Aug 13, 2024
Discover the keys to financial success in your voiceover business with our latest episode featuring the savvy money boss herself, Danielle Famble. Learn how to categorize your business expenses to maximize tax benefits and streamline your finances. From new equipment to that signature lipstick you love, learn how to turn everyday purchases into strategic business investments. Danielle shares her expert advice on the importance of collaborating with accountants and bookkeepers to ensure every dollar spent works for you, boosting both profitability and business accountability. Our conversation also includes actionable tips for managing your finances effectively, focusing on understanding profit and loss statements. Regularly reviewing your financial statements can prevent overspending and foster business growth, and we provide the know-how to keep your budget healthy.
00:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Hey bosses, Anne Ganguza here. Are you ready to take the next step
in your voiceover career? At Anne Ganguza Productions, I specialize
in target marketed coaching and demo production that gets you
booked. If you're thinking about elevating your performance or
creating an awesome demo, check me out at annganguzacom.
00:22 - Intro (Announcement)
It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level.
These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being
utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business
like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, nne
Ganguza.
00:41 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Hey everyone, Welcome to the VO Boss podcast and the Boss Money
Talk series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I'm delighted to
bring back our resident money boss, Danielle Famble, to the
show.
00:55 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
Danielle- hey Anne.
00:56 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Yay, welcome. How are you today?
00:58 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
Hey, I'm great. How are?
00:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
you doing? I'm doing awesome. Well, danielle, I bought a new
lipstick for the show, a new lipstick the new Red Boss lipstick.
Those people that know me know that I'm all about my lipsticks and
I talk about my lipstick brand and I use my lipstick and my colors
for my branding, for my business. And I started to think, well,
okay, can I expense this lipstick? Right, can I expense this
lipstick? And so I chatted with my accountant to find out if it was
possible to do that, and you know what it is. So I am so excited
that I can now put lipstick. And we all know about these
headphones. I was like, yeah, I know I could have expensed these
headphones. It's a business expense, but guess what this lipstick
is too.
01:45
And I think it's important for bosses to understand a little bit I
think more about. We talked in our last episode about how important
education was to the bosses. It's important to educate yourself on
the basics of, let's say, bookkeeping for your business, like what
sorts of things do you spend money on and how do you categorize
them. I think that's an important aspect of bookkeeping. What are
your thoughts on that, danielle?
02:09 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
Oh yeah, that's really important. It's important to know how your
business is working and bookkeeping is sort of the daily ledger of
what money is coming in and going out for your business, knowing
even the basics of bookkeeping and the basics of bookkeeping. In
our last conversation, our last episode, we talked about the
bookkeepers or people that you might have on your team, which they
may be doing it, but you, as the VO boss, should understand even
just the basics of bookkeeping for your business. So you know, when
I spend money on this lipstick or these headphones or a new
microphone, these are expenses that can be expense for my business.
And what are the categories that you can expense things in your
business. I recently bought a ticket to go to another one of the
voiceover conferences and so I was thinking, okay, how am I
expensing this? What account am I using for it? Making sure it's in
my business account and it's going to be expense for continuing
education. So I know the different categories and what you can
expense in your business.
03:09 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
And I think it's so important because before I actually had an
accountant and I was trying to do this all on my own and I'm like,
well, all right, at least I learned that I needed to have right. We
talked how important it was to have that separate business
account.
03:20
But, then all of a sudden it was like what are my expenses, right?
I just started throwing everything in and then it would always ask
me what's the category? And I'm like, oh, I didn't think about what
are the categories that are useful in your bookkeeping for
voiceover? And I thought, wow, there's equipment, my internet
connection. How do I classify that right? Subscriptions.
03:40 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
SourceConnect. Even I pay for extra storage with Google, with my
Gmail. That kind of thing can be expensed. The people that you work
with. So we talked about the bookkeepers and the CPAs paying them
for their services.
03:55
Working with professionals, so professional fees there are so many
things.
04:00
That's what's great about running a business is that you get to
make money and then you can expense all of these different things
and then you're taxed on that.
04:10
It's completely the opposite, for as a person, you get taxed on the
money that you bring in, right, and then anything else is sort of
just like deductions but like running a business is really amazing.
That's why I love getting into the weeds about money and finances
and bookkeeping, because once you learn how to sort of not play the
game but kind of play the game, you can really make your business
work for you much more efficiently. So learning about what it is
that you're trying to do and making sure by being educated through
a CPA or just finding you know education on your own, making sure
that you can expense that appropriately for your business, sure,
legally, in a tax efficient way, you can do a lot because we we use
our bodies for our business. The chair that I'm sitting in in my
studio is like an expensive ergonomic chair that normally I would
not have ever purchased, but I'm in this chair for hours and so
back support is really important, so that was part of the furniture
of my office space.
05:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
And even medical that isn't covered by insurance, right? Medical
expenses? Because is my Peloton? Is that an expense for my
business?
05:19
And I love what you said about knowing these things right and
understanding the basics of what can be expense.
05:26
What category am I putting it in? Because when I first started, I
all of a sudden thought, oh God, there's categories. And then I
didn't really categorize them properly, or I didn't quite know what
categories to create, I mean. But in the end, when you look at your
profit and loss statement, which is something that's so very basic
to any accounting, right, I would look at the number and I'd say
expenses, and it would be one big lump sum and I'd be like, well,
what did I spend my money on? Right? And so that's where I think
the importance of being able to categorize things really comes into
play. And the fact is is that when you know about categories and
things that you can expense for your business, it opens up the door
of so many possibilities. It allowed me to confidently say, all
right, I can do this, knowing that I'll be able to expense it for
my business, and I think it helps me to actually go forth more
confidently and also be more willing to try new avenues to grow my
business.
06:21 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, the confidence that comes from the
education is second to none. And I will say, the best place to get
that level of education for your business, for the business that
you, vo Boss, are running not my business or Ann's business, but
your specific business is to go to the person who has the knowledge
about the numbers of your business it makes no sense to expense
everything and who has the knowledge about the numbers of your
business. It makes no sense to expense everything and then at the
end of the year it looks like you made no profit because, again,
the idea of running a business is to make a profit. It's not just
to break even. We want to make money. That's why we're
here.
06:58 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
And, by the way, if you report to the government that you've lost
money for over five years in a row, they're going to start getting
suspicious. And then the audit will come and, by the way, I've been
audited twice and.
07:09
I'm not ashamed of it because there's no foul play there or
anything like that. I mean, literally, it's just when you run a
business and you make money, they get a little bit interested in it
and you can't have any red flags show up. And if you're going to be
expensing everything and not showing a profit for a certain amount
of time, then it might get a little bit suspicious. So you really
need to work with someone, I think, that has an awareness of what's
in the realm of reality, so that you're not necessarily taking
advantage, even though I have my accountant. I literally purchased
Rocket Money last year because I had so many subscriptions and I
lost track of them, and that's like a big thing. Now is everything
digital, is you're buying a subscription to it? I had subscriptions
I forgot about right, and so I paid, of course, a subscription
price to use rocket money. And then the funny thing about it is
that if you do rocket money, they'll go and they'll find all your
subscriptions, and then ultimately, you can even say at the end I'm
like, oh gosh, do I really need to pay seven? I think it was $7 a
month. Do I need to pay $7 a month to Rocket Money now Because they
found all my subscriptions. They also offer to reduce the amount of
money for your subscriptions because they'll go and negotiate with
the companies to get a better rate.
08:22
A lot of times you can say you know what I mean, I just can't
afford it. I'm getting ready to cancel. And then they'll
renegotiate with you. But you can also renegotiate with Rocket
Money and say I can't afford the $7. And they'll say, well, what do
you feel is fair? And so I said, all right, I can pay $3 a month.
And so guess what? I? That's fantastic. But I've already paid them
for two years.
08:42
And all of a sudden I realized down at the bottom, I was thinking
about canceling. And then they're like, hey, why don't you pay us
what you think is fair? I said, all right, well, I can do this.
Suffice to say, it's just one of those things that it helps you to
really identify, like where your money is going. And so categories
to me seem to be such a fundamental part of basic accounting and
bookkeeping. And so what are some other like? If you look at a
profit and loss statement, like I know some people, their eyes are
maybe glazing over Profit and loss. It seems so formal. But what
sorts of things are we going to be looking at when we see a profit
and loss statement Like what's important for us to know as business
owners?
09:22 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
The main thing with a profit and loss statement is it really is
sort of the name of it Profit, how much came in? How much money did
the business make in this given period of time? Let's say it's a
quarter or a month and I've been receiving monthly profit and loss
statements. But how much money did you make during this given
period of time and how much money went out during that same given
period of time?
09:44 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Inflows, outflows.
09:45 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
Inflows and outflows, how much came in, how much went out. I think
it's really important to first think about how much came in,
because you have a lot of control over that. That could be how much
you're quoting for your clients, how many jobs that you've done,
what your bookings are like. You have control over that aspect of
it and you also have control over the loss side of it. How much is
going out? So things like your subscriptions, which for me, I will
say, when I really started like digging into my profit and loss
statement, when I looked at subscription, I was like, well, what am
I spending my money on? This is so much, it's crazy, crazy. Apple.
