.268)
You can put it in there. It'll literally categorize all your expenditures and stuff like that. But the biggest thing that I see that a lot of people are doing is that they are not separating their money. They're not separating their personal funds and from their business funds. So you get paid from a day job. You make your money. You spend your money. You get paid from your business. You make your money. You spend your money. But it's all going into the same account. And that is a absolute no no.

speaker-1 (17:40.052)
Yeah, that's for sure. If you would just Google how to get audited by the IRS, I mean, that's for sure. Like one of the top response you're going to get is like mixing business and personal funds. And again, that's if you're you have said business. Yeah, I mean, that's that's something that's how I literally still have clients that do that no matter how many times I see blooming nails pop up. I'm like, you literally make furniture. Stop shopping on your company credit card. You're going to get audited. Yes.

Stuff like that is definitely a no-no. Again, not me, the IRS.

speaker-0 (18:14.286)
If you do get audited, have to start explaining things. And if you have to start explaining personal finances, then you're going to have a tough time.

speaker-1 (18:22.638)
You're gonna have a bad time you're gonna have Then especially again if you like never say proceeds you start justifying stuff

speaker-0 (18:24.706)
What a time.

speaker-0 (18:30.702)
definitely and keep those receipts for seven years on average so any receipts that are you know tax returns with the receipts and all that stuff you want to keep all that stuff up to seven years anything after that it's pretty safe that you can discard those after seven

speaker-1 (18:43.438)
And I mean, a lot of like a lot of the apps and stuff, mean, even QuickBooks, you can just scan them right into QuickBooks. So it sounds like you don't have QuickBooks.

speaker-0 (18:52.75)
I'm old school. I am filing cabinets, paper copies, convert them over to digital. Like I'm, I'm turning 40 this year. come from the non-technology era to the technology era, but I'm kind of slow to adopt the new ways. But if it works and it's not broken, know, you don't have to fix it, but there's definitely easier ways of doing this than the ways that I do. I will definitely say that. Times have changed. Times have gotten better.

speaker-1 (19:16.3)
Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's a little bit easier. But I mean, you probably like, you know, I you don't mind doing it. You know, it's like fun for you. So if it's not fun for you and you dread.

speaker-0 (19:26.894)
I like it.

speaker-0 (19:31.938)
Yeah, you definitely want to take the easiest route possible,

speaker-1 (19:35.008)
not to oversimplify it, I mean, definitely save all your receipts. You don't want to miss anything. And that's why we said about mixing like business and personal, it just makes it easier if you don't, then you don't have to sort through as much. You know, it'll be faster for you, especially if you're, you know, go the QuickBooks route. Again, you can link like bank accounts, credit cards, it links with your PayPal, and you're not going to want to have a bunch of personal stuff flowing into your financials.

speaker-0 (20:03.542)
One of the cool things about having a finger boarding brand is that you can write off all finger boarding related stuff. So even if it's your hobby, but you have a brand in your intent using air quotes here for the audio, like use your intent is to make a profit according to the IRS. can write off all of your finger boarding related expenses. like if you

are in the hobby and this is like your thing, but like I have a small brand. I make decks. I sell decks. If you wanted to buy a USFPL deck or a double joint deck or a new knife deck, you could actually write that expense off. You can call that research and development R and D. Like you can be like, I want to know what they're doing. Even though you're not going to try to copy a knife deck, but you're like, I want to buy a knife deck, but you can actually still write that deck off.

You can research it. You can look at their packaging. Like you do a lot of different things that you can qualify it as a deduction. So a lot of people don't realize like, you know, if I bought an obstacle or I bought a park or I went to go travel to a finger boarding event, you can actually write all of those things off on your taxes. And it comes off of your adjusted gross income.

speaker-1 (21:15.82)
Now everybody out here just trying to write off all their... All their beast pants and knife decks just...

speaker-0 (21:25.16)
So if you work a day job and you make like 50 grand a year and then you have your business and you're able to duck like $5,000 worth of deductions, your day job taxable income now is 45,000, which means like if you were to pay taxes out of your paycheck for that extra five, you can actually get that back on your refund check at the end of the year, depending on how you structure everything and how everything else looks. There's the opportunity to actually make money back on your taxes. If you know how to.

