With tax season upon us I invited Shannon Weinstein from Fitnancial to discuss some effective tax strategies that you can implement in your business. After losing a bet to her father, Shannon pursued accounting as a career because as her father predicted she had a natural affinity for numbers and thoroughly enjoyed navigating the tax codes. Now, Shannon is the host of the Keep What You Earn Podcast, where she helps entrepreneurs at any income bracket navigate the financial side of entrepreneurship.
In this episode, Shannon details some simple strategies that can help secure your children’s future retirement, utilize tax code 529 and leverage the Augusta rule. As your company grows so should your relationship with your accountant. Transactional relationships with your accountant during tax season only deprive you the full benefits of a tax professional who could otherwise couch you on how to maximize your tax deductions all year round. Not all advice applies to all businesses so having a professional like Shannon, ensures you are following and leveraging every tax code that applies to your business.
To learn more about Shannon, click on the links below:
Business Financial Quickstarter
Key Takeaways:
[3:30] Accounting is a rare language that you can lucratively teach anyone to speak
[5:40] Accounting is a career of service that takes long hours and dedication
[8:55] Meeting with your accounted year round verses a transactional relationship in tax season
[11:20] Tax strategy is not cheating the game, it is being aware and mindful of tax law
[13:05] The Augusta rule allows you to rent your home for your business at the market rate
[15:50] With a home office, a percentage of your home can be reimbursed as a business cost
[17:20] Depending on your state you can hire your kids and pay them up to $13,850 a year
[19:00] You can only pay your kids comparable to the actual services that they can provide
[20:10] You can make your kids millionaires by funneling their income into a Roth IRA
[24:00] Understanding the ordinary and necessary deductions within your business
[26:00] Layering your financial support with a bookkeeper, Quickbooks and a tax preparer
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Disclaimer:
The Legalpreneur Podcast is advertising/marketing material. It is not legal advice. Please consult with your attorney on these topics. Copyright Legalpreneur Inc 2022
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Legalprenuer transcript:
Andrea Sager 00:03
Welcome to the Legalprenuer podcast. I’m your host Andrea Sager founder and CEO of Legalprenuer Inc. As a serial entrepreneur and someone that works exclusively with small business owners legally protecting their business. I’m dedicated to covering common legal issues faced by business owners, providing you with the business knowledge you need to catapult your business’s growth and showing you just how some of the world’s most elite entrepreneurs have handled these legal and business issues themselves. In true attorney fashion, the information in this episode is not legal advice. This is for informational purposes only. And you should always consult with your attorney before implementing any of the information in the show. Hello, there. Welcome back. I am so excited. Number one, it’s tax season. I know most people are not excited about tax season. But I’m excited. I know my guest today is excited because she is going to be chatting all things, taxes and financials. So Shannon Weinstein, thank you so much for joining me today.
Shannon Weinstein 01:06
Thank you so much for having me on. You know, I love tax season, unlike most of the population, but it’s an exciting time a year.
Andrea Sager 01:14
Yeah. And you know what I mentioned it so we have the Legalprenuer book that is officially out now. And for those of you have read it if you haven’t, if you haven’t read it, you need to go get it read it. But what I mentioned in the book is that I actually do love tax season, because I just it’s a game like it’s just a game of like how who can bend the rules the most or who can get around the most without getting into trouble. And I love tax season. So Shannon, before we get into all the good, nitty gritty about what we can and cannot do as a business owner. Tell us your story. How did you get to where you are today? Which by the way you all she is currently in Costa Rica. She lives in Costa Rica like half the time Yeah, so she has a she has my love talk
Shannon Weinstein 02:04
season because like it’s been Costa Rica for it. So my my story starts with the fact that I lost a bet with my dad and became an accountant. As most accountant origin stories do. Most accountant origin stories are based on someone telling them they should do this or I feel like nobody wants to be an accountant. It’s a really kind of funny thing. But you also studied accounting, right? So it’s this it’s this thing where like, you just somebody influences you. Yeah, it’s it’s funny to somebody who influenced
Andrea Sager 02:32
- I really quickly I don’t know who influenced me, but I just I really just think it has to do with numbers and money. Yeah, that influenced me.
