Episode 44: The #1 Habit Creative Entrepreneurs Need

In this refreshingly honest and relatable episode, Jennifer Kok sits down with Courtney Boudet, a seasoned bookkeeper and founder of E Number Cruncher, to talk about what really keeps small business owners from staying on top of their books. From bank balance accounting to the embarrassment of being behind, Courtney shares mindset shifts and practical tools for creating better financial habits that support sustainable business growth.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why so many creative and service-based entrepreneurs avoid their numbers (and how to change that)
• The difference between bank balance accounting and real financial clarity
• The impact of co-mingling business and personal expenses—and how to avoid it
• When to DIY your bookkeeping, and when it’s time to outsource 
• What a good bookkeeper actually should be doing (and what questions to ask before hiring one)
• How to build simple, weekly bookkeeping habits that feel manageable—even if you’re "not a numbers person"

Bookkeeping isn't just about compliance—it's a window into your business's health and a tool for making smarter decisions. 

Meet Our Guest

Courtney, Boudet, Quickbooks Nerd, music lover, and third generation small business owner.

I specialize in helping small business owners DIY their bookkeeping with Quickbooks Online until they can hire a bookkeeper. Making things simple and efficient is the name of the game. 

• Website: enumbercruncher.com
• Instagram & Facebook: @enumbercruncher

Meet your Host: 

Jennifer Kok has been a small business owner for over 25 years and is now a business coach for women-owned Small Business Owners who are ready to grow sustainably, without sacrificing their families or their sanity.

She built her first business while raising young children, eventually turning it into a franchise and selling it successfully two decades later. Jennifer knows firsthand the challenges (and rewards) of building a business and a family at the same time—and today, she uses that experience to help other creative, service-based entrepreneurs do the same.

If you’re ready to move beyond the overwhelm and grow a business that pays you and gives you your life back, check out her free webinar:
3 Sneaky Profit Killers In Your Business
👉 https://nextwavebusinesscoaching.com/webinar

In the webinar, she introduces her Earn More Stress Less Growth System—a practical, proven framework designed to help mom-led business owners increase revenue, improve profits, and finally pay themselves more… without the hustle.

✨ Join 100s of creative entrepreneurs who are building smarter, more sustainable businesses—and getting paid (finally).
 It’s your time. Let’s go.

https://nextwavebusinesscoaching.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nextwavewithjen

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nextwavewithjen/

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferowenskok

YouTube: http://bit.ly/2M9uX6S

You’ve Built a Business You’re Proud Of -But It’s Time for It to Work for You. You’re still wearing all the hats, working long hours, and not paying yourself what you deserve. You know there’s more possible. More profit, more clarity, and more freedom to enjoy the life you’re building.  The Earn More Stress Less 9-Pillar Blueprint helps women entrepreneurs with families create profitable businesses that finally pay them back. 

Transcript

Jennifer Kok (00:01.144)
Hi Courtney, welcome. It's going great. I'm so excited to have you on because one of my passions is helping business owners understand their numbers. So for those that are not familiar with you, please tell us about your business.

Courtney Boudet (00:03.015)
Hey, how's it going?

Courtney Boudet (00:15.931)
Yeah, so my name is Courtney Boudet and I have an accounting bookkeeping firm called Enumber Cruncher and I help small business owners do their own bookkeeping with a done with you service or I do outsource bookkeeping for small business owners who just like, I don't want to deal with it. So it's, it is most, I will say that there is a lot of business owners who, who just feel like they can't afford a bookkeeper as well. so that's

Jennifer Kok (00:32.76)
which don't you find her most?

Courtney Boudet (00:45.753)
I think that's one of the main hindrances. But also there are some small business owners who really want to have control over their finances. So they want to be sure that they understand what's happening. So there is a set of business owners who just want control of their finances too.

Jennifer Kok (01:01.88)
That's awesome. So let's dive into the world of bookkeeping. Cause you know, I work with a lot of creatives and numbers are not their thing. They want to just produce their service or product, take care of their customer. They love that aspect of it. And you and I both know how important it is to know your numbers. So first of all, what do you see when people come to you? Like what, you know, what prompted them to want to hire a bookkeeper?

Courtney Boudet (01:16.487)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney Boudet (01:20.967)
Right.