properly work the system. It's kind of interesting. I don't know if I really want to get too far into that because I feel like it opens myself up to quite a bit of different things. There are risks of being red flagged. No one wants to get red flagged because you don't want to claim too many deductions. So can't get too crazy on it, especially if you're filing your own taxes, which if you have a business, I would kind of sort of advise against that to be honest with you. Definitely take your taxes to an

qualified CPA that knows the yearly ins and outs of the rule changing and things of that nature as far as your tax returns and stuff.

speaker-1 (22:30.19)
Yeah, for sure. Again, don't always consult a qualified tax professional. This is not tax advice. Again, just two dudes chatting it up here. But like he said, you know, it's got to be like reasonable business expenses is something else the IRS looks for. So if you're, I don't know, buying five hundred dollar finger boards might be considered.

like one fingerboard might be like excessive, you know, it's just, you just have to be careful. And yeah, that's why we say consult a professional before going hog wild after this podcast.

speaker-0 (23:09.482)
Yeah. And then you just got to, you got to be able to know how to classify it as well. like if I, you know, when I purchased like all my Black River parks, I was able to write all of those off and you're like, how do you write off a $5,000 Black River park? And I'm like, we treat it as equipment. Like we take it on the road. It's now like a piece of equipment that we use at our events. And you can write it off now as equipment instead of.

anything else that you're trying to write it off as. so I can easily qualify it as equipment instead of like, I just bought a park and we use it. And so I'm just going to randomly write it off and put it under miscellaneous, which will absolutely get you red flag. Miscellaneous by the way, is a category that you need to avoid at all times. Like as soon as you start putting stuff under miscellaneous where it doesn't actually qualify under a specific category, that's a huge red flag.

speaker-1 (23:58.51)
questions for sure. Miscellaneous other expense. know, anything that's not specific when you're looking at it, I wouldn't necessarily have to call it fingerboard parking expense. you know, something other than other business expense, miscellaneous expense.

speaker-0 (24:19.704)
No, exactly. And I think the last big red flag that I can think of off the top of my head that almost automatically triggers the IRS is we're all home based businesses. And I know that we all like to pro rate like our rent for that home based business. Like, okay, I use this room or two rooms in my house. so like, I'm going to like, you know, pro rate my rent as a, as an expense. So like, you know, two thirds of my home I'm writing off as rent.

That almost always according to my CPA is like, you can't really do that stuff like it almost always red flags the IRS. And I'm not sure why, even though it's you can do it. But almost every like CPA advice is like, don't prorate your rent like like that. It almost always like triggers the IRS for.

speaker-1 (25:09.006)
I mean, there's definitely, I mean, it's a very lengthy rule of like what you can write off. And there's like, I think there's a couple of ways to do it. for sure.

speaker-1 (25:24.546)
a right way to do it because I know I do that. You know, this is my dedicated office space. It's just one of our bedrooms. I work from home. Nothing else happens in here besides a little finger boarding. Don't audit me. But there is a specific way to write it off. And it's probably not as much as you think it is. Or most people would think it would be, you know, to write off like if you have a, you know, a thousand dollar mortgage a month or whatever, you're not writing off $800 of it.

Like it's just, you know, so I don't know if like that's where people maybe go wrong and just think they can. Now it's now this looks like a third of the house was just divided by three. That is not how you do it. There are definitely rules and regulations. Unfortunately, they have to fall.

speaker-0 (26:10.03)
But I do feel like those trigger the IRS pretty quick. Like as soon as you start categorizing that stuff, like it almost, I don't know what algorithm that the IRS uses to like.

speaker-1 (26:18.67)
Yeah, I'm sure they probably use AI at this point for audits or what, don't know. I have no idea how they do it,

speaker-0 (26:25.774)
Well, whatever they're doing that almost, almost like as soon as you start classifying that stuff and you start seeing like rents and prorating and stuff like that, like it almost triggers it automatically. So definitely speak with a tax advisor to try to walk around that stuff. But I know like it's really easy to get audited just because you're trying to prorate your rent and stuff on your house and write those office deductions and portions of your phone and portions of your electric and stuff like that. gets, it gets messy.

