Scenario: I’ve owned my business for nearly a decade and its become a mess. I use Quickbooks desktop and online…so needless to say my books are a mess. My bank accounts are commingled. I don’t know what I’m spending. My tax return is always tricky. I’m over the confusion but don’t know where to start with cleaning this up. It’s all I’ve known.

What I’d do:

These are my favorite situations! Here is a step by step on organizing your finances:

1. connect your bank accounts to YNAB so you can start seeing what is personal vs business spending

2. create a cash budget in YNAB based on where you think you spend your money

3. allocate the cash you have based on your immediate needs

4. prepare your net worth (get your template here)

5. combine your quickbooks versions to online

After you observe what is business vs. personal in YNAB, you’ll be able to open a personal account and transfer money out of the business for your personal needs.

I hope this helps!

When you talk about wanting to retire or become wealthy, you are talking about your net worth.

This is essentially accumulating enough assets to be able to live off of your assets (or convert them to passive income).

I actually find shifting from an income maximization approach to a net worth maximization approach helps clients see that your financial situation is much more important than how much you make.

Remember - if you make $1M and spend $1M, you’re broke.

Yea…this is net worth in action.

An automated tool like Empower could do this for you, or you can use my old fashioned excel template.

PS. I prefer excel cuz I don’t have to worry about connections working and I have a way to save/see growth over time.

What do you call a fish wearing a bowtie?

Sofishsticated.