Courtney Boudet (01:28.711)
Sure, so the people that I attract are normally the people who are behind in their bookkeeping. they had the idea that they would do their own bookkeeping and what actually happens is, you know, day one maybe they're good at it, maybe the first week they're rocking and rolling, right? But then something happens, like, you know, a client project gets sideways or something like that. And so then...

it gets on the back burner and just that small amount of bookkeeping getting on the back burner is really challenging because then it becomes, oh my gosh, I have so much to catch up on. And then from that point, it starts to get just on the eternal back burner because it just starts to feel overwhelming. And then there's a sense of shame about it. The fact that they're like actually not taking care of it knowing that they do. And then they're doing.

bank balance accounting. So it's like if they have money in the bank account, they're spending it if they don't, you know. So that's the kind of small business owners who are coming to me. So I help them get their books cleaned up. so sometimes, I mean, the past couple of months, I've had people who are like three to four years behind. Yeah. And so I'm trying to catch people up in that manner. that's the people who are coming to me.

Jennifer Kok (02:40.209)
wow.

Courtney Boudet (02:49.125)
But I do find that a lot of small business owners when they are doing their own bookkeeping get into a pickle from at any given time. And it's not that they're a bad small business owner. It's not that you're doing bad in your business. So that's the thing that I feel like I wanna say is like, it shouldn't be a shameful situation. It's just so common. And in fact, you didn't go to school to...

you know, do bookkeeping, you did not go to school to get an accounting degree or I mean, some people come to me and they're like, look, I went to business school and some people are like, I went to finance, you know, but they're still behind because they're in working in the business for their clients. So it's just to understand that this is very common as a small business owner who's juggling all the plates, who's trying to make everything run and also provide a really valuable, you know, product to your

Clients like you you need to understand that that's there's a lot that comes into bookkeeping. There's a lot that goes into it

Jennifer Kok (03:50.968)
And I think you're right about there's no shame in coming with three to four years behind. And it is one of those areas of our business that we can say to ourselves, I'm going to look at it tomorrow. OK, at the end of the month, I'm going to look at it. And like you said, things happen. We are busy taking care of clients. We are busy taking care of our staff. We're busy producing. And so in our minds, we feel like it's one of those tasks that can get pushed back.

Courtney Boudet (03:56.187)
Right.

Courtney Boudet (04:07.015)
print.

Yeah.

Courtney Boudet (04:18.609)
Right.

Jennifer Kok (04:19.126)
I so resonate with when you said bank balance accounting. When I first started my first business, which was a cookie and cupcake business, I fell into that trap where I would look at my bank account and go, whew, whew, there's money in there today. And wow, okay, we're going to do this. And I will tell you, the worst moment of owning my business all 20 years was when I got a phone call from my manager and she shared with me that our

Courtney Boudet (04:30.823)
Thank

Courtney Boudet (04:35.151)
Yeah.

Right.

Jennifer Kok (04:48.696)
payroll, the employee checks were bouncing. And I was on my way out of town on vacation. It was just, of course, never happens. Yeah, never happens at the right moment. Not that you ever want that to happen. But I was in that trap of bank balance accounting. I wasn't looking at cash flow. I wasn't looking ahead at things that had to come out and go and all of that. So when it comes to bookkeeping, I feel like there's this idea that you're just going to be our

Courtney Boudet (04:50.725)
yeah.

Of course, it always happens.

Jennifer Kok (05:16.032)
Number Cruncher, mean that's the name of your business, E-Number Cruncher. And you're gonna reconcile us every month, but is there more to it than that? Do you help your clients understand what's going on?

Courtney Boudet (05:18.215)
Okay.

Courtney Boudet (05:27.811)
I do, but that doesn't mean every bookkeeper does. So it's really important that when you are, say that you're like, nope, I'm done, I want a bookkeeper. It's really important that you talk to two or three bookkeepers because there are some bookkeepers who are like, they don't really want to talk. They just want to do the books. They want to do the compliance piece, reconcile, give you your reports and be done with it. But there are others who are like me. I'm a third generation business owner. So I grew up,