speaker-1 (26:50.274)
Yeah, definitely can, especially again, if you're not careful and doing things the right way.

speaker-0 (26:57.442)
Be safe out there guys, be safe out there.

speaker-1 (26:59.842)
Not as scary as you think, but you definitely got to do stuff the right way. If you are trying to grow again, grow and make money. if you're looking at like a, I want to keep doing this for the next five, 10 years or whatever, you got to do things the right way.

speaker-0 (27:17.454)
Alright, so for all my fingerboarding event organizers, you guys have quite a bit of tax deductions that you guys can utilize, but you guys also have to have the intent, air quotes again, of making a profit according to the IRS. So it gets a little tricky for you guys if you guys are hosting free events. I'm not saying don't host free events, but if you're not generating some sort of revenue from your events, whether it's raffle tickets,

entry fees, any of that nature, then it's really hard to qualify you as an event organizer as a business. If you're not bringing in any like real like revenue, if you're charging vendors to vend, then you know, there's money that could be made there. The problems are is like, can't deduct stuff if you're not bringing in any income. So if there's no income, then there's nothing really for you to deduct. And so it becomes very, very hard to utilize or even it gets, you know, being able to qualify it to

pay taxes and things of that nature. there's definitely a little bit of tightrope and going around there. If you guys are hosting free events and things of that nature, trying to be able to deduct, you know, your gas, your equipment, your marketing, things like that. If you don't actually have like an event that's pulling in any actual revenue and stuff. So there's definitely room if you're charging for events, if there's a five, 10, $20 entry fees, stuff like that, you're collecting money, there's an attempt to make, you know, a profit according to the IRS, then like you can definitely start deducting all of those categories.

speaker-1 (28:45.1)
Yeah, that's, again, not to go back, but that's kind of another red flag. IRS red flag, if you're just never making any money or bringing any money in, but you're still deducting all these expenses, there would be red flag number four, nice little audit. So again, something to think about.

speaker-0 (29:03.118)
Definitely definitely. feel it's stuff does definitely get Messy. know Kyle is here with the finger boarding dad on Instagram. He's definitely open to answering your questions I'm also open to answering questions like but once again, you know, this isn't tax advice. This should always you know, consult a qualified Professional as far as you know taxes deductions things of that nature But I could definitely point you guys in the right direction walk you through a little the majority of your questions and things of that nature. So

We can definitely help you guys out from a one-on-one standpoint because everybody's situation is different. There isn't like a one shoe fits all brands and situations and things like that. You guys may all have day jobs. Some people live off of this stuff. Some people have day jobs plus child supports and dependents and just a lot of stuff going on. And they're like, I don't know how to navigate through all this stuff. And it gets, it gets messy. Some people have messier stuff than others, but it can get messy.

speaker-1 (29:57.042)
Depending on what state you live in to that You know very greatly like sorry everybody lives in California your taxes are booty It's bad, but you know, said it varies greatly, you know based on where you live to so

speaker-0 (29:59.255)
too. Yeah.

speaker-0 (30:06.382)
outrageous.

speaker-0 (30:15.79)
And then the biggest thing I see a lot of like mismanaging of cash flows. So I'll see like a few brands. I don't want to call anybody out, but I like, know a few brands. They're like, I made 10 decks. I sold 10 decks. I have $300 in my pocket. I'm going to spend $300 in my pocket. And they're like, I need to make another drop.

cool, like you should probably buy some more supplies and do this and do that. And you're like, yeah, but I have any money. And I'm like, well, what did you do with the money that you made from your last drop? And it's like, well, I spent it all. And I'm like, you can't spend a hundred percent of the money that you make. Like you've got to be able to reinvest some of that money to keep this thing going. And I see a lot of people mismanaging that cashflow looking at it as like it's all profit, not realizing that there's

Things like, you know, subscriptions, like if you have your own website, sometimes there's a hosting fee that comes out every month for using QuickBooks. Like there's a lot of fees, a lot of monthly subscriptions and stuff that start kind of eating away at your bottom line. And like a lot of people don't really know how to properly manage money coming in versus money going out and keeping things afloat. And next year, you know,