Shannon Weinstein 02:43
Yeah, for me. Well, my dad, basically ever since I was in kindergarten, he was like, you want to be an accountant? You grew up? And I’m like, no, because I don’t know what that was. And I wanted to just say no to whoever, whatever my dad wanted, because I was like, No, whatever you want must be boring. And he’s like, I’m a CPA, and I would go into his office. And I’m like, this is this sucks. I get paper cuts. I don’t like this. So basically, there was this class in my high school, which was, I mean, now such a blessing right? Class in my high school that was accounting. And he was like, Shannon, you have to take one of these for your requirements. We think you should take accounting, like take this for one semester. If you hate it, I will never ask you again. If you want to become an accountant, I’ll never ask you again. And I was like, Ooh, high stakes. I like this. So I’m, uh, I’m very competitive, and very much like a gambler with him. So I loved winning bets with him. So I was like, Okay, you’re on but what’s what and he’s like, but if you love it, you have to major in it. And I was like, easy. I’m not gonna love this, I’m gonna hate it. This is gonna suck. Two weeks later, I was bumped into honors accounting with the seniors had 102 average. And I was like, this is easy. And my dad pulled me aside and he’s like, Listen, if you understand this stuff, you are 16 years, 17 years old. If you understand this stuff, this is and by the way, I wanted to be a Spanish teacher. Fun fact. And I was minoring or I minored in Spanish. I’ve been studying it since I was in seventh grade. And what I didn’t realize was, I really wanted to be a teacher. That’s all I really want. I want to be a teacher, but I didn’t want to make crap money. So I was like, Well, is there a way I can teach and still make money. And my dad was like, This is how you can do that. Like ever since I was 17 I swear, like half my life ago, it was it was so important that he really got that message through to me that you can use this as the language that you speak because this is a very rare language you speak Shan so that’s how it really all started.
Andrea Sager 04:23
And okay, so tell everybody your background in accounting like what’s your journey been like there?
Shannon Weinstein 04:29
So graduated with a degree in accounting passed my CPA, I worked in the Big Four firm for six or seven years. million stories in that in that alone Wow, that’s
Andrea Sager 04:40
a long time to last and big four. I I’m telling you, I Shannon, I was like dead set on working at a big four. I was like, I’m going to work at a big four. I’m going to partner like that’s gonna be my life. I’m going to be married to my job. Yeah.
Shannon Weinstein 04:54
And I was but then we had a falling out. No, so what ended up happening Was it actually took my father’s passing in 2013 for me to realize what was going on. So it turns out I had a couple of five days bereavement leave. And I was traveling at the time I went from auditing to consulting. And I was in consulting, I was traveling eight months, a year, four to five days a week. And it was miserable. Because even though I was traveling, and platinum status, and all the fun stuff, like I wanted to go home, especially after my dad passed, I was like, I don’t want to be alone in a hotel room working all day, I really want to go home. And they said, well, there’s nothing for you to do in Boston, because your all your jobs are in Atlanta, Winston Salem, New York, wherever I was going, and they said, we can’t let you stay home. And then I have five days bereavement leave, and on my bereavement leave my senior manager called me in the middle of the middle of the night, really, it was like 9pm. With a stupid question. I was like, Okay, we’re done here. We’re absolutely done here. Because when you work in accounting, you’re dedicated. They’re really all these people have a real heart of service a lot of your accounting professionals do. And then when you when the light flip switches on that, like, Oh, my God, I’m pouring so much into this career into this job. And I’m not getting this back. And I’m sure you felt the same way that resonates with you with big law, because it’s the same type of thing. It’s like I’m pouring in for this career. And I’m like, for what, because that was a really like eye opening moment. So I left I worked a few other corporate jobs. You know, long story short, I ended up starting my own practice in 2019, and quit my job just over a year ago, completely. And I’m now in full time. So I’m really excited about having a fractional CFO practice now,
Andrea Sager 06:33
I love it and tell me I’m just really curious, when you transition from auditing to consulting, what were you consulting on?
