Guest Post: Stevie Jones
Today, we’re very pleased to introduce to you a member of our team you don’t often encounter on our social media, but who is constantly saving our lives behind the scenes.
She’s Stevie Jones, Virtual CFO to Sela Vie.
Not only that, she’s also a bestselling author as well as a business coach serving female entrepreneurs via educational content and practical guidance regarding management of business finances. Formerly a corporate accounting specialist at a billion-dollar internationally and publicly traded company, she’s now helped literally hundreds of women meaningfully increase revenue, cut expenses, and take home more cash. Her dream? Financial literacy and actionable confidence for female business owners everywhere.
As our Virtual CFO, Stevie oversees all of Sela Vie’s business finances. She handles everything from routine bookkeeping to cash flow forecasting and communication with our tax expert. Additionally, we meet with her monthly to review our financial statements (profit and loss statement, balance sheet) and itemized budget to make sure Sela Vie is staying healthy on track toward pursuit of our goals. How we know Stevie is a fantastic Virtual CFO–her green light makes us feel confident and secure when taking the calculated risks necessary to bring our new ideas to life.
We asked her a few questions based on topics that most regularly come up for us; perhaps some of her wisdom will help you out as well!
Which tools are best for tracking and managing my business finances?
“For bookkeeping, Quickbooks is the best system out there. Most businesses are perfectly fine using the Simple Start Plan, which bills only $25 per month. However, Gusto is my preferred system for running payroll. They offer great customer service, and they handle all payroll tax filings–huge win. And then for cash flow forecasting, out of all the fancy software systems available, you honestly can’t beat Google Sheets.”
How do you forecast cash flow, and why is doing so important?
“Cash flow forecasting is important because poor cash management is the number one reason new businesses fail. AKA, making consequential decisions based only on the amount of cash you presently have in the bank can quickly lead to overspending or, conversely, hold you back from taking necessary steps toward growth. You must also consider how much of that cash is truly ‘spendable’, given that some should be ear-marked to cover tax liability, credit card debt, upcoming expenses in a month of low revenue, etc.
“The easiest way to forecast your cash flow is to, first, itemize your monthly expenses (super easy if you’re using a great bookkeeping system like Quickbooks), and then use a Google Sheet to create a column representing each month. You’ll drop in your monthly expenses (don’t forget your owner’s pay), as well as anticipated revenue, current cash balance, and tax savings. “It should look something like this:
September:
Beginning Cash: $10,000
Expected Revenue: $10,000
Extended Expenses: ($3,000)
Expected Profit: $7,000 (revenue less expenses)
Owner’s Pay: ($5,000)
Tax Savings: ($1,750)
Total Estimated Spendable Cash on 9/30: $10,250 (beginning cash plus profit less owner’s pay and tax savings)”
When can I afford to pay myself from my business, and how do I know how much?
“This question can only be answered by generating a cash flow forecasting sheet (like demonstrated above), and then by dropping in your desired owner’s pay to see how it impacts your cash balance over the coming months. Whatever you decide for owner’s pay should still leave you with enough to cover expenses, taxes, and to have a safety net left over.”