They stopped doing their business because they don't know how to manage those fees, those expenses and things like that. It becomes too much. And so they're just like, I'm just going go back to just finger boarding for fun instead of like creating and doing things.

speaker-1 (31:33.326)
I think that's kind of one of the main reasons I reached or have reached out to as many brands as I thought could maybe, you know, like they're clearly selling a bunch of product and at least the surface looks like they're trying to grow and, you know, make money. And it's like a real side hustle for them. Cause I want, you know, everybody to succeed here, you know, keep this thing going. you any questions, comments, concerns, like I'm always open to chatting, but

And it also goes back to, you know, lot of that would be solved via like two accounts. You know, if all that money goes into your personal account, now it just feels like you have a little extra money to spend. And then when it comes time to, you know, re-up supplies or whatever, it may be a little more painful than if you were setting everything aside and some sort of business, you know, it doesn't have to necessarily be a business checking account or whatever. You just get another checking account and make sure everything stays in that one that's business related.

speaker-0 (32:30.062)
legitimate way is to create that business checking account. Which in order to do that, you need to have a EIN number, which you got to file that with the IRS. You can actually do that for free on the IRS website. I don't know the exact website. should have pre.

done that before we got on the pod. But depending on what state you're in, you need to register your business with the secretary of state that usually takes about 24 to 48 hours, depending on the state and how busy they are. You can register. It's like 50 to 100 bucks. Depending on your state, you can register your business with the state and you'll get a, uh, what do they call that? Uh, our, uh, organization of authenticity or

Organizations, article organizations, something like that. Yeah. It's been a while. haven't had to file a new one in a while, but it's a document that you get with the state. Definitely look into that. It's like, like I said, a 50 to a hundred dollar fee that allows you to go to your bank with your EIN number and your registration from the state and be able to open up a business account in that business name. And so if you're looking to become a vendor and like, you know, you have.

other businesses, if you're doing business to business, things like that, people can pay you as your brand's name, a set of my name's Leline Cunningham. Write me a check, which sounds kind of sketchy. It just makes you feel more official, be able to organize your funds and things of that nature. So if you guys haven't read.

speaker-1 (33:44.174)
Okay.

speaker-0 (33:51.222)
If you guys are already making money and doing things of that nature and you don't have a business checking account, like it's definitely time to step up and register your EIN number with the IRS and definitely with the state and get yourself a business checking account and be able to have that debit card. You can get a credit card, but you can get business credit. That's a whole other conversation to you, which we hadn't touched on that, which business credit is fantastic because it doesn't touch your personal credit. like if you let's just

devil's advocate, like I get a credit card, business credit card for like $3,000. That $3,000 credit doesn't show up on your business credit reports, personal credit report, sorry. that credit business credit card doesn't show up on your personal credit. It's like, it's interesting. It's like two separate deals. Like you still have to guarantee yourself on the business side, but it doesn't show up on your personal side. So it's an interesting or deal. So you can have crazy amounts of credit. You can finance.

vehicles, we have good credit like that through your business, like, it doesn't show up on your personal. So it doesn't bog your personal down. Like it's interesting for sure. So like, feel like that probably needs to be like a whole other pod, but like business credit is awesome. Like

speaker-1 (35:03.822)
Disclaimer, disclaimer, do not go run up a business credit card.

speaker-0 (35:07.646)
Yeah, I mean, it's it gets messy, but business credit. Beautiful, beautiful.

speaker-1 (35:14.542)
Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't even know where debit cards, I use credit card for everything. Yeah, that's a personal finance responsibility podcast in its own of, you responsible enough to have a credit card? Um, cause it's really easy to not be, you know, like, Oh, it's just, you know, a hundred dollars here, all $200 there. And I get your statement at end of the month. You're like, Oh God.

speaker-0 (35:19.202)
Yeah, yeah

speaker-0 (35:51.841)
the a name X that's Marriott's, we stay at Marriott's and stuff and yeah, get reward points like six X reward points for staying at a Marriott and using your credit card and like so like