Shannon Weinstein 06:43
Yeah, that’s a great question. So like systems implementation. So actually, my my secret specialty, even though I have those three letters, then in my name, which everyone thinks, oh, great, you can do taxes. My actual specialty is in process improvement and system implementation. So we look at where processes might be, you know, could be optimized, like, could be more efficient. You know, we looked at their financial systems with their accounting systems. And then I also did research in accounting policy for audit teams. So I did a lot of technical accounting, too. So it was really fun, actually, to problem solve all day, every day, and every day was different every day brought a whole new challenge. And the rate at which you learn in those environments is just, you can’t replace that. So I wouldn’t trade a single day I spent at that firm for anything. No, I love that.
Andrea Sager 07:27
And so explain who you work with today, and how you help them.
Shannon Weinstein 07:33
So mostly in my CFO practice, my CFO service, I work with entrepreneurs, usually over the $750,000 revenue level. And what we do is we make sure you can turn your data into decisions. So what we’re trying to focus on is strategy, not just on the tax front, we do that as well. But we also do financial strategy, like are you growing scaling? What’s your compensation structure look like? When should you be hiring? And who should that be? What is your return on adspend? How much should you be spending on advertising, etc, etc? All these questions that come up for business owners, we help them answer with the data with the actual raw facts, so that they don’t have to play this guessing game or this gamble as much when they have somebody who’s like, Hey, this is what I think you should do. And it’s kind of that seat at the table, you know, in your board of directors from the financial side.
Andrea Sager 08:20
I love that. And how are you finding your clients today? Because that will really quickly before because I know you and your story because you’ve transitioned since you’ve started your business, you didn’t start serving these clients. So I think or start with this outsourced CFO, right, yeah, start with that. Yeah. So can you explain how you kind of transitioned, I just I like the transition and how you, basically, I want everybody to see what you’re doing right now may not be what you’re always doing. And that’s okay. Oh, yeah.
Shannon Weinstein 08:54
So this is the this is the 2022 2023 version. The 2019 version was cheap Bookkeeping and Tax Prep, which I like lovingly referred to now as the whole phase. When I was doing anything for money, I was like, yeah, like, can you do my taxes? Yeah. Can you do this? Yeah, I was, I was all about the yeses. And I think we all have to be in our first year because it’s the yeses that teach you when the nose should have happened. And then you learn, you exercise the no muscle. So there was a lot of yessing happening. And then I realized, like, oh, I don’t have a really close knit connection with my clients, because they only want to see me once a year. Like they don’t. They’re not interested in seeing me more than once a year even though that is the better thing to do. And I know you preach that to like you should be meeting with their accountant year round, but nobody even took my invitations. Like I would invite them to meet you around and they didn’t want to so I was like, huh, I think we have a transactional relationship, meaning I think they pay me to do taxes, I do taxes and I didn’t want that I wanted more of the actual real relationship with the business owner. I wanted to make sure we were on the same page that I felt like an advisor, a trusted person, someone they had in there. corner that they could call. And then I also realized I can’t do that for 100 people. So I had to, I actually let go this year of 80 clients, and that was 80% of my clients. And I said, I’m sorry, I’m no longer offering tax prep services. I love you all very dearly. But I need to evolve my business and what it offers in order to have the type of business that I want. And I’ll tell you, doing that gracefully, was everything because no client left, like, pissed off or mad at me. I made sure they had good homes, I found other tax pros that were like me, and I recommended them, I wanted to make sure they were all taken care of. So I think that if you want to have that evolution, you can absolutely do that. But you just have to be really mindful about well, what does that mean for them? And how can I make that an easier transition? So I leave with a really good impression, because you never know if those people are going to become your next client in that next level. So,
Andrea Sager 10:51
yes, okay, I love I love this story. I love your transition your whole story, because that’s basically like what we’ve done with the law firm to Legalprenuers. So a lot of similarities. Yeah. So for those that are listening, they’re like, Okay, I really just want to hear the good tax advice. What does Shannon have for me?
Shannon Weinstein 11:09
Well, first of all, check out keep what you earn. Because I do that every day. Yes, five days a week we’re on the on the podcast about like 15 minute episodes, bite sized pieces, just like what Andrea does, but like with the money side, and but tax strategy is my is my jam, it’s so much fun to save entrepreneurs money in taxes, and to kind of break that stigma that like tax strategy is cheating the game, when it’s actually just playing by the rules and being mindful of the rules.