Google Source.
10:26 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Connect Internet connection.
10:27 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
Internet connections Internet connections, all the things.
Quickbooks, yes, quickbooks.
10:32 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
My account.
10:32 - Intro (Announcement)
All these different things.
10:34 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
I mean it's just like I probably just named $100 just in that you
know. Yeah, so it's knowing what is going out. Subscriptions for me
is huge. Also, sometimes equipment but I don't buy a lot of
equipment for my business that often Like, yeah, maybe I'll buy
another microphone or an interface or an extra cable just in case
For me.
10:57
And again, this is something that a VO boss can look at their
business and say, what do I need for my business? And then you'll
know, okay, this is the category and this is how it's going to
affect my profit and loss. But normally for me anyway, my business
with the profit and loss, with the monthly expenses, it's really
those subscriptions. And I think I love what you said about Rocket
Money, where you can take a look and see like, do I really need all
these subscriptions? And then you can kind of tune what is going
out on your profit and loss statement. Another aspect would be the
people that you pay. So if you have an assistant or a bookkeeper or
if you're working with a CPA or whatever else that's going on. And
it really is kind of going back to personal finance. It's kind of
like looking at your budget for the month how much is going out for
your budget every month in your home and then how much is coming
in. It's the same kind of thing.
11:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
So profit and loss, your profit. And then, of course, what are some
other, let's say, terms that you might see on a profit and loss
statement, and I'm thinking like expenses right, obviously or
inflows, outflows, assets I know I see that term a lot. What do you
consider to be an asset in a voiceover, in a VO business?
12:11 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
So, assets are anything that you own, that your business owns. I
consider assets to be things like my booth is an asset. I could
sell my booth for a certain amount of money, and so that's an
asset. My microphone is an asset. My interface is an asset, any
sort of like business furniture, that kind of thing those are the
assets.
12:33
A physical item, a physical item Like what the business owns. I'm a
physical item, but my voice is the business, and so I am an asset
of my business as well. I mean, you can't sell me.
12:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
You can sell your voice.
12:47 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
Yes, I license the use of my voice. I sell my voice, but really,
assets are anything that your business owns, but those are things
that may or may not show up in your monthly profit and loss. Well,
they might show up in your monthly profit and loss, but for me,
when I'm looking at it, I'm looking at expenses.
13:04 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Yeah, when I'm looking at my overview, I'm seeing assets in there.
So that was just a term that I thought oh God, assets. It just
seems so foreign. You know what I mean Because I'm not a financial
person, so to speak. I mean, but I have to be a financial person
enough to understand what I'm looking at on any given month or any
given report, a profit and loss statement Also, so I know. Another
term that I've seen on my reports is liabilities. What would be my
liability?
13:31 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
Liabilities would also be like your debt, so what you owe For me? I
put most of my expenses on my business's credit card, yes, and then
I pay that off at the end of the month, so I'm seeing sort of a
rotating liability.
13:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Yeah, I was going to say your credit card would be considered a
liability then right, because that's something that you owe
on.
13:51 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
Right, and for me that's, generally speaking, what it looks like in
this business.
13:56 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Yeah, that makes sense. And one note that I'll say about my I have
a business credit card, which is I think it's one of the best. In
addition to that separate business account, having a business
credit card makes it so, so easy. I have a business credit card and
a business debit card, and it makes it so easy to keep track
because, again, everything is like electronic these days, and so I
can feed it in as a stream into my QuickBooks, and so the only
issue I have, though, is I have a business American Express Now my
American Express.
14:28
In and of itself, that credit card categorizes things, but it
doesn't necessarily categorize it as it comes into QuickBooks, so
that's something that my bookkeeper or accountant will do to make
sure that we know, okay, what was that $100 charge or what was that
charge that just came through, that charge that just came through,
and so I think that having a if you can keep it simple we talked
about that before if you can keep it simple, having a business card
that you use just for business expenses and that can include, like,
maybe, paying stuff online or physically buying like a new mic, or
going out and buying dinner for voiceover people during a meetup,
right, that kind of thing. I will always use my business card so
that that can just go automatically into my expenses.
15:12 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
Absolutely. I do the same thing. My business credit card is through
Chase and what's interesting is that Chase will do its best to
categorize things, but it's not quite right all the time and then
bring it into QuickBooks, because I have QuickBooks automatically
linked to. Chase. It's not the same thing. So part of the basics of
bookkeeping for me is making sure that I have done the homework of
categorizing it correctly in Chase and in.