In my grandpa's print shop, my mom owned a business right next door. It was pre-press express. So like I, my summers were collating and doing big projects that like maybe the machine busted. So like it needed manual collation, like that kind of stuff. And working, you know, in my mom's businesses, she owned, she was ahead of her time. It was pretty awesome. She owned a, it was called Dog On. I don't know if it's still in existence cause she sold it, but it was where you could travel with your dog. So we went to Paris on a doggy walking tour.

all expenses paid covered with the business. like, that's just the kind of stuff that I was raised in. And I remember like bits and pieces of conversation. Obviously when you're a kid, you don't understand at all. But then as you start to get older and you're in your own businesses, you're like, my gosh, like I remember that time. And then you can also like talk to, you know, your grandparents and your parents throughout any kind of issue that you're having. And there's that kind of understanding. Whereas if, you know,

your family member is like a W-2 employee for a company, they just don't understand that way. So when I go into a business that I'm working with, I'm looking at it holistically. I'm like, yes, I use QuickBooks online. Yes, this is what I'm going to do. But can you tell me about your business? Like, I want to understand and I want to make it streamlined so that you can see the numbers the way that you need to see them. So if you need to track costs.

then I'm going to set up your set of books so that you can track that. Like it really depends on how I create the system for you in QuickBooks for what you need. Now, like I said, that's not every bookkeeper. So you really need to talk to them and get a good feel. And if somebody makes you like uncomfortable in the main, what I mean by that is like, if they kind of come to you and there's like, you feel judged.

Courtney Boudet (07:49.603)
or you feel like, and this goes with CPAs, EAs, anybody in the financial industry, really, is if you get a sense that you're bothering them, we don't want to get into that position because for me, I understand that this is a very sensitive issue. I understand that there's a lot of shame. I understand that there's a lot of fear to ask questions because I'm a small business owner myself and there are questions where I feel ashamed, I feel scared.

to ask others, but I still have to do them because I know how important it is. So when I come into this situation, I am very open and honest and aware of what's happening in the business also, because my husband owns an electrical company, we own it together. I've been in that business for 20 years as well. like, I have a lot of experience of working in that. Also, you know, being a controller in an IT company,

So I have a lot of different experiences when it comes to payroll and operations and all of those kinds of things that like maybe if you get just a bookkeeper who is kind of starting out like in their first three years, you're not gonna get that level of expertise because I've been through it. I've been through installment agreements with the IRS. I've been through like so many different types of situations that like.

As a business owner, when you're given a situation, you have to figure it out. There's no other way around it. So I've been in a lot of those positions over the years. So that's kind of where if I see somebody doing something, I'm like, hold on, I've been through that before. This is what you need to do X, Y, and Z. Or hey, I know that this is something that a colleague of mine in the past has gone through. Let me connect you kind of thing. that's what you really want to look for is you want to look for somebody who's like a figure it out or as well as a bookkeeper.

Jennifer Kok (09:42.636)
You know, that is so refreshing because you're right. I like how you said you look at it holistically and I think you're probably the only bookkeeper I know that has ever said that. And I really appreciate that because a lot of business owners, you know, when we talk about bookkeeping and CPAs, they're looking backwards. And I'm a big fan of how do we look forward? How do we, you know, be proactive? And you're helping business owners do that. I think that is so cool. So we talked about a lot about

Courtney Boudet (09:52.935)
out.

Courtney Boudet (10:07.981)
And also, sorry to interrupt really quick, but talking about that, that is a totally different skill set is budgeting and forecasting is different and extra. So that's something that you need to understand is that if you just want somebody to plug in your numbers and run your reports, that's a different type of bookkeeper than somebody who is, you know, being strategic and helping you to do those budgeting and forecasting. So just know that because

it's, you know, it's different.

Jennifer Kok (10:39.384)
You're right. And I think you're right. A lot of people think it's all you get all for one, which is really good to know. why do you think, you we talked about practically what happens when business owners avoid doing their numbers and they get behind because they just time-wise. But I feel like a lot of it is mindset. You know, like you said, it can be very intimidating. It can be embarrassing.

You know, we're supposed to know everything and, I don't understand that term you're using. I don't know what this report is telling me. I don't even understand why I need to look at that report. You know, those are all mindset issues. And, you know, when it comes to money, it can be so tricky. You know, we all grow up with different beliefs about money, the way we were raised or just our experiences or maybe something happened to us. So do you feel like...

the work that you do, when you're preparing these reports for people, it's helping them make decisions, right? And where do you feel the mindset comes into what you do?