Andrea Sager 11:34
I think, for most entrepreneurs, and a lot of those listening, they know, hey, I ideally should be an LLC taxed as an S corp. Now beyond that, what are like some tidbits, some nuggets that a lot of people probably don’t know about?
Shannon Weinstein 11:50
Yeah. So we’ll start off with one thing, and that’s Corp isn’t a one size fits all. So there are things you have to keep in mind, for an S corp. Like you have to have good bookkeeping, you have to be up to date on your taxes, like there are requirements to get the selection. So that’s another thing that I think a lot of the tiktoks that have 30 seconds to explain this don’t really unpack the fine print. And that’s where we come in, and we go actually, this may not be a good idea for you just yet, because the the savings won’t outweigh the cost for you to comply. And that’s a really tricky thing. So I think one overarching theme is like, don’t take advice at face value, know that there’s a custom way of delivering it for you. And then it’s not good for everybody. It’s just kind of like diet advice, like, you know, or allergies and things like that you don’t take into account. So just keep that in mind. But the biggest things I love is like, especially once you have the S election, that’s where we have a lot of fun, because now we can do things like we have the Augusta rule, we have the accountable plan, we have like hiring your kids. And if not all that sounded like Chinese, I’ll explain. So the Augusta rule is where you can actually rent out your home to your business for up to 14 days a year. And the kicker is at market rate of rent. So like not just what you know, not for the same cost as your mortgage interest or anything like that are the actual costs. It’s going to be based on what you think it’s worth, if you can prove anyway in the market. So like Andrea, you live in Houston, right and your Houston. If the Astros are winning the World Series or playing in the World Series, guess what, that’s probably a great weekend for you to rent out your house to your business. Because I bet the rate of rent is pretty high to stay in Houston. Yeah. So you can be strategic about the time of year, you can be strategic about you know, the location of the property and how you use it. And it’s a lot of fun, because it can be a huge tax savings, while also not just tax free cash flow from the business to the owner. So there’s really no income claimed by the owner, but it’s a business expense. So it’s a great mix of strategy.
Andrea Sager 13:44
I love and I’ve used the Augusta rule and write all this year. I’m not I don’t have my own home. I live with my parents now. But I am I got I’m just like rambling now. But I was I just started looking at houses again. I’m like, oh, yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m ready to make the leap again. But we’ll see. But I love the Augusta rule because and is it just your house? Or is it also what other is it just the house for the
Shannon Weinstein 14:13
it’s your principal residence you own and I believe also a vacation home. So for example, I rented I did a few days for this house in Costa Rica for a mastermind event because what I did was I had it playing on the TV, the big TV in the living room and I said okay, we’re gonna like have a safe space here quiet like and be able to focus. And I was able to rent out my living room, basically to my business for a few days to attend trainings and things. So it doesn’t always have to be something like crazy, like throw some big party like you can have a board meeting in your house. And yes, even if it’s you, as the owner, you can have a board meeting in your house. The key though to any strategy is documentation. I can’t emphasize that enough that you have to have good solid documentation. You can’t just take it out of thin air and go Well I did Augusta like you have to have a rental agreement, you have to take meeting notes. If you had a meeting like, you have to be able to prove that what you said happened actually happened.
Andrea Sager 15:06
Now, what else besides the Augusta rule, because you said all the fun happens once you’re an S corp, what else you got
Shannon Weinstein 15:13
accountable plan was my second one. That is where you can actually reimburse yourself. So if you have a home office, which is any really a space that is principal place of business, used exclusively for business, those are kind of the criteria, right? So if it’s exclusively used for business, so right now I’m in a guest bedroom, and my exclusively used for business space is really the corner I’m sitting in with this desk, it’s not going to be the bunk bed next to me or the closet behind me, it’s not gonna include those things. So whatever is only used for business, you can take that as a percentage of your home. And then all those expenses. It’s so cool all the expenses to own or maintain your home, or rent a proportion of those based on that, you know, business square feet divided by total square feet, based on that you can reimburse to yourself the cost of the business to occupy your home. So that’s actually your mortgage interest or rent. That’s your like security, landscaping, cleaning, utilities, Wi Fi, I mean, anything repairs, maintenance, you want to get your windows all done, guess what business can pay for a portion of that. So it’s a really cool way to take advantage of a good strategy there when you’re not actually spending any extra money. But you can realize some tax savings from that.
