Hello again,
Happy Thursday!
This is a short email course on spring cleaning your practice - 5 emails, one every day this week.
Today we are looking at finances.
The goal: Be on top of your practice finances
The strategy: Block out time for a financial review
Check for any money owing (client payments)
Reconcile the last month (or maybe the whole financial year)
Set spending and saving goals (and maybe review your pricing too)
You could also create a ‘receipts’ folder to keep email receipts as well as paper ones. 🗂
Making time to be ‘in your books’ on a monthly basis will help you reach your income goals better than anything else.
Total your income for each month
List your outgoings for each month
Ask yourself where you can increase your earnings, and where you can decrease your spending
Then you can decide whether you have enough to pay yourself more, or to invest in a course, or to purchase new software etc.
Here are some finance tips that homeopaths who’ve taken courses with me told me they found useful:
Send invoices routinely, and itemise: consultations, postage, remedies etc. (one reason I love using Timely as my booking system is that it makes sending invoices very easy to do)
Review your client fees annually and have an ‘hourly rate’ that you multiply or divide to get your consultation fee.
Find ways to use your money to benefit your clients - e.g. a booking system makes life way easier for them! Don’t see it as a personal ‘luxury’ you can’t justify.
Monthly payments can seem low, but try to pay annually and save money.
Keep a close eye on your outgoings and try to spend no more than 30% of your income on necessary overheads, whether it be books, remedies, courses, supervision, insurance etc.
Put aside 20% for holidays/pension/tax etc. and be disciplined about it.
Aim to pay yourself 50% of your income, minimum, and more if possible.
Have 2 business bank accounts - one for income and one for expenditure (mine are in Starling, a brilliant App-based bank). Move money from the income account to the expenditure account when you need to pay bills etc. You can also easily see your income and outgoings each month.
When you have time in the next couple of weeks, have a ‘Financial Day’.
Then you can keep your finances up-to-date going forward. ✅
One last tip, work with an accountant to review your accounts and submit them to HMRC on your behalf. They will spot any oversights and are guaranteed to save you money.
Look out for my Money Wisdom webinar later in the year if you’d like to spend more time on this topic! 👛
That’s all for today.
Tracy 👩🏼💻
P.S. My new webinar, Practical Homeopathy for Women in their 40s and 50sis this Friday, and also available on replay.