15:44 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
QuickBooks. That's a good point.
15:46 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
Really, the person who's doing the QuickBooks, more or less, has in
the past been my bookkeeper, but I'm starting to take more
responsibility for it because my bookkeeper makes assumptions and
will ask me about it. But I have the single point of truth because
I was the one who swiped it. Sometimes I'm like what was that? What
version of Danielle swiped that card?
16:07 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
for that thing I always be like what is this charge? I would say,
bosses, it's so important to do. When you do have a business card,
a business credit card or a business debit card, it's like really
visit those transactions like frequently, because there'll be a lot
of times when it'll be fresh and you'll be like I have no idea who
that vendor is Like, what is that charge for? I have no idea who
that vendor is Like, what is that charge for? And if you can
immediately just kind of make that adjustment, it's going to be so
helpful, rather than waiting until the end of the month and then
saying, oh my gosh, I have no idea who this vendor is, and then
maybe you find out you have that subscription you've paid for six
months in a row and you didn't need it. So I think it's important
to always be checking those expenses all the time and looking at
them, because sometimes and I will say this as a girl who loves to
shop and I love to shop online Amazon has ruined me.
16:51 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
I'm just saying I'll tell you Same, same.
16:54 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
I need it now. I need everything because Amazon seems to sell
everything and I need it before 24 hours. This is a side note, but
anytime I work through another vendor and it takes like five days
to ship, I'm like really what? Yeah, you don't have that two-day
shipping what is that what's going on? And then when Amazon delays
the order, I'm like what? Like I get angry, but anyways, I
digress.
17:14 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
No, but you're making a really good point and I'll speak from
personal experience, because this is something that I did not do
for the longest and I'm currently in the moment going through three
or four months ago of expenses because I didn't do it even though
yeah, my bookkeeper will, but I'm sort of like after the fact,
following up on what my bookkeeper did, because maybe it is or is
not the correct yes thing to categorize.
17:38
It's something that can be done at the end of the week and it takes
just a few moments, yeah, but if you put a little bit of time into
it more frequently, it will save you hours and googles and
headaches later.
17:53 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Calling. I agree I don't do it as much as I should either, and it's
just one of those things that when you have to go back and figure
out, oh my God, what was that expense? So I think it's important
absolutely that you are looking at your cards and your debits and
outgoing expenses and, of course, incoming as well. The other thing
that I want to talk about is the fees. Right, Because the fees are
not something that aren't automatically handled all the time by
QuickBooks. When you have a I guess you call it a feed your bank
feed right, it could be things coming in from PayPal. Well, PayPal
takes a certain amount, a percentage, for transactions. Stripe
takes a certain percentage, Everybody does. Quickbooks takes a
certain percentage. You have to account for that in your
bookkeeping and that is an important thing to categorize, because
maybe you think you're making $100, but in reality you're making
$98.53. And so that becomes an important thing.
18:43 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
It's incredibly important too, because, yes, you are not making the
$100 to your point that you think you are, but that fee is a
business expense, that fee is a cost of doing business, and so it
does need to be accounted for appropriately. Now, does that mean
that I am the person going through and marking every single
fee?
19:03
No, that is why I have eventually outsourced that to a bookkeeper,
but I do need to know the difference between how much should have
come in and these fees, because the fees are an expense and those
expenses do add up. So when you're looking at your profit and loss
it's like whoa, what is this? You should understand that some of
this is fees. Some of it is Danielle swiping the card for whatever
thing, maybe a subscription, or maybe buying something for my
business. But you should know the difference. And then that
actually gives you the opportunity to decide and plan and budget
for your business. Oh yeah, so if I can see what's going on with my
expenses, maybe I've been spending a little bit too much on
subscriptions. If I can cut that back, then I can use that
additional money to take a class or to do a coaching or whatever.
It gives you the knowledge and it arms you with like what you need
to be financially responsible for running your business.
20:00 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
And also it helps you to determine as well what to charge. Yeah,
because sometimes I take fees into account. I do believe that fees
are part of being a business. So I'm not that one person who says,
can you pay me friends and family? Because if it's a business, I
mean I'm willing to pay that. I mean, if I can get away with it,
sure, not paying that fee, but in reality I'm a business.
20:24
So I've come to accept that there will be a fee and so if I want to
make it accountable, right, I'm going to have to pay that fee. So I
might. Then, instead of charging $100 for the job, I might charge
$125. And then I've accounted for that fee in my head, but I
haven't told anybody that I'm accounting. Necessarily, the company
doesn't need to know that I'm charging $25 more because I want to
account for that fee, or whatever I decide to do. I mean, that's
one thing is being aware of those expenses as you are getting paid
will help you to determine your fair compensation. And of course,
we always like to say that you are worth it. Yes, you are, so price
yourself appropriately.