Andrea Sager 16:26
Yeah, no, that’s that’s what I remember being really good savings, the accountable.
Shannon Weinstein 16:31
And then hiring your kids if you have kids. So are your are your kids Legalprenuer legal for nurple employees?
Andrea Sager 16:39
So they haven’t been because basically, going from the transition, and then this past year was just not a good revenue year, or 2022? wasn’t a good revenue year. But for 2023. Yeah.
Shannon Weinstein 16:51
So what you can do is you can hire your kids, and you have to pay attention to state laws on this one. But what you can do is pay them up to I believe, Oh, gosh, we just started 2023. And I haven’t memorized all my numbers yet, but I think it’s 13 850. Oh, when I went up inflation. Yeah. Don’t quote like guys don’t quote me on the SD of 13, eight or 13. Nine, I want to say it’s 13 850. You can Google it. standard deduction, 2023, you’ll find it chat. GPT will tell you. Yeah, no. So you’ll be able to deduct up to about 1314 grand up to that amount. And you can pay them that if they make no other source of money. So if they’re working at McDonald’s part time, and they’re teenagers, you got to be careful, because it’s up to that amount of money for the whole year they can earn. So it’s not just from you. So you have to make sure that they’re not earning any other income. But up to that amount is the standard deduction, which is already your, I call your headstart on your taxes. So that’s the first chunk of income that’s not income, so you won’t be taxed on it. And the beauty of that this is my favorite strategy for many reasons, one of which is you get to teach your kids about money, they get to become actual employees. The second thing is that you can actually set aside so when you pay that, like 13 grand, let’s say, and by the way, the 13 Grand is based on like, is it really worth 13 grand, whatever they did, like if they were, if they brought you juice boxes every other day, you paid 13 grand, they only get paid what their will what they’re worth in terms of the work, they can do
Andrea Sager 18:17
minor models, minor models, there you go. That’s because they’re too young, they’re too young to do anything else. Like they’re three and five, and about to be four and six. I cannot believe my kids are about to be four and six. But yeah, they are models and honestly, so I actually am very intentional about incorporating them into like Tiktok videos, or putting them on Instagram that way, if it is ever audited, like no look like, they actually are models, they are creators in this business. And this is like, here’s the proof. Like, there’s literally proof
Shannon Weinstein 18:55
right there. Exactly. But you pay them according to whatever kid model would get paid. So you have to make sure that it’s in line with what’s normal and unexpected. If you’re paying them 13 grand for one photo shoot, I’m like, okay, like, that could get scrutinized, right? It has to make sense. So so there’s that piece of it. And then the cool thing is you can take that money. And my favorite part of this is you can take that money and you can put it towards their retirement. So the kicker is like, if you put it into like a Roth IRA, for example, it’s not taxed on the way in because there’s no taxable income. But it’s also not taxed on the way out and it grows tax free. So they can actually become millionaires by the time they graduate college. You know, and you could be setting that aside just based on the work they did when they were kids. And that’s that’s huge. That’s like, you know, Next Level wealth building. I love that.
Andrea Sager 19:42
So this is not exactly an accounting question, but more of an investment question just to hear your perspective. So I just started the I did start the kids last year and UTMA account which is for those listening. It’s a basically a brokerage investment account for minors. And because I don’t want to I don’t want a 529 plan. Well, I saw that they just changed. They’re going to around the 529. Yeah. So for those listening, the 529 is a savings account for your kids to for that to be used for college, it’s a tax advantaged account. But if you don’t use it for college, you’re penalized. And that’s why I didn’t want to open them a 529 account, because I do not, I’m not going to force my kids to go to college, if they want to go, they can. But they literally just announced that they’re going to change it like within the past couple of weeks. But anyways, my question is, would you advise, like once the CIO once I am actually paying them as employees? do you advise that to go into? Like, is the Roth the best option? As far as like tax savings tax advantages? It
Shannon Weinstein 20:56
depends? It truly depends, because it would be I mean, if you’ll get the facts, right, the Roth means you’re taxed on the Roth means you’re taxed on the way in and traditionals, you’re taxed on the way out, generally. So if you look at it, Roth, you kind of think, well, it would probably make more sense for me to tax it on the way in when they’re kids because they don’t have any other income. They’re in the lowest income bracket. They’re making no money. So my bet would be $1, tax now is better than $1 tax when they’re 65. Right? Probably, I can’t give investment advice. I can’t that’s out of scope of practice. For me. I’m not a financial adviser, or Disclaimer, disclaimer, etc. Right? But like just looking at the facts, I’m like, theoretically, yeah, the Roth kind of makes sense versus a traditional would mean, it’s tax deductible now, but you’ll have to be taking it out, you know, and having taxes taken out of it later. But what you can do is what’s called a Roth conversion at a later date. So nothing is really off the table, you can kind of just my whole thing is saving is better than not saving. So do whatever is comfortable for you and talk to your financial adviser on which one makes the most sense. But you know, you can’t really go wrong with either option, because you can always do a conversion or you can open a second account.