Courtney Boudet (11:45.637)
Yeah, so it's interesting that you say that because there are times where I will run reports and never hear back from people. So it's like certain business owners just, don't even know if they're looking at them. So something that I'm kind of implementing this year is doing a video review of all of the reports so that at least they hear my voice and if they will take five minutes just to watch the video instead of looking at a report. Because there is that timidity of saying, hey, like, I don't know how to read a report, you know.

most of my clients I've been with for a really long time. So like I have the, can talk plainly with them. like, Hey, have you looked at your reports? Cause like, I, you know, like I want, I want feedback. Like I want, I want to be making something so that they can actually use it. Like, because the technology that's kind of coming is getting better and better. And you know, there are some, a software out there who was like, set it and forget it.

Jennifer Kok (12:23.532)
Yeah, like, hello.

Courtney Boudet (12:43.713)
I still don't think that any of the softwares are set it and forget it yet. But with AI, it's getting easier to use for sure. But with different businesses that are more complicated and that need a lot of integrations, those integrations, you need to make sure that they are accurate because that was one of the mistakes that I see is people setting up integrators to QuickBooks, like a ton of them, and then they're wrong.

So then you either have duplicate income, which is terrible, or duplicate expenses, which is terrible. So it's like you just need to make sure that like as it's happening and you're understanding what you're doing, because a lot of people brush off bookkeeping like, it's not that big a deal. I can take care of it myself. I'll save the money. But a good bookkeeper will actually save you money because when we're looking through, like, you know, even if like I'm not a controller or a CF level,

CFO level for a client, there are some times where I'm like, hey, you need to look at this. You know what I mean? It's like, you know, because I'm looking, I'm seeing it, and I just don't know if they are. So it's just a good bookkeeper is worth their weight in gold.

Jennifer Kok (13:46.082)
Right.

Jennifer Kok (13:56.192)
Absolutely. And I mean, even little things like I've caught double transactions at the parking garage. You know, they double charged my credit card where if you weren't looking at all those transactions, you wouldn't catch that stuff. So a lot of what you do is done with you and also the DIY. So let's talk about good habits for small business owners. You know, what is like, give us a few, like how often, what type of cadence, what are good habits and how do we start to instill these and

Courtney Boudet (14:06.288)
Exactly.

Jennifer Kok (14:25.43)
stay on top of them so we don't get three to four years behind.

Courtney Boudet (14:29.201)
Sure. So the first thing is going ahead and making sure that you have a business checking account because you would be surprised at how many people are doing side hustles, still have a W-2 job, but want to start their business and they're using their personal account. So as soon as you believe that you are starting a business, you're taking money from somebody, providing a service or whatever, you're going to open up that business checking account. And I know that seems simple, but the next thing that I'm going to talk about is

mixing business and personal and that is so chaotic and that is the number one thing that throws people into that procrastination cycle is mixing business and personal because it starts to get so confusing. So if you have your business checking account that is the first thing that you're going to set up. You're going to keep it to where you're only spending your business expenses on your business. Your personal expenses are personal. Depending on how your entity is set up you're either going to distribute that money or pay yourself through payroll.

S Corp or something like that, so that when you need money, you're going to take it out of the business in a chunk and then use it for your personal in that way.

Jennifer Kok (15:36.888)
You know what, that's so smart. And I actually had a client, her CPA said, it's okay to have just a personal checking account. And I thought, what? No, because you're right, it gets so muddy and it's hard to see what's going on. And I even say, don't forget about things like PayPal. You know, I got caught up in that where I purchased something through PayPal and it actually was my personal PayPal and I didn't realize, you know, it was just like, don't forget about those type of areas that you might purchase through.

Courtney Boudet (15:53.915)
Yes. Yes.

Courtney Boudet (16:00.327)
Right.

100 % and Venmo. my gosh Venmo. And you know Venmo, the connection with QuickBooks is the worst. It shuts down all the time. It's not great. PayPal connection is, you know, has been a lot better. But yeah, you're right. Like that's those are the easy things to get sucked into. But it's so important. And I don't mind if you have like a business credit card and you pay all your expenses because I know that there are some rules of thought of like don't use your business debit card or your personal debit card so that if you get fraud.

