Hello again,
Happy Friday!
This is a short email course on spring cleaning your practice - 5 emails, with the last one next Tuesday.
Finances 👛
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 last 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.
Try to avoid monthly payments if you can - 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.
If you are already paying tax you may want to set up a monthly Direct Debit through HMRC.
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 UK 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.
You may want to join my Money Wisdom webinar later this month if you’d like to spend more time on this topic!
That’s all for today.
Tracy 👩🏼💻
P.S. My new webinar Money Wisdom for Homeopaths is on Friday 19th May. 👛
Click on the button to find out more.