Andrea Sager 22:05
What else do you have any other good tidbits that listeners should be aware of?
Shannon Weinstein 22:10
Those are my like, those are some of my best weapons in the arsenal. The other ones I would say is mostly just mastering what is your what are deductible to you as a business owner, because I think that’s what a lot of people miss out on, they miss out on a lot of expense deductions, because they’re not sure what they can actually deduct, and what is deductible, you know, and what is deductible to one person may not be deductible to another. So like, I worked, I used to work with a lot of fitness professionals, for example. And I used to joke because during COVID, I was like damn fitness professionals, y’all get to deduct your kettlebells that you have in your home gym, I can’t. Like, you can deduct that. Why? Because it makes sense for somebody to if they’re a fitness professional, and they teach fitness to buy fitness equipment for their business. Whereas a CPA, I’m always like, why do you need a kettlebell to do taxes? So it’s a little bit weird and doesn’t make sense. So the the criteria are ordinary and necessary, and that wouldn’t fit like an ordinary test. So basically, you have to, you have to look at, well, is this something that other people in my industry would invest in? Or is it something that will further or benefit my business? If so, it’s probably deductible, and a lot of people miss out on things like trainings, coaches, courses, masterminds, hell, the Legalprenuer membership, you know, my services, everything like they’re all deductions, legal accounting. Yeah. All that is deductible. Yeah. And by deductible, we don’t mean you get a rebate. We’re not talking like the shits Creek scene, like you don’t get it, the IRS doesn’t pay for your furniture doesn’t pay for your stuff, like doesn’t pay for your vehicle, that’s my favorite, like, you can deduct these things, but you still have to pay the bills for them. Like you’re gonna, if you’re gonna spend $100 to save 20, it doesn’t make sense if you are not already going to spend that $100. So it’s not really a savings. It’s kind of like in Black Friday, it’s going well, I wasn’t gonna buy this anyway. But it’s 20% off. And I’m like, so you’re gonna pay 80% instead of zero. So you have to make sure it’s something you really want and benefits you before you commit to buying something just because it’s deductible. Because people get caught up in the tax saving side of it. And they go Yeah, but you’re still paying for the thing. And you’re still gonna have a game when you sell it and it doesn’t really end the business insurance on vehicles is insane. So I’m like, let’s just, you know, think about that before we jumped the gun and go buy a G Wagen.
Andrea Sager 24:21
Oh, my gosh. Okay, so for those listening that aren’t quite to the point where they need an outsourced CFO, they’re not quite to that 750,000 a year. What can they do?