21:03 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
And I think being aware it means really looking at like the data of
your business. That's how you become aware. Really looking at like
the data of your business, that's how you become aware.
21:13
If you allow someone else to deal with it, then you're not really
aware of what's going on with your business and you're missing out
on some opportunities for maybe charging more or maybe how you can
save money because you're spending a certain amount more than you
should or more than you've budgeted. Staying on top of the basics
of the bookkeeping really kind of keeps you aware of what's going
on in your business. Again, I'll say I've not done a great job at
this in the past and I'm learning from my negligence in the past is
really that like. If I can keep my mind and my eyes on the
day-to-day expenses and profit in my business, that actually makes
me feel so much more confident and competent when I am requesting
or making a quote for a certain amount of money. However, I'm
running my business.
21:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
It's giving me so much more confidence because I know the
day-to-day data of my business financially speaking, yeah it is
absolutely important and, as I was alluding to before, being an
online girl, like an online shopper, when I went off on that
tangent of Amazon, sometimes it's like a little bit of an
addiction. It's like here, click, buy, and it's so easy. And again,
it's so easy to not look right, it's so easy to not look at your
credit card expenses, or so easy to like kind of avoid it. And I'm
that person. I'm willing to admit it. I mean, I've been in denial.
I might have had a month or two where I was like way overspent, I
shouldn't have purchased that.
22:36
But I think keeping your eyes on your finances it's kind of like
you know, I've been on this health journey, right, and before I
wouldn't look at the scale, I would not look, I did not weigh
myself for a long, long time and now, all of a sudden, when you're
watching right, it makes you become more conscious and it keeps you
more on top of things.
22:51
So I do believe it's very important for you to really check those
finances, check the bookkeeping, and it'll really, like you said,
make you feel so much more confident and so much more competent
right in running that business, because you will have a handle on.
Okay, I know that I'm not really utilizing this subscription
software anymore, so I can maybe give that up and then maybe invest
in something else. So it really clears the path for you to grow.
And I think that is one thing that is so important in our
businesses that we should always be looking for opportunities to
grow and financial anything should not be inhibiting us from doing
that. If you can find ways to save, find ways to be aware of your
finances and understand, oh, I can save something here, so that
means I can invest more here, that's just going to give you a whole
lot more confidence moving forward.
23:41 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
Yeah, I love that. And also, if you're not sure and you have
questions, the best place to ask those questions or the best person
to ask those questions is to the person who knows your business
intimately and also what the implications are. So that would be an
accountant or that would be some sort of professional. It's not
going to the Facebook groups and saying, hey, can I expense? Blah,
blah, blah, because what I can expense in my business may be
different than what you can expense in your business and my revenue
and ability to expense certain things in my business can maybe
withstand me spending a certain amount of money on a certain
category.
24:16
So my answer might be not the right answer for your business. So I
think it's really important to educate yourself. Find the perfect
person to educate you, and it's someone who knows your business.
And if you don't work with an accountant already, find someone,
have them look at the numbers of your business. And if you don't
work with an accountant already, find someone, have them look at
the numbers of your business and then they can tell you
specifically the answer to your specific unique business.
24:39 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
And they can help you set up those categories which we say are so
important, right and then? So I would say absolutely kind of, to
recap right, your essentials of bookkeeping are to really keep an
eye on a daily, weekly basis on inflows and outflows, understand
your categories and if you don't know how to categorize something,
you can certainly talk to your bookkeeper or someone knowledgeable
that can help you with that. And is it an expense, yes or no? You
can find out more that way and ask someone that this is what they
do for a living I mean, I'm a big proponent of that and educate
yourself on the basics of looking at a profit and loss statement,
because I think that's going to be so important in helping you to
really organize and make plans and strategize your goals for the
future.
25:24 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
Absolutely.
25:26 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Oh, another wonderful Money Talks with Danielle today. Thanks so
much for joining me again. I'm looking forward to our next podcast,
Thanks and me too.
25:36 - Danielle Famble (Co-host)
Yeah, I love it. I love talking money.
25:38 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Yes, and a big shout out to IPDTL you too can connect and network
like bosses. Find out more at IPDTLcom. Bosses, have an amazing
week and make sure to check those books. We'll see you next
week.
25:52 - Intro (Announcement)
Bye, guys, bye join us next week for another edition of vo boss,
with your host and ganguza, and take your business to the next
level. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive
exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and
new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution with
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