When we go on tour, like a lot of our tour stops, like for me and my crew, like those are free room nights and stuff because we're just using points and stuff. And it just cycles itself through and it helps pay for a lot of different things. And you get rewards with gas and all kinds of cool stuff. So like, you know, I use your credit cards like you can, you can rack up some really cool benefits and things of that nature. Yeah, you gotta be really, really disciplined. It's easy to,

speaker-1 (36:25.666)
Disciplined.

speaker-0 (36:30.682)
overspend and then because it's not on your personal like side, it doesn't show. So if you have a maxed out business credit card, it doesn't show up on your personal side. So it's really like, you know, sometimes you're like, I'm a little short. So maybe I just don't pay like nearly as much of my business credit card down or whatever. Like, you know, you just think it doesn't really matter because it doesn't show up on your personal side. But your business credit for sure can be affected, which if you need the finance equipment, anything like that requires like.

you large financing and stuff like they'll look at that business credit and be like, I got a couple of maxed out business credit cards. Like, I don't know if we trust you to get this business vehicle if you're trying to use it for business. Like I want to get a truck so I can go haul this trailer. Like I can go get, you know, a truck under business credit. But if I have maxed out credit cards, it's not the bank's going to be like, I don't know about you.

speaker-1 (37:16.386)
It still kind of applies the same as if it was your personal Yeah, if you got like a bunch of maxed out credit cards and try and get another credit card. Yeah

speaker-0 (37:25.198)
Definitely, definitely. Good luck on that. Yeah. But yeah, definitely. You know, there's definitely business credit side of things as well. If you guys are looking for financing for those metal molds and during stuff like that. like, yeah, there's, you know, ways of financing your business and things of that nature. But, know, you just got to be, you just got to go about it the right way. You got to go about it the right way. And like I said, this is more of a finance 101. We could easily get into a finance.

You know, 110 to 20 things of that nature go real deep into grazing the surface a little bit for you guys and kind of hopefully. Fly over because there's a lot of cool stuff out there and I know a lot of people struggle with taxes. They struggle with, you know, the money side of things and things of that nature. I've been in the scene now long enough to see a lot of companies come and go and see why they came and go. There's even for me, like having a storefront, I've had a storefront come and go. I've seen storefronts.

speaker-1 (38:02.51)
a flyover

speaker-0 (38:22.626)
come and go. Like there was just a lot that goes along with a lot of that stuff. So it's, it's tough. It's tough out here.

speaker-1 (38:28.332)
That it is. And again, it's not just finger boarding. I have a variety of clients, e-comm, storefront. So it's not just finger boarding. I still have clients that don't listen to me in like six years and out there buying Bloomingdale's on business credit cards.

speaker-0 (38:48.526)
Yeah, I probably shouldn't be doing that. No, probably shouldn't be doing.

speaker-1 (38:52.184)
Just not listen,

speaker-0 (38:55.278)
All right, I think the last kind of like thing I want to point out, which I see a lot happening, but I don't know if people properly know some of this stuff, is going to be sponsor packs. I see a lot of brands like myself, we sponsor tons of events. You can actually write off your sponsor packs that you send out to events, you know, for prizes and raffles and things of that nature. They fall under, they fall under a couple different categories, but I think the most efficient

category that you can deduct it from is going to be marketing. So you can use it as a marketing expense. So if you are sponsoring other events, if you have team writers and you're sending them out marketing, sponsor packs, things like that, you can classify it under marketing, especially if they're doing unboxings and they're tagging your product, things of that nature. Like those are easily classified under marketing and you can actually deduct the market value of those products.

speaker-1 (39:50.412)
And boy, I cannot imagine anybody's really doing that.

speaker-0 (39:54.72)
No one is really doing that, but for those that are

speaker-1 (39:58.814)
Dr. Gummy, I mean obviously everybody yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't

speaker-0 (40:02.894)
Yeah. But I don't think anybody's doing it from like the legal taxation standpoint, you know, on the back end side. So like, you know, people are sending out packs, people are, you know, blessing their writers and things of that nature and just letting people know, like, you know, you guys can actually write those off as, you know, deductions under marketing. So keep that in mind whenever you're out here, blessing the community, stuff like that. can put it under marketing. You used be able to put it under donations, which I don't know why they got rid of the donations. Used to be able to just donate and

speaker-1 (40:29.368)
Who knows?