Shannon Weinstein 24:31
Well, my recommendation is like layering. So the first like level one financial support you need is a bookkeeper, period, point blank period. And I’m not talking about DIY, I’m not talking about your spreadsheet. I’m talking about like get a QuickBooks account and get a bookkeeper who identifies as a bookkeeper. Like I say that because there’s a lot of people out there identifying like saying, I can do everything and oh, I can also do your books too. And I’m like, Cool. Would you go see a doctor who’s going to do surgery on you? It was like, Yeah, I dabble in heart surgery. And it’s like, no, I want the person who has heart surgeon written on there. Like, I want that person, because it is that serious because the bookkeeper actually has the most financial control in your business, because they set the direction of how everything is categorized, and how it looks to an outside eye. So if you’re applying for a loan, or if you’re doing your taxes, or you’re doing strategies, like the bookkeeping is the base for all of that, so you want to make sure that that’s all really tight. So you want to find a really good bookkeeper, and then somebody who can do your taxes very simply can prepare the taxes. But then once you’re profitable, like I would say, more than 40 $50,000 profitable, you really want to have somebody who can look at the strategy of your taxes and say, hmm, I want to be more of a tax advisor to you. And that’s when I would recommend kind of upgrading into a specialist, somebody who’s considers themselves a tax strategist or tax advisor. And then from there, go into the CFO world, once you feel like you are trying to scale and grow and multiply your income, not just save more money in taxes. I love that I
Andrea Sager 25:58
love the layering of that, because it’s never. And that’s exactly what I tell people. For the legal side. It’s like, look, there’s all these things that eventually need to get done. But start small and then layer build on top of that you
Shannon Weinstein 26:08
don’t need it all on day one. But you want to position yourself to build that up and to layer it so that you’re not skipping a step, because then it all falls over.
Andrea Sager 26:17
And I know that you have a course. Can you tell us about that? Yeah. So
Shannon Weinstein 26:21
if you’re just starting out, and you’re like, shoot, I don’t need the CFO stuff yet. But this sounds cool. I want to make sure I’m setting up my business correctly. I follow Andrea, she tells me I need an LLC. But like, what do I do after that, that’s where you plug in my course, which is called the Business Financial QuickStarter lovingly referred to as bFQ. I like saying it that way. And we take you through. So the cool part about this is it’s not like a typical course it’s maximum, I think 90 minutes of me talking maximum. And it’s like seven modules. But you go through and it’s step by step like your first few months in business, the order of stuff you should do. So when you go it’s like okay, first, you know, what type of legal structure do you want? What type of tax structure do you want? Those aren’t the same thing? Whoa. Number one, yeah, then it goes into get your EIN set up your bank account set up a payment system, you know, let’s look at your bookkeeping, and then let’s talk about your taxes. So it’s kind of like just it’s that layering again, of let’s just break it down into steps. 12345 Because I realized that business owners who are just starting out, they’re overwhelmed has held trying to figure out like, Okay, I have this laundry list of things that like Andrea and Shannon have told me to do, but like, what do I Where do I start? What do I do first? And this helps answer that.
Andrea Sager 27:35
Well, Shannon, this has been incredible. I know everybody listening is like, oh my gosh, like this was the most helpful episode ever. If you have never listened to Shannon’s episodes, her podcast go listen, is keep what you earn. And definitely check out her course. I know it has so many amazing things in the course. And it’s exactly what you need to make sure that not only are you legally properly set up, but all your financials are an order which can quickly become a shit show. If you’re not.
Shannon Weinstein 28:06
Yeah, that’s very true. It costs more to clean it out for sure.
Andrea Sager 28:10
Oh my gosh, yes. Same thing with the legal stuff. Like it just costs more to clean it up. So Shannon, tell everybody where else they can find you if they just want to follow along on social What’s your website? Yeah,
Shannon Weinstein 28:19
so you can find me honestly the best place to find me as the podcast because I’m there every single day. It’s keep what you earn. We’re on Apple, Spotify, Google and now Amazon music. And now my company is called Fit nancial solutions you can find me at financial solutions.com and my Instagram handle is at Shannon Kay Weinstein trying to make accounting fun and just so less unsexy than it seems to be.
Andrea Sager 28:43
I love it. Shannon, thank you so much. Thank you. Here at Legalprenuer, we’re committed to providing a supportive legal community. For all business owners. I know how scary the legal stuff can be. If you found this information helpful, I would be so grateful if you could share it with a fellow business owner. And quite frankly, it doesn’t cost anything to rate review or subscribe to the show. Your support helps me reach more listeners which allows me to support more business owners in their entrepreneurial journey. Have any questions or comments about the show? Feel free to drop me a line on Instagram. I promise I read all of the messages and comments. And if you want to be a guest on the show or know someone that would make a great guest simply fill out our application form and a team member will reach out if we think it’s a good fit. I’ll see you in the next episode.