Jennifer Kok (16:06.562)
Yes.

Courtney Boudet (16:32.997)
you know, then you can't fix it. So I'm totally fine with using a business credit card, you know, and having a business checking, business credit card, pay all your expenses on that, pay, you know, just do that. But here's the thing with co-mingling, which is the mixing of the two, when you're, especially when you're going back three years, I have had situations to where the checking account is closed and you still need to get those transactions in. And so you have a couple of different options.

You know get a PDF to excel thing import it, but a lot of those like make mistakes. It's just it's messy, right? Manually entering all of them. That's not a really good You know option, but sometimes you got to do what you got to do because it is what it is, right? So that's where the the mixing and the co-mingling can get really tedious is Then you're like, my gosh, I have to find this this, know personal expense the other thing

that I've noticed is you just forget so you forget your personal expenses like when when so you're looking at your business you're coding everything in QuickBooks and then you're like I paid about $10,000 to this vendor it was on your bit your personal account if you didn't remember that you had done that then it would have been a missed expense in your business you know what I mean so that's where

Jennifer Kok (17:53.468)
yeah.

Courtney Boudet (17:55.847)
I try to talk about memory accounting is never a good way to do it. So it's like bank balance accounting, memory accounting, like none of those are good ways to do it because there's a tool whether you use zero, QuickBooks, whatever that connects to your bank account and then you can see everything that's happening. So when you're co-mingling and something's not connected to your accounting software, that's where you can miss a ton of business, real business expenses.

Jennifer Kok (18:19.598)
Wow, OK, good stuff. So we've got all our business accounts. How often do you recommend we're connecting to our bank? Because you're right, most of our accounting software automatically connects to our bank. Is it based on number of transactions, or do you feel like let's just get in the habit of doing it weekly? What would you recommend to somebody who's kind of not in a real good cadence right now?

Courtney Boudet (18:30.907)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney Boudet (18:38.503)
Yeah, this is a really good question and the hard part about it is it depends on the transaction level, like you said, and it depends on the person. if you have, like all of us have different brains, all of us have different energy levels. So what I like to say is, especially if you're behind on your bookkeeping, because I'm gonna assume that at least one person is behind on their bookkeeping.

So what I like to do is I like to say, all right, the next tax deadline that you have, so if you file an extension is, you start, you need to start cleaning up like by August at minimum. you know, so it's say July. So then what you would do is you would say, I have this many months to do this catch up. And then you start Xing out on your calendar, all of the days that are just not an option. Weekends, if you don't work on the weekends, if you work for clients every Tuesday and Thursday, you X those out.

So then you're left with the days that you have open for other business tasks. From that point, you're going to batch little, little tiny bookkeeping, you know, appointments on your calendar. And you're going to see, do I have enough time to even do this cleanup project? Because if you literally have two days, you know, I can do a cleanup in two days. I don't think maybe somebody who doesn't know how what they're doing can do that. You know what I mean?

So that's what I first recommend is going to your calendar, looking at your realistically, do you even have time to do this bookkeeping project? Even if that's your regular bookkeeping, because you'd be surprised at how little time people devote or give the option to have their bookkeeping on their calendar when there's there's literally no time. And the one thing I will tell you is if you're trying to do bookkeeping at the end of the day, you're exhausted, you have to feed your kids, and then you're gonna go after everybody's...

teeth are brushed, everybody's put to bed, then you're gonna start doing your bookkeeping and your brain is wiped out, you're never gonna get through your bookkeeping. I have to put myself to bed sometimes because there's a time, a cutoff time, where I will be doing a reconcile and I'm like, nope, nope, close it. And I will close a QuickBooks file down if I can see that my brain is spinning too hard and then the next day I'll knock it out. So it's really important.

Courtney Boudet (20:54.213)
that you have the mental capacity to do what you're doing. So if you're an early riser and you need to do it before the kids, maybe it's waking up at five o'clock in the morning and one day out of the week, instead of going to the gym or something like that, you do your bookkeeping. The other piece that I wanted to tell you is that sometimes people do the research part of bookkeeping and the actual bookkeeping together. And I ask for you to have planned frustration.

on your calendar. What do I mean by that? Yes. do I mean by that? Okay. So I mean there is a transaction that you have no idea what it is. You know, you got to call the bank and maybe you don't even know how to deal with it in QuickBooks. So you then you have to hop on chat support with QuickBooks or phone call with QuickBooks. And you know, that's going to take at least 30 minutes to an hour. That's planned frustration. That is not bookkeeping time.