speaker-0 (40:32.278)
to be able to write off your donations. And now they took that away. And I don't I don't like it.

speaker-1 (40:37.098)
Yeah, probably because it was being misused, you know, donations to whoever.

speaker-0 (40:42.254)
crazy. So yeah, so now we've got to put all those under marketing, which is interesting for sure. Charity for no one. We just have to relabel it. It's just donations just sounds good. Like it just makes you feel good. Like I'm donating to this event. I'm donating to my writers. Now I'm like, nah, I'm marketing to these events. I'm marketing to these writers like, nah, nah, April 15th, get your taxes and stuff in if you can't make it in.

speaker-1 (40:48.91)
Charity for no one.

speaker-0 (41:10.54)
by April 15th, file for an extension, get you some more time. Man, we went over a lot of stuff.

speaker-1 (41:16.534)
Yeah we did, did we miss anything? Again, this was like a... Yeah, whoever's still awake... Out there.

speaker-0 (41:22.158)
Are you still out there? you still with us? Like, I know it's a little, little dry, but it's fun. If you're, if you enjoy this stuff, it's fun. guess you would say if you're just like, I hate taxes. Like you probably haven't made it this far, but.

speaker-1 (41:32.821)
Hopefully those of you that are still out there still out

speaker-0 (41:35.522)
They're still listening, still like, yeah, I didn't even know about that. I should have done this or could have been doing this. It's it's never too late for sure. But as the rules, the laws, all that stuff keep changing, like, you know, I like to try to do this at least once a year. I feel like this is highly relevant stuff that no one's talking about for sure.

speaker-1 (41:54.99)
percent. And again, if anybody has any, you know, more specific questions, feel free to hit us up. You know, at the finger boarding dad used to be at the bookkeeping dad, which is why I came up with the finger boarding dad. Do you know how boring it is to make accounting content? I tried that for like six months and I just can't bring myself to keep talking about the same stuff in different ways and just stopped. And that's kind of when I like really picked up the finger

speaker-0 (42:23.682)
Fingerboarding stuff?

speaker-1 (42:24.674)
Content, yeah, it was just like more fun for me, which is I just kept the names kind of.

speaker-0 (42:31.414)
Well, the crazy thing is it's like, know, finding this content feels dry, but like everyone is looking for finance information, you know, whether it's financial planning, budgeting, taxes, starting new businesses. Like, I mean, like everybody's like just looking for like, all right, what would I do? How easy is it? What pointers? What

Like, you know, a lot of people are in it for the dos and don'ts. feel like we need to come back and do like a do's of don'ts of like finger boarding finance, like do this, but don't do that. Like, let me know in the comments for you made it this far. Like, should we do a do's and don'ts like, you know, little, little pod is just straight up. Just do this. Don't do that. Do this. Don't do that.

speaker-1 (43:13.006)
Get it on the calendar. Fingerboard con. Last time I handed out business cards, just because I was like, know, in case anybody down the road wants to, you know, I don't want to say level up, but just make your life easier. You know, so you're not waiting till the last minute trying to pull all your bank statements together and figure out what do I do? I promise you it will make your life easier.

speaker-0 (43:14.935)
Get it on the calendar.

speaker-0 (43:37.742)
I also feel that depending on the size of your business, if you got a fair, I mean, if you're pulling in over 25 K a year and you know, revenue, like having a CPA, at least, you know, at the end of the year, being able to like, look at your stuff and hire someone to do all of that, they will traditionally save you more money than what costs for them to be hired. We'll save you. Like I'll say it again, like they traditionally will save you more money than they cost.

speaker-1 (43:57.784)
Like, bill.

speaker-0 (44:03.968)
So, you know, lot of people are like, well, don't know if I can afford one or I don't know if they're worth it. Like my my. Yeah, my CPA saves me so much money every single year. Like it's almost like I can't even envision a world where like I don't take my stuff to him and he just like does his magic and we do our thing. Like it's it's I don't see a world where like it just doesn't make any sense.

speaker-1 (44:25.942)
Yeah, it's just like one of those, you get what you pay for kind of things. don't skip with like legal fees, like lawyers. Yeah. And yeah.

speaker-0 (44:34.958)
You're not going to use chat GPT to like, you know, put all like just run through all your stuff.

speaker-1 (44:40.466)
no, because the last time I used chat GBT, I was like for fantasy football and they told me to draft somebody that was like had retired two years ago.

speaker-0 (44:49.826)
Wait, you had chat draft you a fantasy football team?

speaker-1 (44:52.618)
Yeah, it was like we knew like defensive like individual defensive players for every position I was like, alright, just make me a list of like top 50 defensive players and My gosh, we have to get who they had number one, but he retired like to like two years prior

speaker-0 (45:10.545)
no man!

speaker-1 (45:12.206)
Like, all right, well, I'm done with this, yeah.

speaker-0 (45:15.51)
switch over to like perplexity perplexity might have gotten it better for you

speaker-1 (45:19.028)
I'm still trying to get myself on the AI bandwagon, just like, has nobody seen iRobot? Like, does nobody remember that movie?

speaker-0 (45:27.006)
It came out on my birthday, actually, July 16th. I can't remember the year, but I remember it coming out on my birthday and actually watched it on my birthday. Like we went to the movie theater and saw Will Smith and all that stuff. And I know it is weird, like 20 years later, like, you know, we literally that movie is nobody. Yeah.

speaker-1 (45:36.93)
You're about to live it.

speaker-0 (45:45.102)
I don't know. It's weird. We've been through so much stuff now. Like it's just like, especially like, you know, the older millennials and stuff. Like we're just like, you know, we got killer robots. Yeah. We saw our robot. We saw Terminator. Like, yeah, we lived a pretty good life up to this point. It's kind of downhill from here anyways. So, you know, whatever. Yeah, I know. I didn't see that in our bingo card. All right, Kyle, where can people find you on the internet?

speaker-1 (46:03.862)
Not how I thought I'd go, but I mean...

speaker-1 (46:11.694)
Instagram at the finger boarding dad My actual business is Miami bookkeepers, Inc You know Facebook. I just use my which is Kyle Morris if anybody wants to find me there I'm in like a finger boarding fingerboard unlimited group But yeah at the finger boarding dad is the best place to find me. I did recently start a YouTube again I'm trying this whole you know learning new things Levine So you can find me same

at the Fingerboardin' Dad on YouTube as well.

speaker-0 (46:44.384)
Okay, got any shout outs anybody want to recognize or shout out before we

speaker-1 (46:49.832)
yeah, hold on. Probably the finger-boarding wife and finger-boarding child for putting up with all the clacking. Now, bye.

speaker-0 (46:57.39)
Is that their real handles? I was like, what?

speaker-1 (47:02.862)
Nah, it's just what I call them. Yeah, the Wife and Kid. Just for always putting up with all the clacking. then, I mean, I have bunch of people that have supported me. know, Keelin, my sponsors, Wysocki Wheels. Matt, he was just on. Couple pods here. Matt Ripple. Sweet. Yeah, always big supporter. And then all of my actual fingerboarding clients. I don't want to out anybody specifically. So you know who you are.

speaker-0 (47:22.188)
Yeah, tips and feels.

speaker-1 (47:31.426)
I appreciate you and really anybody that's, you know, we DM on a regular basis. Like I appreciate all of you in our conversation. So.

speaker-0 (47:40.472)
Right on, that's some love right there. Well, Kyle, man, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for coming on the pod.

speaker-1 (47:45.839)
Thanks for having me.

speaker-0 (47:47.192)
Same same, till next time.

speaker-1 (47:49.442)
Yip, sir.

speaker-0 (48:13.676)
Take tight, I'm soaring like a bird Every trick or story, every slot or word Grinding on the edge, I'm breaking the mold Fingerboardin' dreams worth their weight in gold Hear the wheels as they scream In this fingerboardin' dream

speaker-0 (48:35.854)
You

speaker-0 (48:58.558)
as they