Jennifer Kok (21:25.614)
Plan frustration. I love it.

Courtney Boudet (21:49.977)
So you need to have that time before you get to your bookkeeping time, because the bookkeeping time is literally just going in saying, okay, this is what I need to do. You're going to go to your bank feed. You're going to get your receipts in. You're going to match them. You're going to code and you're done. Like that is bookkeeping. Getting your invoices in, marking that you received a payment from a client so that it goes to the right invoice. That's bookkeeping. The planned frustration time is, my gosh, I don't know how this reconcile isn't working. I need to hop on on support with QuickBooks.

I need to research what this is for. no, I don't. Like you said, there's two transactions. Why did I get charged twice? I need to call the vendor. That is different. And so that's where you have to have a different timeframe and that you have to be in a good mood. You have to be ready for that frustration because you know it's going to come and you're not going to do that at six o'clock on a Friday afternoon.

Jennifer Kok (22:43.35)
No, absolutely not. So, you know, it's funny. It's almost like we need to have like a new rebrand of bookkeeping. For some reason, it's got such a negative connotation for our, for businesses. They just avoid it like the plague. And it's so important. You know, money is the driver of your business. And so, you know, you've talked about these good habits and you know, one thing I always say is once a month,

Courtney Boudet (22:52.486)
Hahaha

Jennifer Kok (23:11.456)
Get all your transactions in there. You know, set 30 minutes to review the numbers because this is telling the story of your business.

Courtney Boudet (23:19.461)
Yeah, and so kind of going back to the number, because I kind of got stuck in the schedule, but it's so important because the number one reason why people procrastinate on their bookkeeping is for that research, is the research. They can do, so when I have a thing to research, especially for a client, or if I have to wait on a client to answer me, I have in my QuickBooks an expense called client to advise. Most of us do, there's different ways that we name it.

but I will code it to get it out of my face so that then I also have a tool where I can ask them the question so I do that. But like, so that I then have another place to go look at it. But the reason why people procrastinate, they could be doing all of the things around that one thing, but because that one thing is glaring them in the face, like you need to take care of this, I don't know what to do with this, they'll completely abandon the rest of the bookkeeping, all of the coding around it, you know, all that kind of stuff. So I really like to recommend having that.

research time and the actual bookkeeping time. If you have a high volume of transactions, you have to be doing it weekly. You just have to. So if you are doing a square, you know, where you're getting a ton of transactions and you're using an app that brings it all in weekly, you've got to be doing it weekly because otherwise you'll get behind and it'll just get so expensive for you to even clean up because somebody like me will come in and yes, we can do it quickly, but even

even as fast as we can go with like tools and you know AI and all that kind of stuff, it still takes a long time with a ton of transaction volume. If you just like to get into the rhythm of doing weekly, I would say try to do that because it could take you as small as like five to ten minutes every single week if you have a small dose of transactions. Like if you only have a couple transactions every week, it could take you minutes.

So that's where, know, and it becomes, I don't know if you can cuss, I, whatever, I kid you not, that's a way to work around it. People enjoy bookkeeping. So I say to some of my clients who I can kind of tell, like I can see their vibe and everything, I was like, you're gonna like this after like a couple months. And then they come back to me, they're like, Courtney, you're so right. Like it's actually enjoyable. And it's just like, look, it's a routine.

Courtney Boudet (25:38.289)
QuickBooks and bookkeeping, it's just doing the same things over and over and over. It's a routine, but it's kind of like meditative after a certain point. Like when you're in a rhythm and you know what you're doing, you know, every now and again, something pops up, but it doesn't like, you know, throw you off the rails. It's just like, kind of like breathing in, breathing out. It's like a routine of finances. I don't know how to, I don't know.

Jennifer Kok (26:03.032)
Well, because it makes you feel like you're in control of your numbers and the numbers aren't in control of you. And it's a great tool to make decisions. so yes, when you are, I love this idea of let's not make it this big monstrous thing. Spend 15 minutes a week. You know, that feels good. You can check it off your list. And there's something about it builds confidence in you when you feel confident in your numbers. So for those, like when would you say is a good time?

Courtney Boudet (26:17.563)
Right. Yes.

Courtney Boudet (26:27.493)
Yeah, and I would say...

Jennifer Kok (26:30.944)
in someone's business to just outsource bookkeeping.

Courtney Boudet (26:33.691)
I was just gonna say that, so we're on the same page. So if you're getting to the point to where you're spending like an over an hour a week, you know, or like starting to get to the one to two hours a week because your transaction volume or it's just getting so complicated, you're getting to that point of like, hey, you know, you need to kind of do something else with your time because that's about eight to 10 hours a month. And for that, you know, you can be doing other things.

But I will tell you that there are some people who should never do their own bookkeeping. So I'm going to have that caveat. And I don't know how to explain it other than the fact that if you're not techie, if you hate computers, if you're like, you know, I just, the people who come to me here, like, look, I just don't like dealing with software and all that kind of stuff. I just, don't like computers very much.

I'm gonna just gently suggest that you try to make more money. Like, even if it's like selling, like doing... You're better at the strategy part of that, but you know what I'm talking about. It's like, sell one more hour of your time to cover the cost of the bookkeeping or something like that. Like, there's a way that you can, you know, figure out what the differential is of actually paying a bookkeeper to then free you up of those 10 hours of time.

or more. You know, I know some people who are spending like four to five hours a week on bookkeeping and some of it, yes, is you're trying to figure out the software and all of that kind of stuff. But the thing that is really important to understand is that bookkeeping is never free. So I think that people have this idea in their mind that like, I'm going to do it myself. So it's free. No, it is not free. It's just taking your time and then you can't bill somebody else for your time as a business owner.

The other thing that I like to have a really like cauch say cautiously is please please please do not have a friend or a family member do your bookkeeping if they don't know how to do it better than you. So that is something that I see a lot and a lot of cleanups come up come to me from a business owner who's like I'm too busy you know you can do this whether it's a friend family member whatever and I'm not saying it's nefarious you know these people are doing it bad on purpose I'm just saying

Courtney Boudet (28:57.105)
that if you're delegating to somebody, they're gonna do the best that they can, because they love you, they wanna support you, they want your business to do well too. But it also kind of puts a pressure on them, you know? And because finances are so important in your business, it's not really fair to put your family member in that position, because it's make or break sometimes. And if there's ever a thing in your mind that like they messed up.

Jennifer Kok (29:16.494)
Mm.

Yeah.

Courtney Boudet (29:23.705)
so my business failed, you don't ever want to be in that position. So that's just really important because I don't think people think those things through. The other thing too to really consider when you're giving a friend or family member access is they are seeing everything that you're making. You know what I mean? And so a lot of times people just look at the gross and they don't necessarily look at the net of like what you're actually making. So they could be looking in there and being like, you're making a lot of money. Why aren't you paying me? You know what I mean? And that's really important too, to just kind of have those

Jennifer Kok (29:48.258)
Right.

Courtney Boudet (29:53.113)
safeguards around, you know, relationships. It's just those kind of things. But I do see it a lot. And so that's why I'm mentioning it is like

Jennifer Kok (29:59.79)
Wow, that's good stuff and something I never really thought about. So thank you so much. think, you know, what's important key takeaway from all of this is bookkeeping is not an expense. It's an investment in your business. And your time as an entrepreneur is your biggest asset. And we need clean books. We need to be looking at them to make decisions. And either if you're going to do it yourself, you know, take Courtney's tips.

and create habits around them or look at outsourcing it, one of the first things to outsource. And I love how you kind of gave us some parameters around that. If you're spending an hour or plus, what else could you be doing with that hour that would increase your revenue tremendously? So thank you Courtney so much. Where can listeners get in touch with you if they need some guidance here?

Courtney Boudet (30:46.715)
Yeah, so you can go ahead and reach out to me on my website, enumbercruncher.com, or you can find me at Enumber Cruncher on socials, Facebook, all of that kind of stuff. So that's where I am.

Jennifer Kok (31:00.795)
and I'll put those links in the show notes. So thanks again for helping us feel better about our books and giving us some hope and a lot of education today. I really appreciate it.

Courtney Boudet (31:06.887)
You're welcome. It was great to be here.